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Vestas, also known as Vestas Wind Systems A/S, is the world's largest manufacturer of wind turbines, and is based in Randers, Denmark.

History

Earliest history

In 1945, Peder Hansen and nine colleagues from his father, H. S. Hansen's, company, Dansk Staalvindue Industri, to start their own company, called Vestjysk Stålteknik A/S (renamed to Vestas not long after).

At this early stage, the production was mainly centred around the manufacturing of agricultural trailers, but later expanded to other agricultural equipment, such as crop sprayers and plough shares.

In 1956 Peder Hansen's brother and deputy chief executive at the B&W shipyard, Søren Hansen, informed Peder of the fact the shipyard was looking for a partner to make a new type of cooler for ship engines. From this point on, the coolers became one of the main areas of production for Vestas.

A few years later, Peder bought out the other owners of the company, and sold the milk cooler– and trough–production to a former Vestas owner, Børge Agerbo.

In the late 60s/early 70s, the company became involved in a new industry: cranes. While this was a successful endeavour for them, exporting cranes to over 60 different countries, the upcoming oil crises would be the beginning of the area of production, that would later make Vestas known.

Wind power

In 1979, after eighteen months of testing different blade models, the company delivered their first windmills, and in 1985, they decided to build their first extensive factory near Lern, Denmark.

Throughout the 80s, Vestas expanded their corporation. Especially the American market proved useful for them. In 1983 Vestas North America, Ltd. was founded, to exploit the new opportunities. By the end of 1985, they had sold more than 2,500 wind turbines in the US.

However, in 1986 the tax legislation Vestas had been using in California expired, destroying the market share for the company. The following year, much of the Vestas Group was sold, as to get sufficient money for starting a new company, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, meant to focus completely on wind power.

Vestas merged with Danish Wind Technology in 1989, with DWT supposed to act as a sales company within Vestas. In Germany, Vestas Deutschland GmbH was established.