Chinas CSR-ZELRI Orders 100 Sets of Wind Turbine Core Electrical Components from AMSC
Thursday January 22, 7:30 am ET
CSR-ZELRI Accelerates Production of 1.65 Megawatt Wind Turbines

DEVENS, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: AMSC – News), a leading energy technologies company, today announced that it has received a multi-million-dollar order for 100 sets of its wind turbine core electrical components from China’s CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Research Institute Co., Ltd (“CSR-ZELRI”). The company will use the components in 1.65 megawatt (MW) wind turbines designed by AMSC’s wholly owned AMSC Windtec® subsidiary. Under the terms of the contract, AMSC expects to ship all of the core electrical components by the end of calendar 2009 to support CSR-ZELRI’s increased production of wind turbines.

Xcel Energy Inc. said Wednesday it has selected NextEra Energy Resources from among 16 bidders to build a new wind farm and provide energy through a purchased-power agreement.

The wind farm will be located in the Peetz Table area of Logan County, if the Colorado Public Utilities Commission approves the deal. Called the Northern Colorado Wind Facility, it is slated to be running by the end of 2009.

The 25-year contract between Xcel and NextEra calls for Xcel paying $50 per megawatt hour of energy produced during the farm’s first year of operation — or about $26.75 million in year one for the 535,000 megawatt hours of power the farm is expected to product. The price of the power rises after the first year, Xcel spokesman Tom Henley said.

Xcel said the facility will provide nearly 152 megawatts of power at full capacity. There already are two wind farms generating a total of 400 megawatts at the Peetz Table site.

NextEra Energy Resources, formerly FPL Energy, is based in Juno Beach, Fla.

Experts on wind energy spoke to Madison community leaders Tuesday afternoon as part of the annual “Madison Hosts the Legislature” trip to Pierre. Dusty Johnson, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, spoke about South Dakota’s potential to be the nation’s largest wind energy provider.

In 2008, South Dakota produced enough energy to supply 15,000 homes with power — some 44 megawatts of electricity, he said. Since then, production has risen to “just under 300,” enough power to supply electricity to one-quarter of all South Dakota residents. With the inclusion of a pending 306-megawatt wind farm, Johnson said, the number of residents supplied would double.

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Ann Garry of Heartland Consumers Power District in Madison said that energy demands have risen by 30 percent every year and that South Dakotans need to keep up.

In order to keep up, South Dakota needs transmission lines. Without them, all the energy generated would mean nothing if it couldn’t get to where it was needed. Johnson said that the lack of capable transmission lines is the number one problem facing South Dakota wind projects.

Even Gov. Mike Rounds agrees. He said that any incentives to bring additional wind farms to the area must also coerce the essential infrastructure to be built. Generating energy is one part of it, he said, but the main issue is transmitting it.

Steve Wegman, executive director of the South Dakota Wind Energy Association, thinks the toughest thing facing the wind industry is the lack of experienced professionals.

“We have kids graduating who don’t know what a crescent wrench is,” he said.

Wegman works with Wind for Schools, a program that supplies a small-output wind turbine to school grounds to allow students to get valuable hands-on experience in this growing field.

“With all the difficulties of building wind turbines,” Wegman said, “we still need people to maintain them and the support industries to step in and help out.”

Support industries include the fiberglass manufacturers who produce the 131-foot-long blades, the trucking companies who haul the materials on-site, and even the local lumber yards who supply the timber to support the 262-foot-tall towers.

Without their support, Johnson and Wegman agreed, the wind energy industry in South Dakota would fall apart.

“It’s heavy construction,” Wegman said of building wind towers. “Wind towers are essentially 30- to 40-story skyscrapers built in the middle of a cow patty.”

The state’s last heavy construction products, the interstate system and the Missouri River project all took around 30 or more years and required thousands of workers to complete, he said.

But with demand growing every year, patience is wearing thin.

Wind energy won’t fix things overnight, Wegman said, but with the right education and progress, it will certainly help.

TPI Composites Raises $20 Million of Growth Capital From GE and Existing Investors

Scottsdale, Ariz. and Palm Springs, CA., January 22, 2009 – TPI Composites, Inc., a leading supplier of high-technology wind turbine blades to Mitsubishi Power Systems and GE (NYSE: GE), announced today it has received $20 million from GE’s investment arm, Landmark Growth Capital Partners, NGP Energy Technology Partners and Angeleno Group to support its growth. The Series B funding, announced at TPI’s headquarters in Scottsdale and at the 5th Annual Clean-Tech Investor Summit in Palm Springs, reflects an increase in the company’s valuation since Series A financing was completed a year earlier.

