"We are striving to better meet our customers needs," Lyons added. "Our research team is focused on designing a new wind turbine that will not only be one of the most powerful in the world, but sets new standards in efficiency, reliability, and cost of energy as well."
GE's partnership with DOE on this project will last 3-4 years. During this time, GE and DOE will collaborate on research to develop a prototype of a 5-7MW offshore wind turbine. A wind turbine of this magnitude would be nearly twice today's industry standard, however full commercialization of this offshore design is still some years away. GE's largest turbine in operation today is the 3.6MW offshore wind turbine. Expanding the energy generating capacity of wind will help make it even more cost competitive with other alternative sources of energy.
Wind energy is the fastest growing sector in the energy market. It is generally believed that wind, which encompasses less than one percent of today's world's energy market, could grow to as much as 15% of the overall global energy supply in the coming decades as Europe, the U.S. and other parts of the world look to take advantage of this clean, sustainable source of energy. In fact, recent advances in wind technology are already helping to drive down the cost of wind to a level where it is cost competitive with more traditional sources of energy at close to five cents per kilowatt-hour.
Since GE entered the wind business in 2002, the company has quickly become one of the world's leading wind energy companies and wind turbine suppliers. Worldwide, GE has over 8,500 wind turbine installations that comprise more than 7,600 MW of capacity. GE installed 1,346 turbines in 2005 and plans to ship more than 4,700 turbines over the next two years. GE's 2005 wind revenue exceeded $2 billion and was more than 400% higher than in 2002, GE's first year of wind operations, underscoring wind energy's continued growth. The company currently designs and produces wind turbines ranging from 1.5 to 3.6 megawatts.