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Gimme shelter
21 July 2006
The US wind industry is experiencing a record number of new projects and intense investor interest. But a shortage of turbines and higher prices are threatening developer returns and leading the industry to consolidate. Chris Gadomski reports.
The US wind industry appears to be on a record installation pace, and is set to exceed 3,000MW in 2006, an increase of 25% over 2005's record installation of 2,400MW, and the numbers keep increasing.
Joe Slamm, a vice-president, at Goldman Sachs, says that President George W. Bush's mention in the state-of-the- union address of the importance of renewable energy, plus the talk about flex-fuel vehicles, macro trends and prominent advertising by firms like BP have generated a tremendous swell of private equity from investors that are trying to understand wind.
"For pretax investors, the mystery of wind is starting to go away, and now there is a lot of interest in tax relief and those same investors are interested in renewable energy, a technology that makes everybody feel good," he said. "I think the bottom line is great."
Robert Young, a division director at Macquarie Bank, says...
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