- 1898 - Vestas founded by H.S. Hansen, a blacksmith, in the small town of Lem, Denmark. He and his son, Peder Hansen, manufactured steel windows for industrial buildings.
- 1945 - Peder Hansen established the company VEstjyskSTålteknik A/S, whose name was shortened to Vestas. The new company, which initially made household appliances, started to produce agricultural equipment.
- 1970s - During the second oil crisis, Vestas began to examine the potential of the wind turbine as an alternative source of clean energy.
- 1979 - Vestas delivered the first wind turbines. The industry experienced a genuine boom at the start of the 1980s, but in 1986 Vestas was forced to suspend payments because the market in the United States was destroyed due to the expiration of a special tax legislation that provided advantageous conditions for the establishment of wind turbines.
- 1986 - Large sections of Vestas were sold off and a new company called Vestas Wind Systems A/S was founded at the end of the year to concentrate exclusively on wind energy.
- 1987 onwards - Vestas develops from a pioneer in the industry with a staff of around 60 people to become a global hi-tech and market-leading company employing more than 20,000 people1.
- 2004 - Vestas merged with another Danish wind turbine manufacturer, NEG Micon A/S.
- 2005 - Ditlev Engel becomes President and CEO of the company. Less than a month after taking up his new position, he published his strategy for Vestas for 2005-2008: The Will to Win. This includes, among other things, a new vision for Vestas. This vision is Wind, Oil and Gas, stating that wind power is to be a source of energy on par with oil and gas.
- 2007 - To strengthen our market leading position and to stress the fact that wind is an energy source on par with oil and gas, Vestas launched the new strategy: No. 1 in Modern Energy. At that time, Vestas had installed more than 33,500 wind turbines in 63 countries and on 5 continents.
- 2010 - WIND. IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US. A world that, if we have our way, will be powered by far, far more than the predicted 10% of electricity by wind by 2020. A world where Wind takes its place alongside Oil & Gas through ever more competitive cost of electricity and its efficient and reliable delivery on an industrial and global scale. A world populated by far more than the 43,000 turbines that we’ve already raised on behalf of our customers in 66 countries across six continents. A world where we are relentlessly committed to focusing our 30 years pioneering pure-play experience, our R&D centre (the largest in the world), every shred of revelatory data from our real-time monitoring of thousands of turbines; and the unmatched diversity of capability and skills residing in our more than 20,000 people worldwide, on one pure goal: generating the greatest and most sustainable return on wind for our customers. Because a world without our customers success is a world without Wind. That failure is not an option, neither for Vestas, our customers, nor our planet.
1) As of 31 December 2008
