The American Wind Energy Association today announced that the U.S. wind industry installed 539 megawatts (MW) in the first quarter of 2010, the lowest first quarter figure since 2007. While the industry worked diligently to accelerate shovel-ready projects in 2009 and installed over 10,000 MW, continued lack of long-term market signals, combined with low power demand and price, has allowed the pipeline for advanced projects to slow over the past 18 months. AWEA has called on Congress to put in place a strong national renewable electricity standard (RES) as part of comprehensive climate and energy legislation to provide the hard targets needed to stabilize the industry.

"Financing wind projects is an 18 month process and the struggles in 2009 to raise new capital, combined with lack of new demand from utilities, are now surfacing in the market and reflected in project installations, said Denise Bode, AWEA CEO. "Minimal new installations and current announcements for project delays or downgrades in 2010 are the consequences of inaction to provide a serious market signal. With swift action today, wind project development can be nimble and ramp up quickly, creating new domestic manufacturing orders."

The U.S. wind industry broke all previous records by installing nearly 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity in 2009 (enough to serve over 2.4 million homes), but still lags in manufacturing, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today in its Q4 report. These new projects place wind power neck and neck with natural gas ¹ as the leading source of new electricity generation for the country. Together, the two sources account for about 80% of the new capacity added in the country last year. "The U.S. wind energy industry shattered all installation records in 2009, chalking up the Recovery Act as a historic success in creating jobs, avoiding carbon, and protecting consumers," said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. "But U.S. wind turbine manufacturing - the canary in the mine -- is down compared to last year's levels, and needs long-term policy certainty and market pull in order to grow. We need to set hard targets, in the form of a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), in order to provide the necessary stability for manufacturers to expand their U.S. operations and to seize the historic opportunity we have today to build up a thriving renewable energy industry."

The development of a new European industry - offshore wind power - took an important step forward today with the announcement by the British government of the go-ahead for offshore wind farm development areas with a capacity ten times greater than Europe's existing European offshore wind energy capacity. A total of nine development zones - with a capacity of just over 32 GW - have been allocated to 12 European companies following a competitive tender. "Today's announcement by the British government is a significant step forward for the offshore wind industry and, once built, will multiply by ten Europe's offshore wind energy capacity", said Justin Wilkes, Policy Director of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). "These are European companies building a European industry and generating some 45,000 European jobs." "It takes Europe closer to exploiting the power of our seas and developing a brand new European offshore wind industry. Offshore wind is Europe's largest untapped energy source. There is enough wind across Europe's seas to power Europe seven times over."

The 32 GW is part of the over 100 GW of offshore wind power currently being planned by European utilities, developers, and governments, mostly in the North Sea. Once operational this 100 GW plus would supply 10% of Europe's electricity. In order to connect these farms to the electricity grid, EWEA has proposed a 20 year grid development plan. This year the European Commission will publish a Blueprint for a North Sea grid. This Blueprint was described by the Commission's 2008 second Strategic Energy Review as aiming to "interconnect national electricity grids in north-west Europe together and plug-in the numerous planned offshore wind projects".