Mingyang Smart Energy agrees plan to build offshore wind turbines in Italy

The aim of the MoU is to create a company in Italy that will manufacture components for Mingyang Smart Energy’s wind turbines for the Med Wind project off the coast of Trapani in the Mediterranean, and in the longer term, for other wind energy projects in Europe.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by Renexia and Mingyang Smart Energy on 8 August 2024, in the presence of Italian Industry Minister Adolfo Urso, shortly after a July 2024 visit to China by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, during which she signed a number of trade agreements, including one on green energy. 

Minister Urso said the agreement “allows us to develop the production of turbines in Italy and a national supply chain that will be extremely competitive.” He said the agreement “fully responds to the intentions that our two ministries and our governments intend to carry forward for the development of partnerships in green technology.” In a separate announcement, the Ministry of Industry said around US$546M will be invested in the manufacturing facility, the site for which will be selected shortly. Around 1,100 people could be employed there.

Renexia said the MoU “also aims to support, over time, the entry of other Italian entities into the new company – and international ones – capable of making this sector grow in our country,” to position the new company “as a reference player in the offshore and onshore wind supply chains in the Mediterranean and North Africa.”

Renexia said the new company would “create a national industrial supply chain to contribute to the development of the floating offshore wind sector,” and “overcome bottlenecks that currently characterise the supply chain in Europe and the US.”

Renexia general manager Riccardo Toto said, “The partnership signed today will allow us to create a value chain in the floating wind sector. In this way, we will contribute to the objectives of the National Integrated Plan for Energy and Climate and support the Mattei Plan.”

Mingyang Smart Energy and Renexia have already collaborated on the Beleolico windfarm offshore Taranto, the first offshore windfarm in the Mediterranean.