Amid renewables push, India’s largest facility to test windmill gearboxes unveiled

German firm Flender inaugurated a facility with equipment to test gearboxes that go into 13.5Megawatt-class windmills (wind turbines) at their factory near the Southern Indian city of Chennai, in Tamil Nadu. 13.5Megawatt-class windmills are among the largest types of windmills in terms of power generation capacity.

Flender was recently recognized by the Tamil Nadu government for investing and generating employment opportunities in the state. Tamil Nadu has been an early adopter of wind energy technology in India and continues to be among the leading states in wind energy generation in the country.

This is a significant upgrade from the earlier testing facility that could accommodate only gearboxes that went into 6Megawatt-class windmills, the firm said. Gearboxes are a crucial component that convert the low rotational speed of the windmill blades to a high rotational speed, which is necessary for the generator to generate electricity. A windmill gearbox test rig is a facility that simulates the mechanical loads that a gearbox would experience when installed in an actual windmill.

The Indian Government is working towards generating 500 Gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030, in which wind energy will play a major part by contributing 100 Gigawatts. India presently has an installed wind energy capacity of over 54Gigawatt, and projects for another 30Gigawatt are in progress. In recent times, India has been adding between 3 and 4 Gigawatts of wind energy generation capacity annually. In Financial year 2024-25, wind energy generated 3.35 billion units of electricity, which is about 5 per cent of India’s total generation.

As per Indian Government data, the country reached its highest-ever power generation from renewable energy sources on 29th July 2025. That day, renewables met 51.5 % of the country’s total electricity demand of 203 GW: 44.50 GW of Solar power; 29.89GW of Wind power; 30.29GW of hydroelectric power, official data says. The government says, for the first time, more than half of India’s power came from green sources in a single day.

Referring to the newly unveiled 13.5Megawatt test rig at their Tamil Nadu facility, Flender said that it is the largest in India. “Our team of experts commenced this milestone project in January 2025 at the Voerde site in Germany and successfully accomplished the schedule within 13 months of development and construction. Converters, motors, centre blocks, and motor slides were successfully manufactured in China, while transformers, colling systems, and steel and shell construction were supplied from India,” the company said, highlighting their operations across India, Europe, and China.

In recent years, we have scaled up our annual output capacity from 800Megawatt to 16Gigawatt, and these components we make in India cater to the local market and exports markets such as the US, Europe, Australia, said Andreas Evertz, Group CEO, Flender GmbH, Germany. He added that his firm, which makes gearboxes, couplings and generators for windmills, has invested over €100mn for capacity expansion in India, in the recent past, and continues to scale up capacity.