Investment Attracts Investment

As we recounted on Friday, the annual conference of the American Wind Energy Association, whilst seemingly down on numbers, saw some pretty positive announcements.

It seemed after the uncertainty surrounding the continuation of the PTC towards the end of last year that the US market for 2013 would be in dire straights.

But although unlikely to equal the record number of installations in the first quarter of 2012, all is certainly not lost.

This was most typified on the last day of the conference when energy utility MidAmerican announced that it would be investing $1.9billion in a 656 wind turbine project that will generate in the region of 1GW.

Good news for American wind, and particularly good news for the state of Iowa that will benefit from the investment.

Of course MidAmerican profits significantly from the backing of Warren Buffett, so can certainly afford to make the kind of commitments to wind energy that are above and beyond those of the wider industry.

But what is generally given is that investment attracts investment.

Indeed, MidAmerican’s announcement comes hot off the heels of a commitment from social networking business, Facebook, to build a $300m data centre in Iowa that will source 25% of its power from wind energy.

And that, really, is what is key to wind energy making the case not only for the continuation of the PTC, but also as a real driver of economic growth. Wind isn’t just an area for investment on its own, it can also act as an anchor for other projects and spending.

For the American Midwest at least, wind energy continues to have strong credentials.

We’ll see in October whether this has started to permeate into the US offshore market.

As we recounted on Friday, the annual conference of the American Wind Energy Association, whilst seemingly down on numbers, saw some pretty positive announcements.

It seemed after the uncertainty surrounding the continuation of the PTC towards the end of last year that the US market for 2013 would be in dire straights.

But although unlikely to equal the record number of installations in the first quarter of 2012, all is certainly not lost.

This was most typified on the last day of the conference when energy utility MidAmerican announced that it would be investing $1.9billion in a 656 wind turbine project that will generate in the region of 1GW.

Good news for American wind, and particularly good news for the state of Iowa that will benefit from the investment.

Of course MidAmerican profits significantly from the backing of Warren Buffett, so can certainly afford to make the kind of commitments to wind energy that are above and beyond those of the wider industry.

But what is generally given is that investment attracts investment.

Indeed, MidAmerican’s announcement comes hot off the heels of a commitment from social networking business, Facebook, to build a $300m data centre in Iowa that will source 25% of its power from wind energy.

And that, really, is what is key to wind energy making the case not only for the continuation of the PTC, but also as a real driver of economic growth. Wind isn’t just an area for investment on its own, it can also act as an anchor for other projects and spending.

For the American Midwest at least, wind energy continues to have strong credentials.

We’ll see in October whether this has started to permeate into the US offshore market.

As we recounted on Friday, the annual conference of the American Wind Energy Association, whilst seemingly down on numbers, saw some pretty positive announcements.

It seemed after the uncertainty surrounding the continuation of the PTC towards the end of last year that the US market for 2013 would be in dire straights.

But although unlikely to equal the record number of installations in the first quarter of 2012, all is certainly not lost.

This was most typified on the last day of the conference when energy utility MidAmerican announced that it would be investing $1.9billion in a 656 wind turbine project that will generate in the region of 1GW.

Good news for American wind, and particularly good news for the state of Iowa that will benefit from the investment.

Of course MidAmerican profits significantly from the backing of Warren Buffett, so can certainly afford to make the kind of commitments to wind energy that are above and beyond those of the wider industry.

But what is generally given is that investment attracts investment.

Indeed, MidAmerican’s announcement comes hot off the heels of a commitment from social networking business, Facebook, to build a $300m data centre in Iowa that will source 25% of its power from wind energy.

And that, really, is what is key to wind energy making the case not only for the continuation of the PTC, but also as a real driver of economic growth. Wind isn’t just an area for investment on its own, it can also act as an anchor for other projects and spending.

For the American Midwest at least, wind energy continues to have strong credentials.

We’ll see in October whether this has started to permeate into the US offshore market.