USA - One more additional $1B wind turbine deal for GE Energy

GE Energy has secured its second contract valued at more than $1 billion in recent months to provide wind turbines for Invenergy.

Under the agreement announced Thursday, GE Energy, a unit of General Electric, will supply 750 megawatts of wind turbines to Invenergy for North American projects to be constructed in 2010. In January, GE announced a similar agreement valued at more than $1 billion to provide wind turbines to Invenergy for U.S. and European projects to be built in 2009.

The deals underscore the tremendous growth in recent years in the wind energy industry. More than five gigawatts, or 5,000 megawatts, of new wind power capacity were installed in the U.S. in 2007, representing about 30 percent of the country’s new power generation capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

Wind could supply 16.5 percent of the world’s electricity by 2020 and 34 percent by 2050, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.

Chicago-based Invenergy develops, owns and operates large-scale electricity generation assets in North America and Europe.