Jupiter Bach: The World’s Nacelle Cover Manufacturer

Andreas Kipker, CEO of Jupiter Bach, discusses their dominance in
wind turbine nacelle and spinner cover manufacturing and major U.S.
expansion plans, including a new 20,000-square-foot facility in
Pensacola and two decades of partnership with GE Vernova. Fill out
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https://www.windaustralia.com Allen Hall: Welcome back to the
Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. I'm your host, Allen Hall,
along with my co host, Joel Saxum. And today we have an exceptional
guest who brings deep insight from one of the wind industry's most
important manufacturing sectors. Andreas Kipker is the CEO of
Jupiter Bach, the world's largest supplier of nacelle and spinner
covers for wind turbines. Andreas joins us at an exciting time for
Jupiter Bach the company just celebrated a remarkable 20 year
partnership with GE Vernova and broke ground on a 20, 000 square
foot expansion of their Pensacola, Florida facility. And today
under Andreas's leadership, Jupiter Bach operates state of the art
manufacturing facilities across Europe, Asia, and North America.
The company's focus goes beyond just manufacturing. They're driving
innovation in composite materials and. Engineering to help reduce
the levelized cost of energy for wind power. Andreas, welcome to
the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. Andreas Kipker: Thank you
very much. Pleased to be here. Thanks for the opportunity. Allen
Hall: Well, Jupiter Bach is the world's largest supplier of
nacelles and spinner covers. Could you give us just a sense of what
your global footprint looks like? Andreas Kipker: Absolutely. Happy
to do that. Yeah, so, um, In the global market, we consider
ourselves leaders. We have, um, we have factories. We have four
main manufacturing facilities one in China two in Europe, then
Poland and Lithuania, and then one in Sonia, Florida. Um, and then
adding to that's where we do our composites. And then, and in
addition to that, we have we have a number of assembly sites that
are. closer to servicing this Nacelle manufacturing plants assembly
plants of our customers. So they're spread. Somewhat in the same
regions, but but closer to customers. Allen Hall: Well, you just
recently celebrated 20 years with G. E. Vernova, which is
remarkable. And you're also expanding a facility down in Florida to
another 20, 000 square feet. What is your footprint right now in
Florida alone? Andreas Kipker: I'm a little bit in doubt, actually,
the exact number. We're around 100, 000 square foot in in, in, in
Florida today of, um, of. on the roof. And then it's a process that
takes a bit of outdoors storage at outdoor space as well. So, the
site itself is significantly bigger. You will know this from blade
manufacturing plants as well, that the parts are quite big. So it
takes a little bit of storage around. But yeah, we're super excited
to have to have longstanding relationship with with several of our
customers, but G we just we just reached this milestone. Um, um, so
yeah, proud of that. Joel Saxum: I think it's important to to talk
about nacelles here, right? Like when you see, when you say when
we're in the wind world, where Alan and I touch most of the time,
everybody in the large manufacturing space, you hear about gearbox
manufacturers, bearing manufacturers, and then a few tower things
here and there, but it's mostly blades. Everybody's worried. You
know, what's TPI here? What's Iris doing here? What's, You know, LM
doing here or how is that all working? But the part that's like the
most recognizable part on the whole turbine, the nacelle, it's the
box that holds the brains. It's the thing that gets all of the work
done inside of it. We don't talk about that much. And I think one
of the reasons is there's usually not very many issues with it,
right? Andreas Kipker: No, I would say we do not see a lot of
issues. I think we could in, in all fairness, talk a little bit
more about it because There's a lot of safety features that allows
our technicians, not our technicians, but the industry's
technicians to, to carry out their job safely is really important.
Things that we mount on on, on, on the nacelle. So yeah it, it
deserves probably a little bit more face time in in a world where
we where we expose our technicians to a lot of a lot of risks and
we need to keep them safe from that. Allen Hall: So let's talk
about the nacelle for a minute. The nacelles are made out of.
