US Offshore Wind powered by GE

Just revisiting a post only 3 month old...and now seeing reality.

"Exciting, first of its kind, the kind of iconic project you can imagine people filming a Coke or Pepsi commercial in front of …. These were just some of the comments about the Block Island offshore wind project made at an industry conference in Boston where two GE officials spoke on May 11th 2016.

Markus Rieck, GE's Global Commercial Operation & Sales Leader, Offshore Wind, ‎said GE is to provide five turbines for the 30MW project near Providence, Rhode Island that will be the first commercial wind farm in the U.S. when it becomes operational later this year.

Rieck said he is even more excited about the long term potential of offshore wind in the US. “2016 is a year of momentum. Block Island will demonstrate that offshore wind can and does work.” Then, Rieck said, the challenge will be to create enough volume and visibility to drive down costs and make offshore wind competitive with other sources of electricity.

Rieck said GE will leverage its management expertise for large scale infrastructure projects, proven technology, sizeable global pipeline, and industrial footprint to help its customers succeed in building projects that are competitive to win support from policy makers and the public. “The US has a ‘can do’ culture. Once you show people it can work, the future growth potential here is almost unlimited.”

Paul Hennemeyer, Managing Director, Global Markets, GE Capital, said that he sees more and more capital becoming available to support offshore wind as the market matures and lenders become more comfortable with its risk profile. “There is a lot of reason for optimism. The offshore wind industry has moved from its infancy to progressively larger and move proven turbines, from a utility only field to a robust project financing space, and from a market based solely in Denmark to a truly global market.”

In addition to GE’s executives, virtually all the speakers at the industry conference seemed bullish about the potential of offshore wind in the US."