World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

October 17, 2004 – Vol.9 No.30

WORLD WIND WATCH.

With sales moving at full speed ahead, GE Energy has announced it currently has $1.3 billion in wind turbine orders waiting to be filled. The orders represent 1.5 gigawatts of new wind capacity.

Of that 750 megawatts are for new wind projects to be built in the U.S. by the end of next year to take advantage of the newly reinstated Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) before it expires (again) at the end of 2005.

To receive the 1.8 cent per kilowatt hour, wind developers must complete projects during the calendar year when the PTC is in force. The credit can then be taken for the next 20 years.

GE has orders for turbines for projects in Iowa, Minnesota, Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Oregon and California, all of which will use the company’s 1.5 megawatt turbine.

The company also has 990 megawatts commitments for, but not sales orders, in wind generation name-plate capacity for previously announced projects in Quebec,Canada.

GE will also be supplying turbines for the first two utility-scale projects to be built in China's largest city, Shanghai. That order includes 14 more 1.5 megawatt turbines for projects being built by Shanghai Wind Power Company.

The Chinese government has a commitment to build 20 gigawatts of new renewable wind capacity by 2020. Visit GE Energy, wind division at http://www.gewind.com/

Watching GE’s brilliant - now clearly successful - decision to buy a wind turbine company to add to its power generation technology portfolio (GE Wind is the old Enron Wind) Siemens of Germany has scooped up its own wind turbine company, Denmark’s Bonus Energy.

No financial disclosures have been made but the value of the deal could be between 1.5 and 2.5 billion Danish crowns ($254 to 423 million. Visit Bonus at http://www.bonus.dk/ .

Currently about 90 percent of Norway’s power is generated from renewable sources, almost all it hydroelectric power with a smattering of wind energy. (The remaining 10 percent or so is imported.)

The country, as all countries should, is expecting economic growth in the coming decades and is planning new power generation capacity to meet that growth.

Even though Norway’s hydroelectric resources are fully developed - no more fiords to dam for electricity - the country has taken the astounding step of officially planning to supply 90 percent of its domestic electricity supply from renewables by 2010.

The big winner will be wind energy where Norwegian government expects three terawatt hours of wind generated electricity to be produced by 2010.

Already wind is building. Norwegian regional utility Nord-Troendelag Elektrisitetsverk (NTE) has announced that it has received permission to build a 249-megawatt wind farm in the central Norwegian county of Nord-Troendelag. The Ytre Vikna wind farm will have 99, 2.5-megawatt turbines.

In the coming years expect Norway to sell renewable energy or emission credits under the soon-to-be-in-force Kyoto Protocol.

Vestas Wind Systems has won an EUR 143 million ($178.3 million) order from SaskPower International to supply 83, 1.8-megawatt turbines for a 150-megawatt wind farm to be built in Regina, Saskatchewan in the southwestern corner of the Canadian Province.

All of the Vestas V-80 turbines should be installed and connected to the power grid by the end of 2005. Visit Vestas at http://www.vestas.com/.