Canada, Montreal, 23rd January:

Hydro-Québec, a Québec state-owned electricity utility, is tendering for new wind farms and Repower Systems AG wants a big part of the pie.

According to the Gazette, ". . . among the scores of companies - Canadian and international - that participated in Hydro-Québec's current call for tender of 2,000 megawatts of wind power was REpower Systems, a German-based giant that has yet to make its mark in Canada".

and . . .

"Interest in the Quebec tender is intense. More than 25 developers proffered 66 bids for wind farms in proposals totalling more than 7,700 megawatts, or almost four times the amount that Hydro-Québec is seeking to add to its network. The new wind farms are expected to generate about $4 billion of investment".

If you're a West European wind turbine manufacturer, expanding in Canada makes a lot of sense. Deep down, I suspect many of them believe that the onshore West European wind boom, although not over, has its best years behind it. The other fastest growing markets over the next decade have to be the USA, South America and of course, Asia. Even the announcement yesterday ago by the European Union of even more ambitious - and less deliverable - renewables targets can't really change this.

Vestas Wind Systems, the Italian division, has just received an order for 27 units of its 850kW V52 wind turbine which will be deployed at the Castel di Lucio wind farm located near Messina in Sicily. The contract includes the supply, installation, and commissioning of the turbines, as well as a five-year service and availability agreement.

Here is a picture of a V52 in action.

The prevailing view a few years ago was that wind turbines would get bigger and bigger - each time you double the size of the windswept area, your receive an eight-fold increase in power. Commercially though for the time being as far as size is concerned, we've been stuck at 5 MW turbines and no one is buying them much.

So why is the Vestas V52 still popular?

According the Vestas website, "... the V52-850 kW, is extremely reliable, and well suited to sites with restricted access or complex terrain. Compact dimensions make the V52 easy to transport and install".