AMSC Triples Its Global Wind Power Market Reach

Designed to increase the uniformity of electricity from wind farms, AMSC's PowerModule power electronic converters have been ordered by VRB Power Systems of Vancouver, British Columbia, for integration into its energy storage systems. VRB Power's energy storage technology has the ability to store excess wind-generated energy when the demand is low, and release it when the demand exceeds the available wind-generated power.

"AMSC's wind energy solutions are the products of choice for today's wind farm developers and contractors seeking to develop and deploy world class, wind-generation systems," said Greg Yurek, founder and CEO of AMSC. "The D-VAR has become the standard for wind farm operators facing strict grid interconnection standards while the PowerModule's flexibility and configurability makes it ideally suited for many industries and applications such as the renewable energy market."

AMSC also reported an order for a six megaVAR (MVAR) D-VAR system from Scottish Hydro Contracting for the Millennium wind farm, which is under construction in Scotland. This system will help regulate voltage so the 40-megawatt (MW) wind farm can meet the United Kingdom's grid interconnection standards. The Millennium wind farm will be the ninth wind farm located in the UK and the 26th wind farm worldwide to utilize AMSC's D-VAR solution. Delivery of the system is expected in the second half of calendar 2007.

With the addition of the Scottish wind farm and the VRB order, AMSC now has an installed base and orders for D-VAR and PowerModule solutions to serve nearly 3,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power worldwide -- triple the amount served by AMSC a year ago. With approximately 15,000 MW of wind power capacity installed worldwide in 2006, the additional 2,000 MW served by AMSC over the past year represents a significant share of the overall wind power market.