Italian finance police have arrested two prominent businessmen - including one with ties to a former investor in the Cape Wind project in Nantucket - in the wind energy sector on charges of fraud, reports the Financial Times. Arrested were Oreste Vigorito, head of the IVPC energy company and president of Italy's National Association of Wind Energy, and Vito Nicastri, a Sicilian business associate, according to the article. According to the European Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, Oreste Vigorito has ties to Brian Caffyn, a former investor in the Cape Wind project, which has been criticized as a poor investment for taxpayers, reports Dakota Voice.

Italian finance police, mounting an operation code named "Gone with the wind", yesterday said they had arrested two of the country's most prominent businessmen in the wind energy sector. Police said the charges related to fraud involved in obtaining public subsidies to construct wind farms. They are also investigating the sale of wind farms to foreign companies.

Shares in Spain's Gamesa (GAM.MC) drop 5.8 percent on uncertainty after its chairman resigned late on Thursday, with concerns over regulation for the Spanish renewable energy sector also weighing on sentiment.

"Given the outrageous manipulation orchestrated by those who, since 2004, are seeking to site eight turbines, I decided to officially launch this hunger strike September 29th at noon in solidarity with citizens." In these terms, Tuesday, Fabienne Chovet publicly explained her decision to begin a hunger strike.

Residents of rural France are seeking a moratorium on wind-farm construction, jeopardizing government plans to expand wind energy sevenfold over the next decade and hampering projects by EDF Energies Nouvelles SA and GDF Suez SA. Organizers of a national petition that started this week demanded a debate on the economic justification for wind energy and the "visual blight" it creates in villages and at tourist sites such as Mont Saint Michel off the Normandy coast.

Shares in Iberdrola SA (IBE.MC) plunged Wednesday as its announcement to increase its capital by EUR1.325 billion raises questions about the viability of its divestment program. Iberdrola Wednesday said it will issue 250 million new ordinary shares, at a price of EUR5.30 each. That increases the company's capital by 4.9977%.

The downgrades reflect Fitch's opinion that the energy production achievable by the wind farm portfolio is materially lower than that originally forecasted and that operating expenditures were significantly underestimated in the original budget. Energy output during 2008 at 540.9 GWh was some 12.5% and 19.6% lower than the 10 year-P90 and P50 forecasts respectively. This was partly due to below-average wind conditions as well as lower-than-expected technical availability.

Spain's Iberdrola said on Tuesday its brokers successfully placed 10 percent of wind turbine maker Gamesa at 16.10 euros per share, but traders said the price was at the bottom of the price range.

Wind parks in Spain, a world leader in the renewable energy source, are increasingly being disconnected due to a fall in power demand caused by the economic slowdown, a report said Monday. "Due to the fall in demand, it has become necessary to disconnect the wind parks which already produce more electricity than the system can absorb," business daily Expansion reported without citing sources.

The Lal Lal Wind Farm in the Moorabool Shire has been given the go-ahead by Planning Minister Justin Madden. ...Moorabool Shire Council mayor Cr Michael Tudball said he hoped the minister had considered concerns held by local residents, including the effect on local flora and fauna, the ability for the turbines to link into existing power grids, flickering, noise and proximity to residential areas.

Multinationals are starting to find out something that is well known to Italian investors: that concealed beneath Europe's most generous system of incentives - supported by "green credits" that industrial polluters have to purchase - there exists a web of corruption and shady deals.

The 56-year-old politician, who unabashedly courts controversy, is taking court action against the wind farms built near his historic hilltop fiefdom in western Sicily, some of which he alleges were built by Mafia-linked companies after corrupt deals with local politicians. Mr Sgarbi's strident campaign has exposed deep divisions within the environmental movement.

Operation "Aeolus," named after the ancient Greek god of winds, netted eight suspects, arrested in the Trapani area of western Sicily, as well as in Salerno on the Italian mainland and in the northern city of Trento. Police in Trapani said the local Mafia bribed city officials in nearby Mazara del Vallo so the town would invest in wind farms to produce energy. The project, worth hundreds of millions of euros (dollars), was first devised in 2003 and later uncovered by an investigation that included wiretaps, police said in a statement.

Offshore wind-energy installations in Northern Europe have lost appeal among financiers because of increased costs and difficulties in building and running equipment miles at sea, a German banker said. Many lenders have stopped providing credit for installations that are anchored to the ocean floor, said Thiess Harder-Heun, a director at Deutsche Kreditbank AG, which has financed construction of about 700 wind turbines over the past decade.

Despite Europe's boom in solar and wind energy, CO2 emissions haven't been reduced by even a single gram. Now, even the Green Party is taking a new look at the issue -- as shown in e-mails obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE. ...The climate hasn't in fact profited from these developments. As astonishing as it may sound, the new wind turbines and solar cells haven't prohibited the emission of even a single gram of CO2. Even more surprising, the European Union's own climate change policies, touted as the most progressive in the world, are to blame. The EU-wide emissions trading system determines the total amount of CO2 that can be emitted by power companies and industries. And this amount doesn't change -- no matter how many wind turbines are erected.

Current and former executives at the wind turbine producer's Spanish subsidiary are accused of fraud Wind turbine maker Vestas has been defrauded for around 90 million kroner by employees of its Spanish subsidiary Vestas Eólica, according to a company press release.

Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world's biggest wind-turbine maker, said it uncovered a 90 million kroner ($16 million) fraud at its Spanish unit. Vestas has notified the authorities in Barcelona of the case, which involves current and former employees who made false invoices for nonexistent services, the Randers, Denmark-based company said today in a stock-exchange statement.

LM Glasfiber announces mass lay-offs in Denmark as a result of the on-going financial crisis. Wind turbine blade producer LM Glasfiber has announced that it is to fire one fifth of its Danish workforce in what is being called the biggest domestic firing-round of recent times. ...‘We believe 2009 will be a year with stagnant growth in the windmill market and LM Glasfiber has a clear case of over capacity,' said Rothausen.

A proposed billion-dollar wind farm has been earmarked for 52km of the Woakwine Range. The proposal, triple the size of the Lake Bonney Windfarm, involves up to 300 turbines producing 600 megawatts of energy.

Theolia SA, the French wind-power company part-owned by General Electric Co., dropped the most in more than five years in Paris trading after abandoning financial and operational targets. ..."Theolia is getting short of cash,'' Exane BNP Paribas analyst Yohann Terry, who has an "underperform'' rating on the shares, said today in a report. "We believe it will be difficult for the company to create significant value'' from its pipeline of wind-power projects.