Installed wind generation capacity grew by a remarkable 38 per cent last year. About 7 GW came on line, bringing the total installed capacity worldwide to about 24.5 GW. As the wind energy lobby is fond of pointing out the amount of new wind capacity greatly exceeded new nuclear generating capacity in 2001, and has done so for the past few years. Considering that new nuclear build is virtually non-existent this is not a particularly telling comparison, and wind still remains a relatively small player in the overall energy picture. Nevertheless, having managed a compound annual capacity growth rate of about 27 per cent over the last ten years or so - admittedly from a very small base - wind technology is well on its way out of the niche and into the mainstream.
A recent significant indication of this is the spectacular entry of GE - bastion of gas, coal and nuclear technology - into the wind business with its purchase of Enron Wind Corp (see news story, p3). This has taken GE from nowhere in the world of renewables, even exhibiting hostility in some quarters, to proud owner of nothing less than the world's largest wind turbine maker. In announcing the purchase, due to be completed in the second quarter of 2002 - and requiring Enron Wind to suffer the indignity of filing a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 reorganisation in the US Bankruptcy Court - GE says it now sees wind as one of the fastest growing energy sectors. It is projecting the wind energy industry to "grow at an annual rate of about 20 per cent, with principal markets in Europe, the US and Latin America".
According to John Rice, president of GE Power Systems, this is his company's initial investment into "renewable wind power". Actually, while the purchase of Enron Wind is certainly GE's biggest investment in this sector, it is, strictly speaking, not the first. Back in the 70s, GE was involved in the ill-fated US government funded programme to develop wind technology in the wake of the 1973 Arab oil crisis. In many ways this programme's major contribution was to demonstrate how not to build wind turbines. One of the machines developed and built was GE's 2 MWe MOD 1, with a two-bladed downwind rotor. But unacceptable, and unpredicted, noise emissions from this turbine put an end to the project, and damaged the image of wind engineering for many years after.
GE can look forward to better things this time round. Enron Wind's revenues have grown from around $50 million in 1997, when Enron purchased wind turbine company Zond, to about $750 million today. This is, of course, peanuts in wider GE terms, but if growth continues at current rates it could be a useful contributor to the bottom line of GE Power Systems, which has revenues of a mere $20 billion per year.
Indeed, deep pockets, and a strong nerve, are going to be needed over the next few months in the US wind business. While 2001 was a record year for wind power in the United States, with some 1695 MWe of new generating capacity completed, the failure of Congress to extend the Production Tax Credit beyond the end of 2001 has, for the moment, killed the market stone dead. The dependence of the US industry on the Production Tax Credit, amounting to $0.017 per kWh sold by a producer in a project's first ten years, illustrates the continuing reliance of wind generation on government subsidies of one sort or another. The Production Tax Credit will be restored but it is hard to say when. The US wind industry will have to sit this one out.
As it contemplates its new purchase GE must be relieved that Enron Wind is well connected outside the United States, for example in Germany.
Germany remains the wunderkind of the wind power business. With the addition of about 2660 MWe of wind turbines in 2001 - compared with only about 700 MWe of gas-fired plant - installed wind generating capacity in Germany grew by around 44 per cent. Installed wind generating capacity now stands at 8745 MWe (about double that of the United States). But its share of total German electricity generation is still only about 3 per cent. The current German government has plans to increase that number dramatically and is talking about 25 per cent of German electricity being supplied from wind turbines. Many of these would be offshore, in colossal farms located in the North Sea and the Baltic. According to a recent strategy document on offshore wind, the German government is anticipating 500 MWe of offshore wind capacity by 2006, 2.3 GW by 2010, and no less than 25-30 GW by 2025. These numbers look extremely ambitious but are the kind of thing that will be needed if the current government's plans to phase out nuclear energy and replace it with renewables are to be realised.
With Enron Wind GmbH's involvement in the pioneering Utgrunden offshore project, GE can now view the prospect as a major opportunity rather than a threat.
Confusion in store
Accommodating all this intermittent and unpredictable wind generation is going to raise some very interesting challenges for the transmission and distribution systems. So it is no wonder that the energy storage business is bullish about its prospects. But does it really need two new bodies, with easily confused names and apparently similar missions, to promote its interests? One is called the Electricity Storage Association (electricitystorage.org) the other, which seems to have been set up more recently, is the Energy Storage Council (energystoragecouncil.org). Some rationalisation is needed here, surely.
Gone with the wind ?
While GE has made a major inroad into the wind power business through its Enron purchase, ABB's wind technology strategy is now looking uncertain with the cancellation of the 3 MWe Näsudden project. This was to have been a demonstration of ABB's Windformer technology, in which the principles of the Powerformer generator (see pp 40-42) are applied to wind turbine technology.
The problem may be that the economics of Windformer only work at very large turbine sizes, eg 5 MWe, and there is nothing of this size yet under construction.
Windformer, and its claimed ability to render wind turbines much more economic, was a central plank of ABB's much vaunted launch into alternative energy, which it announced with a high profile press conference in June 2000. Where does the cancellation of the Näsudden project leave that strategy?
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