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GE Sees More Casualties in Wind and Solar

(Reuters) – General Electric Co. expects increased competition and a reduction in subsidies by cash-strapped governments to lead to more companies exiting the wind and solar power businesses, but the industrial behemoth still sees growing long-term demand.

“There’s going to be a lot of casualties in the wind and solar businesses, there already are in solar,” John Krenicki, who leads GE’s energy division, told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

The U.S. may see an uptick in orders in 2012, prompted by the expiry of government incentives at the end of the year. However, the outlook for government support in the U.S. and Europe, in part do to economic woes, was not positive.

“I don’t expect a 100 percent withdrawal of credits but I expect change, so maybe less,” he added.

Nonetheless, GE expects the long-term demand for wind equipment to continue growing, especially as technological improvements made even the most economically challenging parts of the industry less reliant on legislated support.

GE Energy manufactures thin film solar panels and systems and is one of the biggest players in the wind turbine manufacturing business.

As we’ve discussed numerous times here on Cleantechnica, investment in clean tech is soaring and clean tech is now the top venture capital investment category in the world. Clean tech is where the jobs of the future are, and the countries that lead in the clean energy race are the countries that are going to lead in the global economy. China is clearly the country putting the most into clean energy these days and no amount of whining by the US is going to be able to stop this.

Indian wind energy giant Suzlon (“the largest wind turbine manufacturer in Asia”) has taken note of this and is now looking to expand into its next-door neighbor’s market a little more. “China is all set to emerge as the wind energy hotspot of the future, according to Tulsi Tanti, chairman of Suzlon Energy.”

China was at about  20 gigawatts of wind energy capacity at the end of last year but has announced that it plans to hit 90 gigawatts by 2015. Tanti is confident Suzlon can provide a lot of that.

“We are bringing the Chinese price with German technology. We are quite comfortable that we will get more business from the China market,” he said.

Suzlon currently has about 530MW of installed wind energy capacity in China, making it the 8th-largest wind energy company in China.

Suzlon has focused much of its efforts on its domestic market and now is responsible for about 30% of India’s total renewable energy installations. I am curious to see if a greater focus on the Chinese market can bring the same results in that fast-growing region.

For more on the history of Suzlon, read Mridul’s September story on the company.

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Photo Credit: Suzlon wind turbine by nateOne via flickr (CC license)

Ecotricity's wind-powered electric car, the Nemesis

We generally leave news on electric cars to our sister site, Gas2.org, but from time to time it seems necessary to cover such news here on Cleantechnica as well. UK clean energy company Ecotricity has been working for years on developing an electric car that gets all of its power from wind energy. The car, called the Nemesis, was unveiled last week, and will apparently try to break the British land speed record of 139 mph in 2011, a record that has been sitting in place since 2000.

The Nemesis is reportedly a 170mph electric sports car that gets its energy from Ecotricity’s 51 UK wind turbines.

Dale Vince commissioned the car and intends to “blow the socks off Jeremy Clarkson and smash the stereotype of electric cars” with it. He has blogged about the development of this unique car regularly on Zero Carbonista.

“We wanted to prove electric cars can be quick to develop, beautiful to look at, cheap to run, and run entirely on wind power,” said Vince. “I was not looking for something ecological, worthy and a bit self-sacrificial, far from it. I wanted to create something exotic and desirable. Something that would turn heads and challenge stereotypes.”

Of course, we are all eagerly awaiting news on the development and availability of cool new electric vehicles, but if these electric vehicles are being charged from coal power plants, that doesn’t really do us much good. The Nemesis and Ecotricity address that issue and Vince  claims that this is a really practical technology option.

“What will our transport look like, post oil and post carbon? The answer has to be wind-powered vehicles, charged using renewable energy for the ultimate in sustainability – zero pollution, from fuel sources like the wind and sun that will never run out… we could power all of the UK’s 30 million cars with 10,000 of today’s windmills – or just 5,000 of tomorrow’s.”

Looks like a cool idea. If you have any more info or views on this vehicle, share below.

Photo Credit: Ecotricity

A new clean tech company called Totempower Energy Systems Ltd. has come up with an easy way to put wind power within the grasp of everyday homeowners. The company is developing new micro-wind turbines that are designed for close quarters and non-disruptive installation, but the real key to getting more micro-wind turbines into consumers’ hands is the company’s “ease of ownership” plan which provides a soup-to-nuts service including site selection and connecting the turbine to the home electrical system.

Taking the Work out of Wind Power

Totempower’s approach is similar to that of CleanTechnica’s former host, One Block Off the Grid (1bog.org), which arranges group discounts for solar energy installations, performed by pre-vetted solar companies. It relieves homeowners a considerable amount of time that would otherwise be spent in educating oneself about wind power, figuring out if one’s property includes an appropriate location (which includes any local regulations or permitting processes), shopping for a suitable system, and finding a  reputable company to install it. Totempower’s system is designed for easy no-excavation installation, and easy maintenance.

Totempower’s New Micro-Wind Turbine

The new wind turbine was developed under a partnership with the City University London, based on a patented, low cost technology developed by the University called the Passive Air-jet Vortex Generator. The high-efficiency aerodynamics enable the turbine to operate at lower speeds, which presumably would help mute the any noise. More to the point, Totempower’s goal is to make wind turbine ownership as simple as owning any other standard home energy device such as a furnace or hot water heater. Testing at the University is under way and the company hopes to secure financing to bring two models into production by 2012 – a smaller model for individual homes and a larger one for commercial facilities or community power generation.

Image: Kites in the wind by ronnie44052 on flickr.com.

La Niña is expected to continue and increase in strength this winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently reported. Among other things, this means that wind speeds and wind energy production are also expected to increase.

At the request of its wind energy clients, 3TIER®, “the global leader in renewable energy information services,” released maps last week showing expected wind speed projections for the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 across most of the U.S.

“Our clients have responded very positively to our retrospective anomaly maps that show deviations from normal wind for past quarters. However, they have also told us that what they really want is a forecast for the next one or two quarters, especially when they are hearing about La Niña and its effects on climate all over the news,” said Pascal Storck, 3TIER’s Vice President of Advanced Applications.

To create our prediction, we performed a historical analysis of La Niña impacts on weather across the U.S. for the past 40 years. Our data show that if the La Niña event persists, as is forecasted by the global climate modeling community, many of the wind projects across the country should have a very good first quarter. This is a nice change from the first quarter of 2010 when many of the U.S. wind projects experienced below average wind speeds due to a strong El Niño effect.

Looks like good news for wind energy overall. However, the rather important wind energy corridor of West Texas and much of the upper Midwest and Northeast look like they won’t be getting much benefit from La Niña until 2011.

Map Credits: 3TIER®