Vestas

Vestas success story in Portugal

Vestas is a global leader in the renewable energy industry for sustainable energy solutions. It designs, manufactures, installs and services wind turbines across the globe, with more than 154 GW of wind turbines in 87 countries.

In 2017, the group decided to expand its R&D efforts and chose Porto to set up a new engineering design centre, responsible for developing core technology for the company’s product portfolio.

Established in Portugal: 2017

Industry: Renewable Energy

Where: Leça da Palmeira (Porto Region)

Country of Origin: Denmark

World leader in the development and production of wind turbines, Vestas has more than 29,000 employees in several countries, and its annual revenue exceeds 15 billion dollars. When the company decided to invest in a new research and development centre back in 2017, Portugal stood out as the clear winner among other European countries.  

The proximity to leading universities and research institutions, the pool of highly qualified engineering talent and the language skills of the Portuguese workforce were among the main reasons for choosing to invest in Portugal. 

Vesta’s R&D unit, located at the Lionesa Business Hub in Leça da Palmeira, Porto region, represents an investment of 10 million euros and currently employs more than 500 engineers.  The centre is part of the company’s R&D setup, which includes sites in the UK, Norway, Germany, India, and its headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark.  

As the global wind power market expands, Vestas expects that the company’s know-how and expertise will help accelerate Portugal’s energy transition and that its R&D centre in Porto will become one of the largest in the world in terms of size and importance. 

One of the reasons why we specifically chose Porto, in Portugal, was due to some of the strong universities. We have a prime partnership with the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) as a traditional Portuguese university that is very, very strong in mechanical engineering.