The end of the quarter is approaching, and this often involves a number of order announcements from wind turbine manufacturer Vestas.

So far, the quarter’s order intake has not reached a level that ”anyone is falling off their chair over”, but a number of contracts from the US send a very positive signal, according to Jacob Pedersen, head of equity research at Sydbank.

So far, Vestas has announced 1499 megawatts in unconditional contracts in the quarter, of which the US accounts for 1004 megawatts.

In addition, Vestas has announced a conditional agreement of over 1 gigawatt in the US.

”What really stands out so far this quarter is the number of US orders. The order intake that Vestas has had so far in the US is on the verge of being the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2019,” Pedersen told MarketWire.

In the third quarter of 2021, Vestas had an order intake of 1050 MW in the US - and prior to that, you have to go back to the fourth quarter of 2019 to find a quarter that has been as good in the US.

”To me, this is very, very important evidence that something is now starting to happen in the US, where customers have lacked a practical clarification from the tax authorities on how to access the very attractive settlement terms, where the tax rebate has been raised from 40% to 100% again,” says Pedersen.

He has high expectations that the trend of more US orders will continue.

”Also because right now there are limits to how aggressive Siemens Gamesa is in the onshore wind turbine market - and then there are GE and Vestas, who can make it big in the US in a gigantic market. So there should be some really exciting things waiting for Vestas there,” says Pedersen.

But while US orders have looked good in the quarter, it has been somewhat more sporadic elsewhere - including in Europe. However, there are still a few days to go before the end of the quarter. But the analyst is reluctant to predict where the quarter’s order intake will land.

”But I expect more to come - also that there will be a reasonable end to the quarter with a number of orders. We’ll have to see how many megawatts that adds up to.”

”It is the US that has carried by far the most orders so far this quarter, and I wonder if there are other markets that will come on the radar over the next few days,” says Pedersen.

(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Katrine Gøthler)