Tests on a floating platform technology for wind turbines in federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts will have to wait for the time being. U.S. Minerals Management Service director Randall Luthi announced yesterday that sixteen sites around the country have been selected where companies may compete for leases to collect data and test technology for renewable energy projects. Waters off the Bay State's coast were not among the areas selected. ..."It really has no affect on us," said Martin Reilly, spokesman for Blue H. Because Blue H submitted their proposal later in the nomination process than other applicants they could not be considered in this first round, he said.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in February, Edison Mission Energy, a unit of Edison International, said the 144-foot-long windmill blades it recently bought from Suzlon have begun to split at three wind-power sites it operates in the Midwest. Suzlon has recalled 1,251 blades from its top-of-the-line turbines, which represent the majority of blades the company has sold to date in the U.S.. Its troubles don't end there. A year ago, the company bought a controlling stake in a large German turbine manufacturer, REpower Systems AG, in one of India's biggest overseas acquisitions. ...Now, Suzlon can't get its hands on the blueprints. Hamstrung by a German corporate law, Suzlon must offer to buy out minority shareholders before it can demand REpower's designs. It's unlikely that the company could make a tender offer until 2009, say people with knowledge of the companies. ...Mr. Kher blamed the cracks on the Midwest's unexpectedly violent changes in wind direction. Though Mr. Tanti says that only 45 blades have cracked, Suzlon says it will add an extra lamination layer to almost all of the blades it has shipped to the U.S. To repair cracked blades and reinforce the rest, the company expects to spend $30 million.

As wind power becomes more common, its unpredictability becomes more of a problem. Sudden drops in wind speed can send grid operators scrambling to cover the shortfall and even cause blackouts; unexpected surges can leave conventional power plants idling, incurring costs and spewing pollution to no purpose. ...When wind farms were less common, grid controllers could essentially ignore their varying output, as it was all but indistinguishable from natural fluctuations in consumer use.

It's now or never. The public comment period for a federal report on the wind farm Cape Wind Associates wants to build in Nantucket Sound runs out Monday. While many of the heavy hitters, including the anti-Cape Wind group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will likely hold off until the last moment to submit their thoughts, the lead agency to review the project has already received more than 10,000 comments from the public.

The 2005 energy act gave the Energy Department the right to designate national-interest electric transmission corridors, where the federal government can step in to permit transmission towers and wires that have been rejected or delayed by states. In these corridors, the federal government can condemn private land along a power-line route. Now the department has set up two corridors that cover huge swaths of territory. The western zone includes Southern California and western Arizona. The eastern zone cuts from New York to Virginia and inland across large sections of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Transmission of electricity is critically congested at the core of each zone, the Energy Department says. The new federal authority in the corridors is attracting interest from utilities.

In what could be a national precedent, the Vermont Public Service Board is reviewing a plan to build 17 industrial wind turbines on more than 80 acres of the Green Mountain National Forest. Known as Deerfield Wind, the turbine project would be located along a prominent ridgeline in the towns of Searsburg and Readsboro, Vermont. ...Deerfield Wind would be the first industrial wind-energy facility in a national forest anywhere in the country ...The Green Mountain National Forest is one of only two national forests in New England. The U.S. Forest Service has designated nearly 20,000 acres at 37 sites within the Green Mountain National Forest as "potentially both viable and suitable" for wind power development. Recently, a proposal for a second industrial wind-energy facility within the Green Mountain National Forest was initiated.

The wind industry's trade group spent nearly $816,000 to lobby last year as wind companies tried to persuade Congress to extend a key tax credit and make power companies use more renewable sources. Despite the efforts of the American Wind Energy Association, neither desire found its way into legislation this past year. ...The wind energy industry spent much of last year in a contentious debate over renewable standards, battling utility owners such as Atlanta-based Southern Co. that say the mandate would be expensive and unworkable.

Think long term for solar and wind investments, three experts say. Everyone it seems has been investing in green energy - from Google to ExxonMobil. But this year the booming sector is suddenly in a serious funk. So is this time to get out - or jump in and snap up some long-term winners? To find out, the Monitor's Laurent Belsie recently talked with three experts who closely follow the field: Matt Patsky, portfolio manager of the Winslow Green Growth Fund, Paul Hilton, director of advanced equity research at Calvert, and Eric Becker, portfolio manager with Trillium Asset Management. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

If all eight of the projects were built, they would add up to about $15 billion worth of new construction-and because states have put so many requirements on utilities to meet part of their load with renewable energy, it's "pretty likely" all of the lines will be built, Kopczynski says. The eight projects don't take into account a power line PGE has discussed with Avista to serve as a link to Avista's Coyote Springs coal-fired plant near Boardman. They also don't take into account 11 requests that Avista has received to construct smaller power lines in its own service area to link developers' proposed wind-generation plants into its transmission system. "Potential resources are wind resources located in various locations on the Avista system, including but not limited to wind farms near Spokane, Othello, Lewiston, and Clarkston, Wash., as well as Grangeville, Idaho," an Avista report says. " ... up to three additional (requests) that may soon be in the queue." Avista spokesman Hugh Imhof says none of those projects is the wind farm that Avista has said it plans to develop itself, for which it's seeking a site.

