With the aim of showing the international press the capabilities of the Basque wind power sector throughout the entire value chain, on Friday, 20 April a group of reporters working with Borsen (Denmark), Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Agence France Presse, Nikkei and Polska Agencja Prasowa, amongst others, visited WINDBOX, the first Wind Power Advanced Manufacturing Centre of the Basque Country, located in the facilities of IK4-Tekniker in Eibar.

The visit to WINDBOX started off with an introduction and welcome by Alex Bengoa, General Manager of IK4-Tekniker, R&D centre where most of its infrastructures are situated. Then, Begoña Molinete, Project Manager for the Basque Energy Cluster, gave a presentation on WINDBOX, whose aim is to improve the international technological and competitive positioning of the Basque subsystem and component supplier chain in the wind power sector, focusing especially on the offshore market.

She also talked about the four test benches in which critical wind turbine elements will be tested and validated, like the cylinders and hydraulic power units for the pitch system, the generator slip ring, the blade bearings with joints and the yaw system.

In addition, she highlighted the work of Basque companies who launched the WINDBOX initiative, supported by the Basque Energy Cluster: Antec, Erreka, Glual, Grupo Wec, Hine, LauLagun eta Siemens Gamesa. In this context, Molinete pointed out that WINDBOX started in 2014 as part of the Basque Advanced Manufacturing Strategy, that it is promoted and supported by the Department for Economic Development and Infrastructure of the Basque Government, SPRI and the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, and that the logistics are provided by IK4-Tekniker.

The visit to WINDBOX was part of a press trip to important industrial wind power facilities in the Basque Country, so the next stop was a guided tour of BiMEP (Biscay Marine Energy Platform) in Armintza, Bizkaia. Afterwards, they visited the new facilities of Haizea Wind, an industrial group based in Bilbao that manufactures wind turbine towers and offshore foundations.