“Even with economic conditions affecting our country and all industries, we believe in the promise of a 20 percent national wind vision set by the federal government and the opportunity for the wind industry to create hundreds of thousands of US manufacturing jobs,” said Steve Lockard, president and CEO of TPI, which has created hundreds of jobs in the United States over the last 12 months. “This capital investment in TPI will allow us to grow with current and future wind energy customers.”

The investment underscores GE’s unique ability to participate in the wind industry in two ways: technology and capital provider. The capital comes from GE’s Equity unit and GE Energy Financial Services, which has made several venture capital investments in wind turbine component manufacturers as well as provided project finance for wind farms.

“Our investment in TPI reflects our confidence in TPI’s ability to thrive in the growing global wind energy industry,” said Michael Donnelly, a Managing Director of GE’s Equity unit. Kevin Walsh, Managing Director and leader of power and renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services, said at the Clean-Tech Summit in Palm Springs: “This investment fits well with GE’s ecomagination program to help customers meet their environmental challenges, and underscores the wide and deep job-creation possible in the wind industry if favorable federal government policies are in place.”

Paul Giovacchini of Landmark Growth Capital Partners welcomed GE’s participation in funding of TPI, stating: “This investment in TPI strengthens its balance sheet and adds growth capital that will be used to expand our operations.”

Details of the Series B Convertible Preferred equity financing, which closed Dec. 30, were not disclosed.

TPI is tapping into rapidly growing wind energy demand. Annual global wind power installation has increased at an average rate of 22 percent over the last five years, with wind blades a critical component totaling $2.1 billion in sales worldwide in 2007, according to a GE estimate. The new capital announced today will help support TPI’s growth. Last year, the company tripled capacity to produce its lighter, stronger and more durable wind turbines blades in its Joint Venture facility in Mexico for Mitsubishi Power Systems. In addition, TPI last year opened factories in Newton, Iowa, and Taicang, China, under supply agreements with GE Energy. TPI’s Newton facility has gained national attention because it created hundreds of “green collar” jobs in a small town hurt by the closure of Maytag.

Vestas is dancing a fine line between global meltdown in credit crisis and over supply of wind turbine building facilities and building the worlds largest wind turbine capacity. Vestas will be able to deliver 10,000 MW’s of wind power by end of 2010. Vestas in the short term could have overbuilt but hopefully, the world wide demand for clean energy will win out over time. Vestas now can build a wind turbine every five hours and by end of 2009 will be able to build a wind turbine every 3 hours 24/7/365.

By end of 2010, Vestas will be able to deliver a wind turbine every hour around the clock delivering 24 wind turbines times 2.7MW of power to equate 70MW’s of wind power per day. If wind power ramps, Vestas is in the sweetest space for wind power revenues in the world.

Blair outlined steps needed through a “global compact”. “It needs not just a 2050 target but an interim target to get there, for example a target for 2020 that shows seriousness of intent and gives business a clear, unequivocal signal to invest in a low-carbon future.”

The world’s biggest wind turbine maker, Vestas, underlined the shift in priorities by announcing yesterday that the downturn had left it with excess manufacturing capacity of 15% as demand falls short of projections. Despite political impetus, the financial crisis had cut demand, said Ditlev Engel, the Danish company’s chief executive.

“Six months ago everyone said we were not doing enough to meet demand growing at an expected 40% this year,” he said. “Now people are saying ‘Why have you put in place plans for a 40% increase in capacity when growth levels are only going to be 25%?’.”

The firm is investing €2.5bn (£2.3bn) over four years to raise its capacity so it will be able to supply 10,000MW of equipment by 2010, compared with half this amount in 2005.

Mexico turns toward alternative energy
By MARK STEVENSON – 51 minutes ago

LA VENTOSA, Mexico (AP) — Mexico inaugurated one of the world’s largest wind farm projects Thursday as the nation looks for alternative energy, in part to compensate for falling oil production.

Mexico is trying to exploit its rich wind and solar potential after relying almost exclusively on petroleum for decades. With oil production down by 9.2 percent in 2008, Mexico now is turning to foreign companies, mainly Spanish, to tap its renewable riches.

“If we don’t do something about this problem of climate change it probably could become — I’m sure it already is — one of the biggest threats to humanity,” said President Felipe Calderon at the inaugural ceremony attended by about 1,000 residents, many of whom held on to their cowboy hats on this wind-swept day.

The new, $550 million project is in a region so breezy that the main town is named La Ventosa, or “Windy.” It’s on the narrow isthmus between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, where winds blow at 15 mph to 22 mph (25 to 36 kph), a near-ideal rate for turbines. Gusts have been known to topple tractor trailers.

Spanish energy company Acciona Energia says the 6,180-acre (2,500-hectare) farm should generate 250 megawatts of electricity with 167 turbines, 25 of which are already operating. The rest should be on line by the end of the year, making the project the largest of its kind in Latin America.

