Danish Wind Turbine Industry Spins $3.5 Billion in 2002 and Looks to Major Australian Projects

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Windpower covered 15% of Denmark's electrical power demand in 2002 and this wind energy supply figure is forecast to go up to 17% for the country by the end of 2003. Denmark was the first country to use wind energy for electricity production and currently claims 50% of worldwide production.

Denmark is also the world leader in wind turbine production and saw sales in the sector increase by 7% in 2002. The average power output of all turbines sold both at home and abroad was rated at 1.2 MW, which is the first year that the one MW rating has been surpassed. 88% of sales were export based and the total gross was around $3.5 billion.

The Danish association of turbine makers reports that the increase in sales last year represented a rise in windpower of 5%, for a total of 3,614 MW or around 50% of the world's total production of 6,868 MW. Germany remained the largest market for the Danish manufacturers taking 38% of sales corresponding to 1,364 MW followed by Denmark with 526 MW.

A good customer for growing turbine sales in the near future will be Australia, where Australian Wind Technology, owned by the Vestas group (COPENHAGEN: VESTA/DK 0010268606) (Ringkobing, Denmark), has this month received a $70 million turnkey contract for 46 units of Vestas V66/1.75 MW turbines, a remote monitoring system, foundations, electrical and civil infrastructure as well as operation and maintenance of the power plant.

The 80.5 MW Lake Bonney Wind Farm project, which is sited near Millicent in South Australia, is scheduled for completion at the beginning of 2005. This represents stage one of the project. When fully developed, it is proposed that the farm should have an installed capacity of 200 MW according to Babcock and Brown (Sydney, New South Wales) and Australia's independent National Power Company who are looking to develop a series of wind energy projects together in South Australia and other states.

With a total cost of $150 million stage one of the full generation capacity of the Lake Bonney project has been sold under contract to the electricity distributor and retailer Country Energy (Bathurst, New South Wales). Construction of stage two will begin early in 2004.

Babcock and Brown director, Warren Murphy believes that appropriately structured windfarm investments will realize attractive returns for his company's investors, while generating significant environmental benefits by reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions on a sustainable basis. He has stated that the Lake Bonney site exhibits the three key attributes for a successful wind energy project; a strong proven wind resource, a reasonable proximity to the transmission grid, and strong local community support. Babcock and Brown have been involved in over 1,000 MW of wind energy projects as financial adviser and/or co-developer including major windfarms in Spain, Italy, and the US.

South Australia currently has around 1,400 MW of planned wind generation projects of the total of 1,743 MW of wind projects in hand in the country according to the Australian Wind energy Association (AWEA). South Australia is said to have a total of 2,500 MW of wind projects under discussion. The association reports that everybody is claiming to be building what will be the country's largest windfarm and suggests that the proposed 300MW Granville Harbor windfarm in Tasmania gives an idea of the capacity that can be produced in the future.

One windy topic which may well lead to prolonged disputation is the claim by Danish wind aficionados that local meteorologist Poul La Cour made a groundbreaking discovery in 1891 when he experimented with a generator hooked up to a windmill which he used to generate electricity for lighting in a school and thus earned the right to be pioneer of wind energy. Come on, it must have been an American, a Russian or a German or an Italian and hey what about the French or the English and then there are the Arabian technologists and the Chinese. Probably Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo, a Dutch miller, Faraday or Edison. Let the blowhard counter-bids begin with no offence intended to the Danes, they're getting the business anyway.