A cold front swept across northern China's Inner Mongolia region in early November, forcing a wind energy farm at Xilin Gol to curtail operations - even as a brisk breeze whistled through idle turbine blades. "When that much wind is moving through, the generators can't make electricity," explained Ma Zhanxiang, vice president of the Inner Mongolia Electric Power Industry Association (EPIA). "Money just blows by." ...Inner Mongolia's situation is a clear example. Its installed capacity - 50 gigawatts -- is the country's largest, but the excess at wind farms has reached a crisis level. EPIA counts some 10 gigawatts in the region, including 3.49 gigawatts of wind power, as excess installed capacity.

News that $450 million in federal stimulus money might go toward installing Chinese-made wind turbines in Texas prompted criticism on Thursday, with Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, calling on the Obama administration to deny federal financing. According to partners in the deal, the proposed 600-megawatt wind farm, announced late last week, would be built on 36,000 acres in West Texas using 240 wind turbines manufactured by A-Power Energy Generation Systems of Shenyang, China.

The total cost of the project, which was brokered in part by the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, an American private equity company, was estimated at $1.5 billion. ...The group's calculations last week put the number of American jobs at a little more than 300 - most of them temporary construction jobs, along with about 30 permanent positions once the wind farm is operating. Mr. McGarr told The Wall Street Journal that more than 2,000 Chinese jobs would be created by the deal. That, along with the fact that the project was hoping to secure 30 percent, or $450 million, of its financing from U.S. stimulus funds, was enough to send tempers flaring.

A Sino-US consortium yesterday announced plans for a US$1.5 billion, 600MW wind farm in Texas, with China supplying all the turbines and most of the funding. The 36,000-acre wind farm ...is a joint venture between state-backed Chinese firm Shenyang Power Group, US wind farm developer Cielo Wind Power and private equity firm US Renewable Energy Group. Most of the funding for the project will come from Chinese banks, with loan guarantees and grants provided by the US federal government's economic stimulus package.

China wants renewable energy like wind to meet 15% of its energy needs by 2020 ...But experts say the country's transmission network currently can't absorb the rate of growth in renewable-energy output. Last year, as much as 30% of wind-power capacity wasn't connected to the grid. As a result, more coal is being burned in existing plants, and new thermal capacity is being built to cover this shortfall in renewable energy.

China, the world's third-largest economy, has made green energy a priority. The country has doubled its capacity for wind-generated power every year for the past four years, and President Hu Jintao pledged last week to turn to more sources of renewable energy in coming years. However, many wind farms have been built far from populated areas or transmission grids, making their output largely useless for now. The China Electricity Council, a national industry group, says 28% of the country's wind power equipment sat idle at the end of 2008.

BP is expanding its wind power electricity generation capacity in the United States but is shedding an Indian unit, which has been sold to Green Infra Limited of India. BP said Green Infra Limited purchased its subsidiary, BP Energy India Private Limited, for a total cash-free, debt-free enterprise value of about $95 million.

Lobbyist pressure will not weigh on a U.N. panel's decision whether to award carbon finance worth about 100 million euros ($144 million) to Chinese wind power projects, said the chair of the panel on Tuesday. ...The issue has caused long-running tension between the panel and project developers and brokers about the speed of approvals in the $6.5 billion global carbon offset market. Under the U.N.-led Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism, rich countries can buy rights to pollute by funding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations.

The Phuket Provincial Energy Office plans to build windmills in the Nakkerd Hills near the ‘Big Buddha' image, a seminar on alternative energy was told on Thursday. Phuket Energy Office chief Jirasuk Tummawetch made the announcement during the seminar, held at the Royal Paradise Hotel in Patong.

The Fiji Electricity Authority has admitted that its $34million Butoni Wind farm in Sigatoka was a failure. And this was because of insufficient study of the area. ...It was also revealed that one of the joint venture partners of the FEA, Pacific Hydro Limited, pulled out in 2003 after seeing the project as financially uneconomical based on its development cost and expected cost of energy generation.

Domestic power majors Suzlon Energy and Tata Power, which have renewable energy projects in Australia, will benefit as that country is implementing a law to ensure 20 per cent of the country's electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020. Sources said the expanded Renewable Energy Target (RET) Bill will be enacted as a law by the Australian Parliament in a few days and will come into force by September 2009.

Big machines have been rolling up to Allegheny Mountain for days. Site development work on Virginia's first industrial wind energy plant is expected to start this week. Passersby report heavy equipment has been parked near the entrance to Red Oak Knob, and blasting heard over the last couple of days. A skidder moved in after dark a few days ago, and trees are being cut near one of the turbine sites; one truck full of logs has already headed out with its load.

District 300 would shoulder 80 percent of the costs - as well as potential benefits and decision-making - associated with the consortium that would build wind turbines to generate the electricity. Dave Ulm, the district's energy coordinator, said the entire project is estimated to cost between $46 million and $50 million.

CLP Holdings Ltd. was granted approval by Hong Kong's government to develop what may be the largest offshore wind farm in Asia by capacity. ...Groups, including the Association for Geoconservation, have said the project will destroy the sea view in the Clearwater Bay area, which they describe as the last piece of pristine wilderness in Hong Kong.

Darrel and Jean Gogel's Trochu acreage is a piece of calm in a hectic world--where Darrel can retreat after working days away as a truck driver, and Jean can unwind from her job as a hospital housekeeper. That could change, the couple says, if a plan for a 54-turbine wind farm near their house goes ahead.

Japan's wind power industry installed 183 megawatts (MW) of capacity in the year ended in March, 2009, down 1.3 percent from a year earlier, a government linked research unit said in a report on Tuesday. Tighter regulations on wind turbines have restricted construction in the past two years.

Wind power generation is expected to be a clean and environmentally friendly natural energy source, but a new kind of environmental problem has surfaced as infrasonic waves caused by windmills are suspected of causing health problems for some people. ...Wind power generation also poses a danger to birds, which are often struck and killed by the spinning vanes of the windmills. The Japanese Environment Ministry confirmed 13 such bird strikes in which white-tailed eagles, a rare species, were killed since fiscal 2003.

Suzlon lost sales last year after some blades supplied by the company cracked and customers in the U.S. canceled orders. The replacements for customers will be completed in mid-August, two months behind schedule, the company said today.

Efforts should be focused on stopping output of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas which helps heat the planet, rather than moving to a source that can be regenerated, said Craig Mundie, the man who replaced Bill Gates as the world's largest software maker's futurist. Conservation and radical technologies, including new nuclear, could be key, he said.

The police in Nandurbar are verifying a complaint by one Anand Thakare alleging that Aishwarya, Suzlon Energy Ltd, the company that makes wind energy turbines and maintains and operates the turbines on behalf of the investors, and several others had duped him into "selling" his land cheap for a planned 1,000 MW wind energy farm.