FEB 18

While we don't have any offshore wind farms up and running yet, we're getting closer everyday -- a few projects have gotten approval for construction and even more are in the planning stages, but until now, the turbines for those projects would have to come from Europe.  Well, not anymore.  Wind energy company Gamesa has opened the country's first offshore wind turbine factory in Norfolk, VA.

The factory is ideally located on the Mid-Atlantic coast close to many sites that have been identified as prime for offshore wind power.  Gamesa isn't saying who their first customer will be, but the company did say that it's looking to install turbines off the coast of Virginia, which so far has no planned projects, as well as three other yet-to-be-disclosed East Coast sites.

The company is designing two 5-MW G11X turbine prototypes, with one being installed on land and one offshore for testing by the end of 2012.  The final product will be sold to wind farms both domestically and internationally.

If the U.S. government has anything to do with it, Gamesa will have a lot of customers.  The DOE has announced a goal to take our installed offshore wind capacity from near zero to 10,000 MW by 2020 and then to 54,000 MW by 2030.

via Solve Climate

Comments (6)

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Wake Up
written by Nick, February 24, 2011

As a nation, we are so jacked up. We need to be investing in a wide variety of energy options. The Mid-East is ablaze and the administration, whom I supported because of their position on energy, is sitting on their hands. Instead of throwing their power and influence behind devloping alternative energy, they decided to bail out the banks. It was a Dem house, senate and presidency for TWO YEARS...and nothing got done....even with a SUPERMAJORITY. Repubs have been guilty of their fair share of problems, but Obama can't pin this on them. We need to wake up! Obama sold us a bill of goods and did not deliver. It's time to go big on Wind, Solar, Bio Fuels, Clean Coal, Nuclear, Geo Thermal....etc, before it's too late.

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Hurry up!
written by Asaf Shalgi, February 25, 2011

Getting approval isn't enough. We need to get busy if we don't want to find ourselves energy less in a few years time.C

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it's not a factory
written by Dave, March 01, 2011

you're article is factually inaccurate. It's a research center, not a factory. And it isn't the first research center.

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How quickly they forget
written by Derrick Gibson, March 03, 2011

I know it's tres chic to lay blame for everything at the feet of President Obama, but the reality is that he had an energy bill through the House and even good odds for success in the Senate - when that BP oil platform went down in the Gulf.

Now, to sensible people, this might have seemed like just the sort of warning sign that would have spurred further action; sadly, our world is not run according to the whims of sensible people.

Our world runs on power. And for well more than 100-years, power has equated to oil.

No one can change that equation over night.

It takes effort. And it takes more than one person.

Learn the issues. Learn who is on your side. And unite with them in common cause. A team divided against itself cannot win - to paraphrase history.

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Tres Chic?
written by Nick, March 05, 2011

Derrick:

You can't be serious. This does lie at the feet of the President. As the President, he is responsible for everything that happens or does not happen. He drives the agenda and he provides the leadership that translates theory into action. I can't understand why you want to apologize for him....unless you are less concerned with clean energy independence than being politically partisan. My driving aim is energy independence. I could give a rip about partisanship and quite frankly, I just don't have time for it. collectively need to get "energized" about energy independence now. The middle east is not going to be stable anytime soon and therefore time is running out.

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You can have our windmills
written by Ian, March 05, 2011

There are 24 300ft windmills near my hometown, trouble is they hardly ever turn! In January with temperatures well below freezing they hardly moved at all. Too many subsidies for building the eyesores - no thought about how much power they actually generate and totally useless if there is no wind. Can we please stop this windmill fetish and concentrate on systems that actually produce electricity?

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