Wind turbine order

Siemens Power Generation is to supply 86 wind turbines with a capacity of 2.3MW each for the Canadian Wolfe Island Wind project, which is located near Kingston in Eastern Ontario.

The purchaser is a subsidiary of Canadian Hydro Developers, a company that is exclusively investing in renewable energy projects in Canada. With an installed capacity of nearly 200MW, the wind project will have the potential to provide power to nearly 75,000 households. The wind farm itself is scheduled to be operational in 2008.

So far this calendar year, Siemens has secured wind turbine orders totaling more than 750MW in North America. The combined value of these orders exceeds $1.1bn.

Prior to the new order from Canada, Siemens had received five major US wind orders with a total capacity of more than 550MW in 2007. Customers include RES, Babcock and Brown, AES Corporation and Mid American Energy. Further project negotiations in the US and Canada are expected to be completed shortly, adding to the order backlog.

Since Siemens entered the wind market just three years ago, the company has become the second largest wind turbine supplier to the US market.  With an average annual growth rate of approximately 25 per cent, the North American market is expected to continue to be the second largest regional market in terms of total installed capacity, just behind Europe.

To meet the fast-growing demand for wind power in North America, Siemens has opened a new 30,000-square-metre turbine blade manufacturing facility in Fort Madison, Iowa. The first wind turbine blades manufactured at this new Siemens factory have already been delivered to the Babcock and Brown Sweetwater 5 wind farm in Texas.