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19 October 2004 - GE Energy announced Monday that it has secured contracts to supply more than 750 MW of wind turbines for new 2004-2005 projects in the US, and has received commitments for another 750 MW. In total, the orders and commitments are valued at more than $1.3bn.
"The federal government's recent extension of the Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) has, again, provided a tremendous impetus for the wind industry in the U.S.," said Steve Zwolinski, CEO of GE Energy's wind energy division. "Many leading developers of wind projects now are encouraged to move forward with their plans to significantly increase the country's supply of wind electricity."
The PTC provides a 1.8-cent per kilowatt hour credit (adjusted annually for inflation) for electricity produced during the first 20 years of a wind project's operation. With the extension, the PTC will remain in place through December of 2005, and is expected to spur a new wave of wind energy installations across the country. According to American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) executive director Randall Swisher, the extension "means that approximately $3bn in wind energy investments forecast over the next several years are now back on track across the country."
In Europe and Asia, GE Energy's wind energy business has been expanding at a steady pace due to the adoption by many nations of government policy that supports the continued long-term growth of renewables. In Denmark, wind accounts for 20 per cent of the country's electricity. Germany, a much larger nation, has achieved 5.9 per cent. In the US, wind energy provides less than 1 per cent of the energy mix, which currently comes from coal (over 50 per cent), nuclear (20 per cent) and natural gas (18 per cent), with hydropower making up most of the rest. Under an aggressive growth scenario, according to the American Wind Energy Association, perhaps 6 per cent of the nation's electricity could be supplied by wind by year 2020. Still, the US is holder of the world's third largest wind power capacity, behind Germany and Spain, much smaller nations in terms of size.
The new contracts announced by GE Energy today include projects in Iowa, Minnesota, Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Oregon and California. All of the projects will use GE's 1.5 MW wind turbines, which are the largest wind turbines assembled in the United States, and are the most widely sold and tested megawatt class wind turbines in the world. GE recently announced the installation of its 2500th 1.5 MW machine for a project in Italy.
The announcement of the new US projects follows on the heels of the October 4 announcement that GE Energy was selected to supply up to 660 wind turbines totalling 990 MW of wind-generated electricity for eight projects in Quebec, Canada. Those projects will be placed on-line between 2006 and 2012.
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