Largest wind industry event underway

WINDPOWER 2007, the largest wind energy conference and exhibition in the world, is underway this morning in Los Angeles.

Over 400 exhibitors are participating, and 6,000 attendees are expected this year.

The event is addressing latest policy developments, business topics and technology advancements in the wind energy industry.

Vendor announcements of interest in conjunction with the show include:

Acciona gets €300 order

• Acciona SA of Spain said its Acciona Windpower unit has been awarded an order worth more than €300 million to supply 200 wind turbines to a wind farm in Montana being built by Spanish renewable energy group Naturener. The turbines, with total installed capacity of 300 MW, are to be installed at Naturener's McCormick Ranch wind farm next year.

Mitsubishi lands sumo-size orders

• Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) says it's received "massive orders" for its wind turbine power generation systems from five major U.S. wind power generation developers. The wind turbines ordered total 788 units with collective power generation capacity of 1,363.4 MW (megawatts). The company says the collective generation capacity of the systems on order is almost equal to Japan's total wind turbine power generation capacity (as of the end of March 2007, 1,495.27 MW, generated by 1,314 units.) It's the first time MHI says it's received such a large amount of orders within such a short period.

Second Wind's new SODAR product

• Instrumentation and software company Second Wind is working to make SODAR more accessible and affordable. [ed.: Yup, SODAR is correct; we don't have a cold.] SODAR is an acronym for sound detection and ranging, and is similar to the sonar technology used by submarines and ships. It sends an audible "chirp" up through the air, and wind turbulence sends a portion of the sound back toward the ground. By precisely measuring the frequency and time delay of the chirp's echo, the sodar device measures the wind speed and direction at various heights. Second Wind says its new Triton sonic wind profiler addresses the common challenges that have limited the use of sodar for wind resource assessment. Currently in field testing, the new product was officially unveiled at the show.

FirstLook from 3TIER

• 3TIER's Firstlook Assessment is a new web-based tool that provides a fast wind and power resource assessment, based on a wind map developed by 3TIER and geographic data. Looking to find a good wind site? "Firstlook does exactly what its name says: it provides an initial look at potential wind sites for customers, but at $2,500 it is a tenth the price of a traditional wind assessment," said Kenneth Westrick, founder and CEO of 3TIER. The company is based in Seattle.

General Compression appoints CTO

• General Compression, a company working to make wind power dispatchable (i.e. available when the wind isn't necessarily blowing) today announced that Rahul Yarala has joined the company as Chief Technology Officer of Turbine Development. The company is pursuing special turbines to be able to compress air for storage at the same time as generating electric power (for details, see the Cleantech Group's General Compression aims to double wind farm profits.) Yarala previously was Director of Engineering at Clipper Windpower.

U.S. wind power capacity increased by 27 percent in 2006 and the country had the fastest growing wind power capacity in the world in 2005 and 2006, according to Energy Department's first Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, and Performance Trends, released Friday.

That said, the U.S. represents only roughly 16 percent of the worldwide wind market, followed by Germany, India, Spain, and China.

And all is not fully well in the American industry, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), which produces the WINDPOWER 2007 event.

A recent measure introduced by U.S. Congressman Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, would "essentially outlaw the generation of electricity from new wind power plants in the United States and even phase out power production from existing wind turbines," according to AWEA.

The provision, Subtitle D of H.R. 2337, would bar any new wind power project until new Fish and Wildlife Service, FWS, rules are issued and require FWS certification of every turbine, even small residential units.

The bill would make it a crime, punishable by a $50,000 fine or a year in jail, to construct or generate electricity from an unapproved turbine, even for home use.

AWEA says the certification process would undermine state and federal efforts to promote renewable electricity generation and create an unworkable bureaucracy that will delay wind energy projects throughout the United States.

The U.S. wind energy industry installed over 2,400 megawatts of generating capacity in 2006—making wind the second-largest largest source of new power generation in the country. AWEA estimates the industry will install over 3,000 megawatts in 2007.

The WINDPOWER 2007 expo is taking place until June 6th at the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown L.A.

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