World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

March 21, 2004 – Vol.8 No.52

WORLD WIND WATCH.

Gamesa, the world’s fourth largest wind turbine manufacturer, will begin building wind turbines in the United States in 2005. The company, according to a news report from Reuters, said that the strength of the Euro, or the weakness of the dollar, has made European-built, European-priced turbines difficult to sell in the U.S. A plant in the U.S. would alleviate that problem and make Gamesa turbines more competitive against turbines built by sole U.S. turbine manufacturer GE Wind Energy.

Gamesa also feels that the U.S has untapped wind energy resources - the middle section of the country, for instance.

Gamesa said that it is their objective to be ready to sell turbines assembled and partly manufactured in the U.S. The company has not said where the production facility will be, but a number of states, including Pennsylvania, have been encouraging Gamesa to locate there.

It should be noted that Gamesa has decided to make this move despite the fact that a renewal of the production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy has NOT been approved by the U.S. Senate, thus not reached the President’s desk. So the company may either believe strongly that the PTC will be extended, or that the cost of wind power is now low enough to compete head-to-head with other energy sources, particularly natural gas. The company may, too, have also considered various Renewable Portfolio Standards now law in more than a dozen states. The RPS will force the building of new renewable capacity, including wind energy.

Gamesa has also announced the commissioning of its first U.S. wind farm, the 50.4 Mendota Hills facility in Illinois. The 63 turbine wind farm was built in record time, according to the company. The first 800 kilowatt turbines were connected to the power grid on November 23, 2003. Power from Mendota Hills will be sold to Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) of Illinois.

The company, too, has announced the completion of the Florinas wind farm on the island of Sardinia in Italy. Florinas, with a 20-megawatt capacity, is the first installation of Gamesa’s 2.0 megawatt G80 turbine outside of Spain, the home port of the company. Visit Gamesa at http://www.gamesa.es/ .