World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

March 20, 2005 – Vol.9 No.52

WORLD WIND WATCH.

In the past when the name Goldman Sachs popped up Wall Street and investment banking would come to mind. Times have changed. Now think wind power. The company has purchased wind project developer Zilkha Renewable Energy for an undisclosed amount.

The deal will put Goldman Sachs in control of nearly 4000 megawatts of wind capacity now under development in 12 states. And it may come as a surprise (it did to this editor) but wind energy is nothing new to the company. Goldman Sachs already has interests in wind farms in Wyoming, Oregon and California.

If the deal does anything it brings investment in renewable energy to Wall Street. When Wall Street decides where money should be invested, money will be invested where Wall Street decides. Visit Goldman Sachs at http://www.gs.com/ , Zilkha at http://www.zilkha.com/ .

Gamesa Wind US LLC, the U.S division of Gamesa Eolica that is soon to open a 500-employee manufacturing plant in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, is already getting busy.

The company has announced it will be supplying 25, 2.0 megawatt turbines for the Kumeyaay Wind Farm near San Diego, California. The new turbines should be installed later in 2005 to able to take advantage of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) that will expire (again, unless it is renewed) at the end of the year.

Kumeyaay is owned by Babcock and Brown and was developed by Superior Renewable Energy. The 50 MW of power will be sold to San Diego Gas and Electric.

Gamesa Wind US has commitments on its books to build 600 megawatts of wind turbine capacity in Pennsylvania alone.

Gamesa too, through its main office in Spain has announced it will be supplying 25, 2.0 megawatt turbines for the Noheji Wind Farm in Kamikita-Gun, Aomori, Japan as well as 6 turbines of the same capacity to the Shitsukari Wind Farm also in Aomori. The turbines including installation are valued at EUR 43 million ($55 million) and won’t be installed until the second quarter of 2006.

Including this contract, Gamesa will have sales agreements from Japan for 82 megawatts of wind capacity and expects (optimistically) to have a whopping 1500 megawatts of wind turbines sales contracts there for the 2005-2009 period. Visit Gamesa at http://www.gamesa.es/ .

GE Energy is getting busy too. (Although overall 2005 isn’t expected to be a banner year for new wind capacity in the U.S.)

GE will be supplying 76, 1.5 megawatt turbines for the Callahan Divide Wind Energy in Taylor County Texas and another 71, 1.5 megawatt turbines for the Weatherford Wind Energy Center in Custer County, Oklahoma.

FPL Energy owns both of the facilities and with installed turbines from GE will be adding more than 220 megawatts to its wind portfolio. Visit FPL at http:www.fplenergy.com and GE Energy (wind division at http://www.gewind.com/ .