GE: Plenty of Tailwinds for Wind Power
How bullish is General Electric on wind power?
GE, the biggest U.S. maker of wind turbines, told Reuters yesterday that 2008 revenues from turbine sales could approach $6 billion (HT: Solve Climate.)
That could mean as much as 4.2 gigawatts of turbines in 2008, if order-book prices from market-leader and price-setter Vestas are any guide. How much is that? Almost as much wind power as the U.S. installed last year. Or, about 20% of last year’s record-breaking installation. Or, just under 5% of all the wind power installed in the world today.
Vestas just upped its revenue estimate for 2007 to $7 billion on the back of strong demand. The rule of thumb, which squares with Vestas’ own figures, is that a gigawatt of wind turbines sells for about 1 billion euros, or about $1.4 billion. (Turbine makers generally produce a range of smallish, medium-sized, and giant turbines, which is why they measure sales by capacity rather than just counting the units.)
Demand for wind power everywhere is so strong that GE says its turbine dance card is filled through 2010. That’s to be expected: A dicey supply-chain situation has all manufacturers struggling to keep up with orders from around the world.
There are plenty of tailwinds for clean energy, including campaign-trail rhetoric, European and Asian incentives, stubborn fossil fuel prices, and climate-change fears. But the U.S. Congress has yet to extend tax credits for renewable energy, crucial to the sector’s development, and state-level support remains patchwork.
That clearly hasn’t curbed GE’s enthusiasm. Maybe that will pay off next week when the House again tackles clean-energy credits.
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