Note that some of the biggest players (notably the market leader, Vestas) are still "pure-plays", companies that do only wind turbines, like Gamesa, Suzlon/Repower or Enercon (that last one making by far the best turbines around, but refusing to sell them offshore because it cannot ensure its usual quality standards yet).

With the utilities coming in force on the buying side, the market is quite competitive and balanced - even though it structurally favors manufacturers right now as demand outstrips supply.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Would that really make sense for the companies? By charging more, they would earn more on a reduced number of projects, and increase the risk to themselves from small numbers, e.g. big year-to-year changes in the order books when only a few projects are realised each year.

it probably doesn't make sense for surplus power on a windy day in Ireland to be transmitted to Poland even if it could displace conventional capacity there, but I would be interested in what the optimum size of such a network/grid would be.

The Netherlands and Italy are two countries with chronic electricity generation/consumption deficit. Imports come to the former from as far as the Czech Republic and (via Germany) Central France, while imports to virtually all parts of the latter come from France along various routes (including through Germany and he Alps countries from Northern France. I seem to remember that both countries of the Iberian Peninsula also import from France (maybe Torres or Luis de Souza can confirm from Portugal). So I guess half the Ireland-Poland distance is viable.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}