Jun 12 2007
American Superconductor Corporation, a leading energy technologies company, today announced that it has received two additional orders for its
D-VAR(R) voltage regulation solution for use in wind farms being constructed in the United States. Each of these orders is worth over
$1 million.
"Wind farm developers, owners and operators are turning to AMSC's D-VAR solution for grid interconnection in increasing numbers," said Chuck Stankiewicz, senior vice president and general manager of AMSC Power Systems. "While most of our orders have come from overseas where government-imposed dynamic voltage requirements are in place, we are beginning to generate more business in the United States based largely on requirements put in place by local utilities. We see this trend continuing as wind plays a more prominent role in our domestic power supply in the years ahead."
These latest D-VAR systems will serve two wind farms in the Midwestern United States with nearly 450 megawatts of combined wind power capacity. The wind farms employ wind energy systems from Mitsubishi, Vestas and GE. Both wind farms are scheduled for operation within the next 12 months.
The AMSC D-VAR units will be delivered in the second half of calendar 2007 and will provide voltage regulation and power factor correction, along with contingency assistance to prevent voltage collapse for the power grid to which the wind farms will be connected.
These are the 29th and 30th wind farms worldwide and the 8th and 9th wind farms in the U.S. to have purchased AMSC's D-VAR systems.
According to the Global Wind Energy Council's (GWEC) recently issued Global Wind 2006 Report, for the second consecutive year, the United States led the world in newly installed wind power capacity in 2006. "The new installations boosted the country's wind power generating capacity by 27% with cumulative capacity sailing past the 10-gigawatt mark to 11,603 MW as of December 31, 2006," the report says. GWEC estimates that wind power capacity in the U.S. will increase by an average of 3,500 megawatts per year through 2010.