INSTALLED U.S. WIND POWER CAPACITY SURGED 45% IN 2007

[JohnWxy]

In 2006 the wind power industry predicted 3,000 megawatts would be installed in 2007. The actual number?: 5,244 megawatts!



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Shattering all its previous records, the U.S. wind energy industry installed 5,244 megawatts (MW) in 2007, expanding the nation’s total wind power generating capacity by 45% in a single calendar year and injecting an investment of over $9 billion into the economy, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) announced today. The new wind projects account for about 30% of the entire new power-producing capacity added nationally in 2007 and will power the equivalent of 1.5 million American households annually while strengthening U.S. energy supply with clean, homegrown electric power.



http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/AWEA_Market_Release_Q4_011708.html


Wind power’s strong performance is expected to continue this year, with AWEA’s initial estimates indicating that 2008 could equal 2007 in new wind capacity installed. Developers report that with strong demand for wind power across the country, wind turbines are sold out for the year. However, AWEA projects that with more companies entering the market, more turbines will become available. The pace of growth in 2008 and beyond is expected to largely depend, not on turbine availability, but on the timing and duration of an extension of the federal production tax credit.

Report highlights include:

Installations in the last quarter of 2007 alone (2,930 MW) surpassed the amount installed in all of 2006 (2,454 MW).

Texas consolidates its lead; wind power also expands at a strong pace in Midwest and Northwest.
Investment is flowing into the wind power supply chain.

At least fourteen new manufacturing facilities opened or were announced in 2007, according to initial AWEA estimates. Companies are opening new manufacturing plants and expanding existing ones, creating new jobs and business opportunities across the country, even in states that do not have a large wind resource.
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Note, as production capacity (for producing wind generators) expands installations will continue strong growth although it will take years for producion capacity to catch up to demand for wind generators.

Something else that makes simple extrapolaions of wind power installed problematic is that the wind turbines being installed now have twice the generating capacity of wind turbines installed only a few years ago. http://www.awea.org/pubs/documents/Outlook_2007.pdf

"Today’s wind turbines are twice as powerful
on average as those installed just six years
ago (the average generating capacity of a
turbine installed in 2006 was 1.6 MW, up from
0.76 MW in 2000) and generate enough
electricity to serve the equivalent of 400
homes or more. The largest wind turbines
installed in 2006 – in Rio Vista, California
– are again twice that size (3 MW)."


Future technological improvements are certainly possible and can never be taken into acount in simplistic mathematical extrapolations (no matter what the precision of the prediction it's still limited by the applicability of data which will become obsolete with technological improvements and change).


that being said, still wind power cannot be developed as fast as we would like it to be but we can do much more by, for example haveing government underwrite loans to wind generator manufacturers enabling faster expansion of production capacity.


New technologies are fraught with difficulties in predicting growth since new technologies breed other new technologies which wouldn't have been developed without the first new technology creating a demand and economies of scale (of production) making them feasible.

for example the development of ethanol as transportation fuel source has lead Ford MOtor Co. and scientists at MIT to develop the Direct Injection Ethanol Engine. A turbo charged engine using 5% ethanol and 95% gasoline to achieve a 25% to 30% reduction in fuel consumption. NOte ths is with 5% ethanol. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/10/startup_working.html

MIT scientists and engineers earlier this year founded a company—Ethanol Boosting Systems, LLC (EBS)—to commercialize their work on direct-injection ethanol boosting combined with aggressive turbocharging in a gasoline engine. (Earlier post.) The result is a gasoline engine with the fuel efficiency of current hybrids or turbodiesels—up to 30% better than a conventional gasoline engine—but at lower cost.

EBS has a collaborative R&D agreement with Ford, and anticipates engine tests in 2007 with subsequent licensing to Ford and other automakers. If all goes as expected, vehicles with the new engine could be on the road by 2011.

The foundation of the approach is the enhanced knock suppression resulting from the separate, direct injection of small amounts of ethanol into the cylinder in addition to the main gasoline fuel charge.



The ethanol-boosted engine could provide efficiency gains comparable to those of today’s hybrid engine systems for less extra investment: about $1,000 as opposed to $3,000 to $5,000. The engine should use less than five gallons of ethanol for every 100 gallons of gasoline, so drivers would need to fill their ethanol tank only every one to three months. The ethanol used could be E85.

This level of compression and therefore this engine, would not be possible without using ethanol which has an ocatane of 115 whereas gasoliine is about 92-93 (high test). http://www.ethanolboost.com/LFEE-2005-01.pdf

That's what's exciting about technological change it often leads to new technologies or new applications of old technologies not possible before. This all makes simple mathematical extrapolations based on old data very limited in it's power to predict future trends.