Wind

by Debra Fiakas CFA Last month wind tower manufacturer Broadwind Energy (BWEN:  Nasdaq) announced a major new tower order from a major U.S. wind turbine manufacturer. The customer was not named, but the likely suspects are not hard to round up.  General Electric (GE:  NYSE) is the largest U.S.-based wind turbine producer with about 9.1% of the total world market according to BTM Navigant, an industry research firm.  While substantially smaller in size, Northern Power Systems, PacWind and Xzeres are also important competitors in the wind energy industry.   Clearly General Electric as a customer has the greatest financial...

Worldchanging.com has an article about former soviet weapons designers working with Lawrence Berkely National Latoratory to design a new vertical axis wind turbine. Lawrence Berkeley helped form a new company, known as Wind Sail, to commercialize the new turbine for this Russian group.

As mentioned in a previous entry, the Pennsylvania legislature passed SB1030, the Alternative Energy Bill, on November 20, 2004 which will require a total of 18% of Pennsylvania's electricity to be generated by alternative energy sources by 2020. The standard requires 8% of Pennsylvania's electricity to be generated by so-called "Tier I" renewable sources of energy by 2020. Tier I resources include solar, wind, geothermal and biomass. The standard also requires 10% of the state's electricity to come from a second category of resources that include waste coal, integrated combined coal gasification technology, municipal solid waste, large-scale hydro,...

Tom Konrad CFA I published my rebuttal to John Petersen's recent article "Gone With The Wind – Debunking Geographic Diversity" on November 1st last year.  It was titled Alternative Energy: The Paradigm is the Problem.  That article had two parts.  The first part focused on electric vehicles, and argued that the problem with the electric car was not electric propulsion, but the car paradigm.  I concluded that electric propulsion makes considerably more sense for electric bikes, trains, and buses.  John clearly understood that section, because he published an article just last week "Lux Research Confirms that...

On February 26, 2008, a drop in wind generation by about 1400 MW over ten minutes, coupled with an increase in demand of 4412 MW due to colder weather, and lower-than scheduled production from other power suppliers, led ERCOT, the Texas grid operator to cut 1100 MW of power to interruptible customers for about 90 minutes.   Misconceptions All these facts come from a Reuters article misleadingly titled "Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency."  I was dismayed a few weeks ago when this misleading reporting led the generally insightful Master Resource Report to conclude "This is a clear...

Meg Cichon AMSC (NASD:AMSC) will shutter its manufacturing facility in Middleton, Wisconsin by the end of 2014, but hopes to fold its product development operations and employees that are willing to relocate into its headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts, which recently underwent a workforce reduction. While it consolidates its U.S. workforce, AMSC plans to open a new wind turbine controls manufacturing facility in Timisoara, Romania in 2014, which will serve all of its clients outside of China. Its Chinese facility will continue to cater solely to China customers. With this move, AMSC corporate communications manager Kerry Farrell said it has...

John Petersen During the fourteen years that I've lived in Switzerland, the Germans have been the world's staunchest supporters of green power and alternative energy. Their aggressive development of wind power was breathtaking, as was their warm embrace of photovoltaic power. Over the last few weeks, however, there has been an ominous change in the mainstream German media's tone as the political class finally comes to grips with the unpleasant reality that rooftop solar panels are worthless on short, grey winter days and "For weeks now, the 1.1 million solar power systems in Germany have generated almost no...

New York will dramatically boost its reliance on renewable energy sources like wind and water over the next nine years under a policy approved by state regulators Wednesday. Clean energy advocates and state officials said the action by the state Public Service Commission places New York among the leaders nationwide in the development of renewable energy. It comes 20 months after Gov. George Pataki first called for a statewide standard that would encourage the production of environmentally friendly energy.

I took 2 long positions yesterday (1 in my normal trading account and the other in my retirement account) in an emerging Canadian integrator of megawatt-sized wind energy conversion systems (i.e turbines) called AAER Inc . Besides turbine assembly, the company also provides a range of services to clients in the wind industry, ranging from assistance in project planning and financing to post-installation maintenance. Now it must be said from the outset that is a very speculative play on North American wind and not suitable for all investors. I entered one of my positions at C$0.38 and the...

Part 2 of 2 Bill Paul Neither Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. Ltd., which trades OTC under the symbol DWOTF, nor Ener1 Inc., which trades on NASDAQ under the symbol HEV, is an obvious candidate for having hidden potential. Heck, Daewoo isn’t even a green energy stock. Or is it? Lost in the hubbub of Copenhagen and Congress, there’s been important news about both these companies that strongly suggests – at least to me – that each has plenty of undiscovered potential that will really start paying off over the next 18 to 24...

FPL Group Inc (FPL) places order from Siemens to build wind turbines for FPL. They expect to install the new turbines in 2006.

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved renewal permits held by wind power companies like FPL Group Inc (FPL), and other wind generators to produce electricity at the 584-megawatt Altamont Pass wind farm, one of the world's largest wind energy centers. One key stipulation for the renewal is that the wind power companies need to replace over 5,000 windmills over the next 13 years with 500 more efficient turbines with high blades that spin above the birds' flight paths. This may seem like a win for the wind farm utilities, but it comes with a price....

Universal Communication Systems Inc (UCSY) announced that the company has developed a new, exclusive energy application utilizing "wind power" technology for energy co-generation for use with AirWater machines.