AMSC Receives New Orders for Wind Farms in the U.S. and Scotland
American Superconductor Corp. announced that it has received two additional orders for its D-VAR® voltage control solution to meet power grid interconnection requirements for wind farms being constructed in the United States and Scotland. These are the 32nd and 33rd wind farms worldwide to have purchased AMSC’s D-VAR systems. AMSC products are now serving more than 5.7GW of wind power worldwide, more than triple the company’s 1.8GW total in September 2006.
"Our strong power system engineering capability combined with the cost effective and proprietary performance features of our D-VAR product continue to make AMSC the company the global wind power market turns to in order to meet grid interconnection requirements," said Chuck Stankiewicz, Executive Vice President and General Manager of AMSC Power Systems.
AMSC’s customers are said to utilize D-VAR grid interconnection solutions to provide voltage regulation and power factor correction, along with post-contingency assistance to prevent voltage collapse on the power grid to which the wind farms are connected. AMSC will deliver one of the D-VAR systems to a 60MW wind farm being erected in the state of Wyoming, which will utilize wind energy systems manufactured by Suzlon. The other D-VAR system will be delivered to a 48 MW wind farm being constructed in Scotland, which will utilize Nordex wind energy systems. Installation of the D-VAR systems is scheduled for early 2008. Both wind farms are scheduled for operation within the next 12 months.
According to the company, the demand for wind generated electricity and for the products serving this industry has continued to grow rapidly on a worldwide basis. According to the Global Wind Energy Council’s (GWEC) Global Wind 2006 Report, for the second consecutive year, the United States led the world in newly installed wind power capacity in 2006. Capacity grew 2,454 MW in 2006 to 11,603 MW in the U.S., a 27% annual growth rate. In the United Kingdom, capacity grew 634 MW, or 48% year over year, to 1,963 MW at the end of 2006.
