WindarPhotonics AnnualReport 2018 All - Flipbook - Page 16
CHAIRMAN´S STATEMENT
Windar Photonics is a pioneer in the wind energy market and the 59% year on year increase in
revenue and 92% year on year increase in gross profit delivered for the year is a strong signal
that our customers are recognising the benefits that our LiDAR products provide. The revenue
growth realised in 2018 was strongly supported by the partial delivery on the announced order
for the Chinese IPP market announced in December 2017.
We aim to become the world’s
leading LiDAR group for wind
optimisation. Although challenges
in relation to our supply chain
meant we needed to push back
some projects into 2019, there
is no denying that demand for
our technology is increasing. The
fundraise we completed during the
year has enabled us to increase
stock levels of core components,
ensuring we will not have a repeat
of the supply issues experienced in
delivering 2018 projects. Also, we
have secured new market leading
distribution partners, broadened
the capabilities of our products
and advanced a record number of
integration projects with Original
Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)
during the period.
The demand for our solutions is
driven by the fact that we can
increase the value of wind projects
by increasing the efficiency of
extracting energy from wind,
increasing the lifetime of the
turbines through load reductions
and reducing maintenance costs.
We aim to be the leading value
LiDAR manufacturer in the market
based on our patented technology
solutions. These factors, together
with the continued development of
new features which respond to
client needs, make us an ideal
partner to Independent Power
Producers (IPPs) and OEMs alike.
Importantly, we have two core
products which serve each of these
customer groups – WindEYETM
(retro-fit) and WindVISIONTM (design
integration for OEMs). We serve
the global market from our headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark
and our sales and service office in
Shanghai, China.
Reducing the costs associated with
manufacturing our products has
14
been a core focus for Windar in
recent years. 2018 was the first
year that we enjoyed the full benefit
of the second generation LiDAR,
which was released in early 2017
and has enabled us to reduce our
manufacturing costs considerably
during the last two years. This
improvement has been delivered
principally due to our strong and
continued focus on R&D. This part
of our business also saw us
expand the range of innovative new
features for our products, such as
turbulence and wake detection.
RETRO-FIT
DEVELOPMENTS
- WindEYETM
R&D is an important part of our
strategy to maintain our market
leading advantage and our value
proposition. We believe in providing
‘plugN’play’ technologies which help
our customers to increase the
lifetime of their turbines without
excessive cost, while also increasing
our growth potential and profit
margins. So far, the key selling
parameter has been that our
products increase annual energy
production through a better yaw
alignment of the wind turbine.
However, there are an additional
number of ways to help IPPs deliver
stronger returns from their projects
and our R&D programme is focused
on adding new technology to our
offering.
Post period end we announced
an exclusive licensing agreement
with The Technical University of
Denmark (“DTU”). This has seen
us begin implementation of an
innovative solution into our retro-fit
product, WindEYETM, which is
expected to mitigate extreme loads
on installed wind turbines without
requiring changes to be made to
Windar Photonics - Annual Report and Accounts 2018
the existing controller system.
Based on work already conducted,
DTU estimates that it can deliver
extreme load reductions of between
5% and 10%. This can then increase
the expected operational lifetime of
a wind turbine by a similar amount.
We anticipate that the new software
will be launched during 2020 and
will feature as an optional software
upgrade in new and existing
WindEYE™ installations.
In 2018, the majority of our sales
and growth were generated by the
retrofit market.
We were delighted to open new
sales channels for WindEYETM
during the period having signed a
distribution agreement with the
industry’s largest maintenance
provider, Vestas Wind System A/S
(“Vestas”). This was announced in
June 2018, and therefore has not yet
had a material impact on the Group’s
revenue in 2018. However, based on
the end-user projects, we expect the
agreement to underpin our growth
expectations for the coming years.
We continue to regard Vestas as
playing an important role in the
marketing of our technology and we
are delighted to report that discussions
are underway with numerous IPPs in
Asia Pacific and North America. We are
hopeful that these will convert in the
coming months and look forward to
updating the market regarding our
first order with Vestas.
With the latest agreement with Vestas
and our existing agreements with our
distributors in China and India, we now
have coverage to serve the market in
North American, Asia Pacific and the
European markets.