EDF Energies Nouvelles Signs Close to 1,000 MW of New Operations & Maintenance Contracts in the United States
Wednesday November 5, 1:00 am ET

PARIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Regulatory News:
As part of its Operations & Maintenance business, EDF Energies Nouvelles (Paris:EEN – News) is announcing the signature, by its US subsidiary enXco, of four new contracts covering 981 MW in capacity with US electricity companies. These contracts lift the total capacity managed by EDF EN under operations & maintenance contracts in the United States to over 3,000 MW.

enXco, leader in operation and maintenance services for wind farms in the United States, has continued its expansion in this business by signing four contracts covering 654 turbines or 981 MW in capacity in several states, namely:

A contract with PacifiCorp to manage six wind farms with a total of 456 MW in capacity in Oregon and Wyoming;
A contract with MidAmerican Energy to manage three wind farms with 325.5 MW in total capacity in Iowa;
The renewal of a contract with Kansas City Power & Light to manage the Spearville wind farm (100.5 MW), which was originally developed by enXco in Kansas and has been run by it since October 2006;
A contract with Wisconsin Public Service Corp. to manage the Crane Creek wind farm (99 MW) in Iowa, which has also been developed by enXco and is due for delivery in 2009.
enXco’s recognised operations & maintenance expertise in the United States already enabled it to sign, in 2007, four major contracts totalling 868 MW in capacity. All in all, enXco now manages more than 4,500 turbines under operations & maintenance contracts, representing a total of 3,186 MW.

About EDF Energies Nouvelles

With operations in nine European countries and in the United States, EDF Energies Nouvelles is a market leader in renewable energies. With a development focused on wind energy for several years and more recently on solar photovoltaic, now a second priority avenue of development, the Group is also present in other segments of the renewable energies market: small hydro, biomass, biofuel and biogas. In addition, the Group is expanding its presence in the distributed renewable energies sector in partnership with EDF.

EDF Energies Nouvelles is a 50 %-owned subsidiary of the EDF Group. Since November 2006, EDF Energies Nouvelles is listed in Euronext Paris, code “EEN”, ISIN code: FR0010400143).

www.edf-energies-nouvelles.com

Xcel Energy Inc., the owner of utilities in Denver and Minneapolis, may invest billions of dollars to boost wind-power capacity to take advantage of rising demand for cleaner energy.

Xcel, based in Minneapolis, wants to increase the wind-power farms it operates, rather than buying output from other power producers, chief executive Dick Kelly said Tuesday. It is targeting adding more than 1,000 megawatts through 2020.

Xcel distributes electricity from wind farms that have about 2,800 megawatts of capacity, of which it owns a fraction, or 25 megawatts. Xcel is investing about $210 million to build a farm in Minnesota capable of generating about 100 megawatts.

Wind-power investment “will probably be in the billions of dollars,” Kelly said at the Edison Electric Institute financial conference in Orlando, Fla. “That’s how we grow the company.”

Xcel estimates it will get 24 percent of its electricity from wind power and other renewable energy by 2020. It got about 9 percent last year. Wind power generates no pollution, unlike power plants fueled by coal, natural gas and oil.

The company needs to procure an additional 3,200 megawatts of wind power by 2020 and targets owning as much as 50 percent of that amount, Kelly said.

FPL Group Inc. is the nation’s largest producer of power from wind turbines. Other companies seeking to add wind-power capacity include AES Corp., Duke Energy Corp. and Edison International.

Xcel shares rose 35 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $22 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has dropped 4.6 percent this year.

One wonders how far along we are in the production cycle of wind farms and wind power……I would propose we have not even begun compared to the year 2020 projections. With moderate growth, the year 2020 would have 250,000 wind turbines installed producing power for the world. With aggressive growth, over 400,000 wind turbines will be up and humming power around the world. Given that GE has delivered over 10,000 wind turbines and Vestas has over 18,000 delivered to date, these numbers are not that far off imho. Here below is a report about the number of wind turbines and the predictions::::
Growth Statistics from GWEC..if we simply achieve our “Modest” growth estimates:by 2020 the world would need a total of 283,600 Turbines at 2.5mw each..if “Advanced” growth is reach at 432,400 Turbines would be needed.

Why is this forward looking statement important for future growth??? Well, with 45,000 wind turbines installed to date, this number of 283,000 is easily within striking distance especially with alot of expansion going on worldwide like Vestas and GE and Iberdrola and EDP all expanding globally into wind turbine production facilities. Vestas is great example building five new plants in Colorado and going from one wind turbine per every 4 hours to one wind turbine every hour 24/7/365 at end of 2010.