World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

March 14, 2004 – Vol.8 No.51

WORLD WIND WATCH.

Southwest Windpower, which has been developing and manufacturing small wind turbines for more than ten years, has received venture financing from Altira Group, an early-stage venture capital firm. Though the level of financing is undisclosed, Altira specializes in initial investments of $500,000 to $2 million.

Southwest, with 47 employees, has sold over 72,000 turbines ranging in capacity from 400 to 3000 watts. The company now produces and ships turbines with a combined capacity of 5 megawatts each year. The turbines are used in remote, distributed generation and marine applications.

Southwest is also the primary distributor of the Atlantic Orient Corporation AOC 15/50 wind turbine manufactured in Prince Edward Island, Canada. That 50-kilowatt industrial grade wind turbine is also meant for distributed and off-grid power and a has special niche in arctic installations.

Southwest, Altira, and Atlantic Orient would be heartened by the market research report from ABI Research showing that wind and solar energy products are leading the way in distributed generation technologies in terms of sales, while microturbine and fuel cell sales have been disappointing so far. ABI predicts installed distributed generation capacity, like Southwest's and Atlantic Orient’s turbines, could equal 200,000 megawatts worldwide by 2011 - triple the figure installed today.

The report, Distributed Generation: Growth Projection for Fuel Cells, Photovoltaics, Wind Turbines, Reciprocating Engines and Small Gas Turbines, is available for a fee from ABI.

Visit Southwest at http://www.windenergy.com/ , Atlantic Orient at http://www.aocwind.net/ and ABI at http://www.abireasearch.com/ .

Montreal, Canada based power producer Boralex has announced it will build and operate a 12-megawatt wind farm in France.

To be located in Nibas about 4 kilometers from another wind farm the company operates, the new wind farm will double Boralex’s wind capacity to 24 megawatts. The project will also be the company’s third wind farm.

Boralex specializes in power generated from hydro, natural gas, wood residue and wind resources. The company has 17 powerplants in its portfolio with a combined installed capacity of 252 megawatts.

Construction on the new facility is expected to begin in May and be completed by November 2004. Visit Boralex at http://www.boralex.com/

Greenwind Power, a British Columbia, Canada based wind energy developer, has entered into a joint venture with China Link Industries Group of Shanghai, China with the goal to develop and operate a 50-megawatt wind farm on Daishan Island, south of Shanghai.

The project, which still needs a feasibility study to be completed, is under discussion with officials of the Zhejiang Province government.

Greenwind, which does not have any completed wind projects in development to date, is expecting to announce its first wind project at its annual meeting on April 2, 2004. Visit Greenwind Power at http://www.greenwindpower.com/ .