Vestas Takes Order For 120 1.65 MW Wind Turbines - Reuters

COPENHAGEN - "Denmark's Vestas, the world's biggest wind-turbine maker, won its fourth large order from the United States this year, the company said on Tuesday. The order for 120 of its 1.65 megawatt V82 turbines, for the Maple Ridge Wind Farm in New York, added 198 megawatts to Vestas's order book.

In February and March, Vestas won three orders totalling about 420 megawatts for the US market.

Vestas shares opened higher, and were up 1.8 percent at 83.00 crowns at 0705 GMT.

The company, whose shares last month dived more than 10 percent after a surprise 2004 profit warning, did not divulge the value of the orders, but historically in the industry one megawatt of wind power capacity sells for roughly 1 million euros ($1.3 million)."

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30260/story.htm

We could just as easily have been the leaders in wind turbine manufacturing. But instead of putting thousands of people to work in this country, we have to import them from Denmark.

construction takes place here in the U.S.

This really should be a growth area, since our Great Plains lie underneath a terrific wind resource. You'd think it would make sense to manufacture turbines near the resource, say, in St. Louis or Kansas City. Those spots need jobs.

Of corse GE Wind Energy doesnt exist...

http://www.gepower.com/businesses/ge_wind_energy/en/index.htm

and they manufacture the largest wind turbines (3.6 MW) on the market today...

IMO, the wind industry should try to develope,
seasonal {spring, fall} and interruptable customers.
Expecting others to supply reserve for no-wind
situations, makes those people angry.

The wind indusrty's mantra is:
reserve is somebody else's problem.
OK, whatever.

can be oil, gas, or coal.

Particularly those gas turbines that store energy in the peak times by compressing air in a cave or mine, and then use that compressed air to bypass the compressor stage of the turbine, resulting in very high efficiencies.

Or the reserve can be economic conservation, if we let them charge variable rates.

It would be nice if it was... it would be like having "too much" money.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations I've seen indicate 30% wind generation is where things start to get dicey in robust electric power networks.

Exsisting U.S. power networks are rather brittle, however, as demonstrated by the great blackout of 2001. There are too many utilities trying to squeeze every last penney out of aging, archaic power systems.

Perhaps this is why you mention this problem?

In the future, when natural gas becomes expensive, we might use any "excess" electricity generated from wind, etc., to make hydrogen. This hydrogen could then be used as a feedstock in the chemical industry.

As a sidenote, I don't believe hydrogen powered vehicles will ever be practical unless there are many unexpected innovations in in both fuel cell and hydrogen storage technology.

When a company like GM talks about hydrogen powered cars, they are simply blowing smoke in your face. The fate of the EV-1 program demonstrates that. GM proved they were more concerned about mundane liability and intellectual property issues than they were about innovation when they decided to scrap these cars rather than sell them to the people they were leasing them to.