Message-ID: <199512062155.NAA17251@cdp.igc.apc.org> Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 13:55:53 -0800 From: Tom Gray <mailto:tomgray@IGC.APC.ORG> Subject: --FloWind Signs Asian Deals To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
/* Written 1:49 PM Dec 6, 1995 by tomgray in igc:energy.news */ FLOWIND TO INSTALL TURBINES IN INDIA, CHINA WIND FARMSWind developer/manufacturer FloWind Corp., of San Rafael, Calif., has signed contracts totalling some $240 million to install wind turbines in projects in India and China, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The company reached agreement with an Indian firm in January to install 220 units of its AWT-26 275-kW wind turbine, a machine designed by Advanced Wind Turbines, Inc., that FloWind markets. More recently, the article said, FloWind has signed a deal with the same partner under which the two will enter a joint venture to install three times as much capacity--an amount that works out to 180 MW--each year in privately-owned wind projects that would sell the power to State Electricity Boards (SEBs) or directly to individual business customers.
FloWind's contracts in China, signed in February, are valued at $150 million and envision wind installations in Inner Mongolia, a very windy northern plains province, and on islands in the China Sea. According to the article, FloWind plans the first commercial installations of its innovative EHD (Extended Height-to-Diameter) elongated vertical-axis machine in China. FloWind says the EHD unit, a Darrieus "egg-beater" design, will use a given land area more efficiently, since the area swept by its rotor is taller and thinner than that swept by other turbine rotors.
The company currently operates a fleet of 882 wind turbines in the Altamont and Tehachapi passes in California. Of those, 512 are Darrieus vertical-axis machines of an earlier design which FloWind manufactured in the 1980s.
Lee Richartz, FloWind's Chairman, sees a vast potential international market for wind as new machine designs prove themselves in the field and bring costs down, the article said. Because of this, he is quoted as saying, the company is not concerned by competition from other turbine manufacturers: " . . . [W]e could operate for years without tripping over [them]." _______________________________________________________________________________
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