Brazilian turbine maker WEG is aiming for a 10% share of the country's wind market after reaching full capacity at its 100 machine-a-year plant in southern Brazil.

“The future is promising and we are going to continue at our own pace,” João Paulo Gualberto da Silva, head of WEG's wind power division told Recharge.

“WEG is a company that makes decisions very carefully...we want to continue expanding in Brazil and eventually go global. But nobody is in a hurry.”

It took nine months for WEG to ramp-up production from two turbines a day in June last year to today's eight a day.

Although the company does not publish figures, delivery contracts have followed the ramp-up curve and WEG's production line is fully taken up in 2015, almost full in 2016, and full in 2017, with some orders already for 2018, Silva said.

According to Recharge's own data, WEG – which started from zero in 2013 when it signed a licensing agreement with Northern Power Systems to produce 2.1MW direct-drive turbines locally – has now sold some 520MW of turbines, or about 3% of the total 17GW contracted since 2009.

But Silva claims WEG's market share is now running close to 5%, and if he manages to keep his division's 350 workers busily working in three shifts for coming years he expects to reach 9%-10%.

“We don't announce all our deals to stay under the radar of our competitors,” Silva said.

The leading turbine makers in Brazil are GE, Alstom and Gamesa, all with over 10% of the market.

Argentina's Impsa, which used to have around 12%, has now reduced its presence as it faces financial troubles. WEG is among the companies that took over some of its contracts.

Expansion of the company's plant will only occur when Brazil's wind power market confirms its potential, Silva said. In the meantime WEG has a plan to supply rising demand.

“We can expand output by one or two turbines by adjusting layout in our production line, but we are not considering investing in a new plant for now.”

Wind turbines only flickered in WEG's total gross operational revenue of R$7.8bn ($2.7bn) at the end of the last year, after the first machines were delivered.

Revenue from the wind power division should continue to grow in importance in 2015 when it has to deliver more than 150MW, but the company is concerned about keeping margins at a reasonable level.

That risk is partially mitigated by WEG's claimed 90% of local content, but Silva says he also has a clear guideline to sell only to projects that are feasible or which allow for a workable delivery schedule.

“As an example, in one case we decided not to close a deal for one of Impsa's former contracts because the production schedule wouldn't allow us to meet deadlines,” he said.

Increased production would be justified if WEG manages to close new contracts, including any in this year's auctions scheduled for April and July, which require delivery by 2017 and 2018.

But Silva said the price for wind power needs to be right to ensure returns.

“The government has to set a higher price this year to allow for returns and give more space for the investors to decide,” he said, calculating that the government needs to cap prices above R$160/MWh ($55.2/MWh) to allow turbine makers and developers to maintain margins in the face of strong devaluation of the local currency, higher inflation and regulatory risks.

The government has been setting higher cap prices yearly to make up for higher costs. Last year, the price cap at the reserve auction was R$144/MWh, up from R$117/MWh a year earlier.