While Projects in U.S. Stall, Europe’s Utilities Expand Their Reach….
In the U.S., more wind power was installed last year than in any country in the world — 2,454 megawatts, or more than the equivalent of two nuclear reactors. Despite the recent action, the U.S. still lags behind other countries that have spent decades nurturing wind power with subsidies and price supports. Germany has fewer wind resources — breezy, wide-open spaces — than the state of North Dakota, for instance, but has twice as much wind power as the entire U.S. Spain, with one-seventh the population of the U.S., has the same amount of wind power. Overall, only about 1% of power in the U.S. comes from wind.

Miguel Salis, the head of the Madrid-based Eolia, a fund that supplies financing and development know-how to small wind-farm developers, says, “The biggest restriction right now to wind power’s growth — everywhere, not just in the U.S. — is the lack of turbines.” He says that so many developers have “projects under way but can’t get them completed, often because the turbine makers don’t give them the time of day.”

Then he decided to call Iberdrola, the Spanish utility. At the time, Iberdrola didn’t yet have a beachhead in the U.S., and executives thought it was a potential gold mine. Wind energy in the U.S. “is like Europe was years ago,” says Xavier Viteri, the 46-year old head of Iberdrola’s renewable-energy business. “There’s a lot of room for development there, and there is a lot of expertise here.”