ABB invests in strategic partnership with clean energy start-up to offer end-to-end wind energy portfolio

07-09-2023

• ABB Motion acquires minority stake in WindESCo, a leading analytics software provider for improving performance and reliability of wind turbines 
• Venture capital investment complements ABB’s wind portfolio with digital offering, allowing it to expand its market reach beyond wind converters and services 
• The investment will allow WindESCo to scale its operations and expand the wind turbine analytics to include converter, generator as well as mechanical drivetrain for early anomaly detection and repair. 

ABB Motion and WindESCo, have signed a strategic partnership, where ABB has acquired a minority stake in the company through its venture capital unit, ABB Technology Ventures (ATV). US-based WindESCo is the leading analytics software provider for improving the performance and reliability of wind turbines. Leveraging WindESCo’ solutions, the investment will strengthen ABB’s position as a key enabler of a low carbon society and its position in the renewable power generation sector. It will allow the company to continuously improve wind turbines’ performance and reliability, offer end-to-end solutions to wind customers and open a new market channel for its digital offering. Financial details of the investment were not disclosed.

ABB is a leading independent supplier of wind converters for medium voltage and low voltage wind turbines. WindESCo has developed a market leading OEM agnostic asset performance monitoring software to detect anomalies in wind turbines, propose corrective actions and measure their results. The company has also developed a wake optimization solution that leverages data across a wind plant to optimize plant output. With their combined offering, ABB and WindESCo can now offer a complete solution approach to customers. WindESCo will be able to leverage ABB’s electrical domain expertise to further strengthen its software offering, while ABB closes a gap in its wind portfolio by adding a digital offering to the already digitally enabled wind converters. 

"This strategic venture capital investment allows us to strengthen our market position supporting the energy transition and continue to shift our portfolio of customer solutions towards renewables and decarbonization. It will complement ABB’s wind portfolio with a strong digital offering by WindESCo, that enables both companies to leverage their strong presence in the growing wind market. This win-win transaction will offer a holistic solution approach to our customer bases, and it will expand the service offering by ABB Motion. We look forward to developing new synergies with the talented team at WindESCo," commented Chris Poynter, President, System Drives division, ABB Motion.

Mo Dua, CEO, and founder of WindESCo, said: "There is tremendous value locked in the wind turbine converter data. While most of the solutions have focused on the mechanical systems, there are no solutions having a meaningful impact on the electrical system. The equity investment by ABB and our technical collaboration will allow WindESCo to expand its offering to the wind turbine electrical system with the goal of being the leading comprehensive asset performance monitoring solution provider for the wind industry. We are glad ABB chose WindESCo as their digitization partner." 

WindESCo’s portfolio consists of two products – an advanced analytics solution called Find, Fix, Measure that leverages deep wind experience and AI (artificial intelligence) and a wind plant optimization solution called Swarm™, both designed to improve the performance of wind turbines and increase profit margins of wind plants. Thanks to this investment, WindESCo will be able to access ABB’s installed base experience of over 35GW of operating wind assets. Along with the transfer of electrical expertise, this will help WindESCo to enlarge their existing issue detection to electrical anomalies, affecting converters and generators in both onshore and offshore wind turbines. This will further strengthen the WindESCo platform and help solve key pain points for the growing wind industry.

ABB is a technology leader in electrification and automation, enabling a more sustainable and resource efficient future. The company’s solutions connect engineering know-how and software to optimize how things are manufactured, moved, powered and operated. Building on more than 130 years of excellence, ABB’s ~105,000 employees are committed to driving innovations that accelerate industrial transformation. www.abb.com

WindESCo’s mission is to ensure that every wind turbine produces as much energy as possible, through improved performance, reliability, and/or plant-level control. Maintaining a hyperfocus on wind energy WindESCo is actively addressing the industry's technical pain points driving an increase in profit margins. The company’s platform is actively optimizing wind plants covering 21 turbine OEMs, 74 turbine models in 18 countries.