Global demand for wind energy leads to turbine shortage

Mining Chronicle
September, 2007 Page: 25

The massive surge of interest in renewable and sustainable energy has created a worldwide shortage of wind turbines. Suppliers are being pushed to keep up with the demand for turbines as wind energy has become the world's fastest growing clean power technology - due to businesses and governments trying to meet emission targets.

The situation in Australia is no different according to Auswind, the national wind energy industry association. Auswind communications manager Irena Bukhstaber said wind energy was rapidly gaining significance in the Australian market. "For a while it was a boutique industry, worth about 1 per cent - now, in terms of large scale alternative energy production, it's the only game in town," Ms Bukhstaber said.

"In Australia, the drought, strange weather, Al Gore and even Arnold Schwarzenegger have all contributed to enormous amounts of growth in the industry. The demand for wind energy has exploded." Currently there are more than 40 operational wind farms in Australia - over 560 turbines - producing around 2,500 gigawatt hours of power annually.

Production of wind turbines has been slowed down as the worldwide demand has made the sourcing of key components problematic. "In Australia we make most of the components but there is one which has to be made overseas. It's this component which is creating the backlog internationally," Ms Bukhstaber said. "But we anticipate things will sort themselves out soon." In a newspaper interview British Wind Energy Association director of economics Dr Gordon Edge said the US market was buying a large proportion of available wind turbines. "The US industry is going hell for leather at the moment and relying on imports of wind turbines from Europe," Dr Edge said. "People are ordering turbines now for delivery in 2009 and smaller players are losing out.

Globally, it's going to take two or three years for us to catch up on demand." A US report from Emerging Energy Research said the country's wind energy industry has quickly responded to the growing demand for renewable energy. EER estimates wind projects capable of producing more than 125GW of power, are in various stages of development.

With more than US$65bn forecasted to be invested in additional wind capacity between 2007 and 2015, the US is projected to rank first in the world in cumulative installed wind capacity with approximately 19 per cent of global wind market share by the end of 2015; according to EER's most recent study.