GE WIND

They say the wind business has been slow to expand because nobody can own the wind but maybe its only been slow while GE was figuring how it could get its piece of the action. More power to 'em!

GE to Supply Additional 600 Megawatts of Wind Turbines to Invenergy; Contracts Now Total 1,200 MW For US, Canada Projects
May 1, 2007 (Business Wire via Yahoo Finance)

WHO
GE Energy, Invenergy Wind LLC
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WHAT
GE Energy announced the sale of turbines capable of generating 600 megawatts of electricity from wind to Invenergy Wind LLC. This adds to a previous 600 megawatt turbine sale by GE to Invenergy.

WHEN
New sale for 2008; previous sale for 2007.

WHERE
Invenergy Wind LLC will use the turbines for wind energy installations throughout the US and Canada.

WHY
- GE Energy is the leading technology and services supplier to the US wind industry. The machines purchased are designed to individually generate 1.5 megawatts. There are 6000 of them in service worldwide. The 1200 megawatts is estimated to be adequate for 300,000 homes (@ 1megawatt/250-300 homes).
- From the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA): GE Energy provided more than 45% of new wind capacity in 2006. US wind capacity increased 27% in 2006 and will increase 26% in 2007. The US installed 2.4 gigawatts of wind energy in 2006, more than half by GE. Total for US: 31 billion kilowatt-hours/year of wind energy, electricity for to 2.9 million homes, displacing 23 million tons of CO2.
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QUOTES
- Victor Abate, vice president-renewables for GE Energy: "Working with Invenergy on such a large scale to implement a renewable energy addition to the North American grid represents one of our larger commercial agreements this year…The United States and Canada have vast wind energy resources and Invenergy continues to demonstrate strong industry leadership and innovation in the development of that potential…while we also continue to invest in new technology that will further increase the reliability and efficiency of wind power production."
- Michael Polsky, CEO of Invenergy: "We are excited about the future of wind energy in the United States and Canada, and are pleased to utilize GE technology to further increase the supply of clean, wind-generated electricity."