Basically fiberglass and foam is that how they're constructed?
Andreas Kipker: Before I joined Jupyterbug, I worked in a company
that supplies blade manufacturers. The materials that are being
used here are very much the same. It's slightly different densities
of foam because it does less of a structural load than a blade, but
yeah, we're talking about. Glass fibers, foams, and then the
typical resin systems as well. And then surprisingly enough quite a
bit of steel parts that are mounted on on that as well. Allen Hall:
So the approach from Jupiter. Box manufacturing, and I've seen some
things on YouTube, which are quite interesting how you do this. It
is a resident fusion process, very similar to blades, but instead
of making a, you know, a shell, you're making these panels, but
then it's sort of a modular assembly, right? Andreas Kipker:
Different OEMs have different design philosophies, and we work with
them on optimizing that. Some are focusing on the ease of the
assembly plant, and some are focusing more on The flexibility in,
in, in the supply chain. So we see it going both ways. We do
manufacture both parts that that are quite modular, but we do also
manufacture a lot of parts that are quite significant in size and
do not fit into a container in in, in any way. That that's also why
we have. Regional setups and some setups that are, need to be
closer to the customer so that we can assemble these containerized
parts into something that's easier to install for turbine for the
OEM. Allen Hall: Can we use GE as an example here? You're
manufacturing basic sub assemblies down in Pensacola, Florida, and
then they're moving them up to Schenectady, New York, which is
nearby to me, and then you're assembling them. near the
manufacturing facility that GE has established. Isn't that the
process? Andreas Kipker: We have this plant down in Florida that
makes actually fully fully assembled nacelles. It's an oversized
transport that goes down to the GE factory as well. When we talk
about the parts in Schenectady, these are these are from a
different design philosophy. Where we manufacture them offshore. We
sent them into Schenectady and then we mount them in Schenectady to
to ease the assembly at the GE plant in Schenectady. So, so
actually GE has I hope I'm not giving anything away here, but they
will they use both design methodologies. And you will see that if
you see the the turbine up close. Allen Hall: Quite amazing. Okay.
So some of your OEMs, even internally to a single OEM asking for
like a full completed. Nacelle, other ones want something that's
modular. That's really fascinating. And on top of that, they're
asking you to install a bunch of a number of safety features and
accessories to these nacelles that, there's, it's quite complicated
now. It used to be when, years ago, the nacelles tend to be really
simple. Now they've figured out that they can add on a lot of
features to the nacelles, right? Andreas Kipker: And we see that as
some of our value add here in trying to take these parts that can
be mounted already in advance. That does not have to go into the
assembly line at at the OEM facility. And we try to take that over,
prepare that, make it as easy as possible, mounting as much as we
can on the covers. But then also, um, preparing kits. So they are,
so they fit right for installation into the assembly line. So yeah,
that, that's an avenue that we have been trying to go. Going down
that road with a higher pace over the past two years. Um, so yeah
we, we see the need in certain markets for that, for sure. Joel
Saxum: I like the approach because one of the things that you hear,
whether you're at an offshore conference, an onshore conference, or
you're talking to Anybody in development, it's all about supply
chain, right? It's like supply chain, building out local supply
chain. How can we optimize the supply chain? Um, you know, like to
the point where procurement, good procurement people in supply
chain, people in wind are, they're worth gold, right? But if, so
you guys are taking on a bit of that front end work and alleviating
the pressures from the OEMs to get it done themselves is what it
sounds like. Andreas Kipker: Absolutely. And, um, you'd say in a
growth market that's making a lot of sense, right? You, yeah, you
go to less parts that you need to procure, less logistics that you
need to worry about. And we step into that role as a partner. Joel
Saxum: Um, so Jupiter Buck sees that sees that I don't want to say
revenue, but let's see that opportunity and just grabs, grabs it as
well. It's a good place to be. Andreas Kipker: We see it as a way
of. servicing our customers much better. So, yes, it gives us more
revenue, but it also, and I think more importantly for me,