World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

October 22, 2006 – Vol.11 No.31

WORLD WIND WATCH.

The first 1.5-megawatt turbine from what was Enron Wind, and is now the wind energy division of General Electric, was planted in German soil in 1996. Since then more than 5000 have been sold and are in operation worldwide. The company says that it expects 10,000 1.5s to be in service by the end of 2008.

That’s a lot of turbines. Visit GE at http://www.ge.com/energy

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has scaled back its prediction of new wind capacity expected to be installed in the US in 2006.

Earlier in the year the trade group thought that 3000 megawatts would be installed. Now they say only 2700 by the end of the year: various delays are to blame, they say.

Still 2700 megawatts is a significant number and represents 18-20 percent of all new electric generating capacity built in the US in 2006. New wind energy is second to new natural gas fired power plants.

The AWEA expects 2007 to see 3000 -3500 megawatts of new wind capacity in the US. By the end this September there were 10,492 megawatts of grid-connected wind power in the US. For a complete list of utility scale projects visit http://www.awea.org/projects/index.html