Steelcase will purchase all the renewable energy credits produced by a new 10 megawatt wind farm in Panhandle, Texas developed by John Deere Renewables, the wind-energy development unit of Deere & Co., for at least the first five years of its operation. Naming rights come with the agreement. The wind farm will be named the "Wege Wind Energy Farm, provided by Steelcase" named for Peter Wege, a Michigan environmentalist and Steelcase founding family member. Steelcase is paying a premium for the RECs in order to slap their name on it, The New York Times reports.

"The demand for wind power and for R.E.C.'s is outpacing the supply, so I won't be surprised to see more companies trying to lock up the renewable energy credits that become available," said Andrew Winston, an environmental consultant and co-author of "Green to Gold," a book about environmental marketing. Environmentalists, meanwhile, are hoping he is right. "After all, the best environmental policies are the ones where there's a strong economic rationale for doing the right thing," said Mark S. Brownstein, managing director for business partnerships for the Environmental Defense Fund.

GE Energy Financial Services, which invests in energy projects, expects to finish two new wind farms in Texas and Illinois by the third quarter of this year, ahead of any potential tax credit expiration. GE is developing the projects with Invenergy Wind LLC. The farm in Texas, east of Lubbock, will have 100 wind turbines for capacity of 150 megawatts. Mr. Howell declined to say how much the project will cost. Wind developers who can't finish their projects this year could face a second problem. Global demand for wind turbines is so hot that developers must order the equipment months in advance.

General Electric Co. and Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world's two biggest wind-turbine makers, are reaping benefits from record orders by U.S. utilities racing to add generating capacity even as they face the loss of subsidies. GE, Vestas and Siemens AG stand to gain although the extension of the production tax credit, due to expire in December, is stalled in Congress. ..."Customers are giving billions of dollars of orders already because they're afraid they're going to lose their spot in line,'' John Krenicki, who runs the GE Energy division, said March 5. GE posted more than $4.5 billion in wind-turbine sales last year, the most since it bought the business in 2002 for less than $300 million from Enron Corp. GE's total revenue last year was $172.7 billion. ...Investors, and company executives, are betting the credit will be restored once a new U.S. president is in office.

Iberdrola SA (IBE.MC) Friday said it increased its stake in Gamesa SA (GAM.MC) to nearly 24%, getting another 4.63% of the Spanish wind- turbine maker previously in hands of an investment vehicle it partly-owned. Iberdrola, based in Bilbao, northern Spain, is the world's biggest wind-power generator. Gamesa, also from Bilbao, is Europe's second largest wind-turbine maker after Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS.KO). Gamesa accounts for around 15% of all wind-turbines sold in the world.

General Electric Co (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday it filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd (7011.T: Quote, Profile, Research) last month to halt U.S. imports of the Japanese firm's wind turbines. GE said Mitsubishi Heavy's wind turbines infringed its patent on variable speed control technology, which helps maximize energy capture from wind.

"Wind needs a dance partner," says David Hawkins, principal engineer for renewable energy at the grid-running California Independent System Operator in Folsom, Calif. ...Shortages degrade reliability and push up prices. Wholesale power prices surged to $1,055 a megawatt hour in West Texas on Feb. 26 versus $299 elsewhere in the state. In a long-planned move, Texas on Saturday raised its price ceiling to $2,250 a megawatt hour from $1,500. Two days later, it hit the ceiling for the first time as wind production again trailed off. "Demand was going up as wind production was going down, so it amplified the effect," said Dan Jones, the state's independent electricity-market monitor.

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is extending the public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the Cape Wind Energy Project for an additional 30 days. The extension is in response to requests from the public for more time to review the document. The MMS released the Cape Wind DEIS for public review on January 11, 2008.

When the decision of whether to pay more is expressed in terms of real currency, the survey found even greater reluctance to go green. The European Commission estimates that it would cost each household the equivalent of $220 per month to cut greenhouse gas emissions and use more renewable energy. When faced with that number, strong majorities of bill-paying adults in all six countries said they would be unlikely to pay the higher amount, the survey found. "Until people are forced to do so, or the price for renewable energy comes down considerably, people will not make the ‘green' choice," the Harris Interactive survey said in commentary on the findings. "This is especially true as economies around the globe tighten. When it comes to food or solar power, food will win for the consumer each time."

Vestas has landed a deal with energy giant E.ON worth over one billion kroner, although the company's wind turbines continue to experience construction and maintenance problems. ...Vestas has been the focus of less positive news recently, as several of its wind turbine owners have reported serious malfunctions, with a few of the structures having collapsed over the past two weeks.

Operators of the state electric grid were left scrambling to keep the lights on earlier this week after a sudden drop in West Texas wind threatened to cause rolling blackouts, officials said. Shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, grid operators ordered power shut off to so-called interruptible customers, which are industrial electric users who have agreed to forgo power in times of crisis. The move ensured continued stability of the grid after power dropped unexpectedly. The shortage was prompted largely by a near-total loss of wind generation as well as a failure of several energy providers to reach scheduled production and a spike in electricity usage, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Thursday.