Amidst a critical minerals bottleneck in the EU, it is more crucial than ever for the renewables supply chain to become more streamlined – and secure. At this year’s WindEurope 2023 conference in Copenhagen, wind turbine manufacturer Vestas showcased its well-timed online “spare parts marketplace”, Covento, which officially launched on 1 March.
Energy Monitor sat down with Covento’s newly appointed CEO, Jill Ashley Brandt, who hopes to bring business-to-consumer simplicity to the renewables supply chain.
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“What you expect in your consumer life, we should expect in this space and that is what Covento is doing […] one of my favourite [features] is our order history and real-time tracking links so our buyers can actually see exactly when the order is going to be delivered – [like ordering a shirt, for example].”
Brandt talks about the “6-7-21” problem, and how Covento aims to challenge it:
“When you want to order a spare part that [costs] maybe €500 [$544] or €1,200, your best-case scenario is if it takes six departments, seven people and 21 days to find and order that spare part. At Covento, we believe it should be as easy as ordering something on your favourite website – we [want] to turn the 6-7-21 into 60 seconds.”
Covento is a digital platform created by Vestas that aims to efficiently connect buyers and sellers of wind spare parts and consumables. To date, it offers more than 40,000 spare parts and is open to all companies in five EU countries: Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.
Editor’s note: Energy Monitor was WindEurope’s official Intelligence Partner for its 2023 annual event in Copenhagen. Our in-house data journalism team produced a “Number of the Day” that went out to all 13,000 delegates on each day of the conference and our reporter Nour Ghantous led several short video interviews with key wind industry leaders and innovators.
