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US Gets First Offshore Wind Turbine Factory
While we don't have any offshore wind farms up and running yet, we're getting closer everyday -- a few projects have gotten approval for construction and even more are in the planning stages, but until now, the turbines for those projects would have to come from Europe. Well, not anymore. Wind energy company Gamesa has opened the country's first offshore wind turbine factory in Norfolk, VA.
The factory is ideally located on the Mid-Atlantic coast close to many sites that have been identified as prime for offshore wind power. Gamesa isn't saying who their first customer will be, but the company did say that it's looking to install turbines off the coast of Virginia, which so far has no planned projects, as well as three other yet-to-be-disclosed East Coast sites.
The company is designing two 5-MG G11 turbine prototypes, with one being installed on land and one offshore for testing by the end of 2012. The final product will be sold to wind farms both domestically and internationally.
If the U.S. government has anything to do with it, Gamesa will have a lot of customers. The DOE has announced a goal to take our installed offshore wind capacity from near zero to 10,000 MW by 2020 and then to 54,000 MW by 2030.
Fuente: http://www.ecogeek.org
