Cape Wind Signs Agreement to Buy Siemens 3.6-MW Offshore Wind Turbines
Wednesday, March 31, 2010

BOSTON, MA, MARCH 31, 2010 - Cape Wind announced today it has entered into an agreement with Siemens to supply 130 of its 3.6-Megawatt (MW) turbines for America's first planned offshore wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts and, at the same time, Siemens also announced plans to open a U.S. Offshore Wind office in Boston.

"We are pleased to be working with Siemens which is a market leader in offshore wind and we are thrilled Siemens is bringing clean energy jobs to Massachusetts by opening up its U.S. Offshore Wind office in Boston. This agreement between Cape Wind and Siemens represents a major step forward to jumpstarting the American offshore wind industry and increasing energy independence, creating a healthier environment while producing hundreds of green energy jobs," said Jim Gordon, Cape Wind President.

The Siemens 3.6-MW offshore wind turbines are an industry `workhorse' with 1,000 units sold and 150 units installed and successfully operating.

This is a press release, so this is particularly interesting:

Gerard Dhooge, President of the Boston & New England Maritime Trades Council, AFL-CIO, welcomed the news of the agreement between Cape Wind and Siemens, "Skilled maritime workers are ready to get to work to help install these wind turbines offshore Massachusetts and to build America's first offshore wind farm. Thirty to fifty percent of the members of the Maritime Trades Council are currently out of work so we need these jobs now more than ever."

This has been a very consistent theme in the conference I was in last week - the project developers are openly supporting union work in their projects, and are counting on union political support to get the regulatory framework settled. Leo Gerard, boss of the steelworkers union, was present at that offshore conference and gave a keynote speech.

There may be some tension on the issue of local content (a requirement of the unions, but one very difficult to fulfill for the first projects as the industrial base doesn't exist for all components of a project and will be installed only if the country shows it's serious about large scale development), but overall, it's been interesting to see American businessmen praising unions while Europeans are openly worried about their role...

Wind power