Wind Turbine Manufacturer Partners with John Deere Co.

The move is viewed as a way to gain trust from America's heartland where there are considerable opportunities for wind power developments.

Suzlon signed an agreement to provide 31 wind turbines, totaling 39 MW of capacity, for projects financed by John Deere for sites located in Minnesota and Texas.

In Texas, Suzlon is providing three projects with a total of 24 units of the S64, a 1.25 MW wind turbine. Each project will have eight turbines installed on 73-meter towers. When completed in December 2005 the entire site will total 30 MW of wind power capacity.

For the southwest Minnesota projects, Suzlon is providing seven S64 turbines on 73-meter towers for a total capacity of 8.75 MW. The projects will be located on the popular Buffalo Ridge and developed by Dave Norgaard, a farmer and wind power developer based in Tyler, Minnesota.

The wind power projects, which are scheduled to be operating by December 31, 2005, follow an earlier effort by Suzlon and John Deere in U.S. wind energy that was successfully launched in 2004.

Suzlon entered the U.S. market in 2003 with its first wind power projects located in Southwest
Minnesota, which features 12 separate sites of approximately 2 MW each. The collective of wind turbines were developed by Dan Juhl, and include sites near Brewster, Woodstock, and Pipestone, Minnesota. After the wind power projects were completed in 2004, John Deere took ownership of the wind turbines in Brewster, while Edison Mission (formerly known as Edison Capital) purchased the turbines in Woodstock and Pipestone.

Suzlon is a vertically integrated wind-power company, offering consultancy, design, manufacturing, operation, and maintenance services to provide customers with total wind power solutions.