Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
in doubt for too long whether this would become reality or not.
Wind energy found little sympathy in the White House around
1985/86. One reason was a low oil price at that time.
Nearly all American manufactures went bankrupt since they
could not balance the sudden gap between investing in new
developments and the lack of new orders. Of the dozens of firms
that were involved in the wind rush, only two survived. These
companies were the biggest and most successful before the crash—
namely USWP and Fayette. They acted as both manufacturer and
operator, giving them enough financial strength to survive.
But the United States was not the only one hit. In Denmark,
almost all companies faced enormous financial problems due to
cancellation or lack of orders and too high expectations about
the future of the wind industry, especially the US market.
The disappearance of the tax credits led to a market and
industry shrinking since 1986. In order to survive, it came that
manufacturers, operators or foreign companies of the energy
industry merged, shared operation management or took over wind
farms or wind turbine production. The many operators who went
bankrupt often left huge areas of developed or undeveloped “wind
land”, as suitable areas were called. In the American wind sector,
a handful of operators and manufacturers still existed by the end
of the 1980s. The industry was consolidated and slowly came back
to life.
Around the mid-1980s, Danish companies had taken over
the US wind turbine market. Due to less Danish bankruptcies and
more sufering American companies, the Danes enjoyed slightly
more opportunities in the second half of the 1980s. For example,
DanWin realised some projects between 1987 and 1989. A few
more Danish firms that came up around 1985 were involved in
this “post-rush-phase” but their projects remained at the planning
stage.
The second half the 1980s was principally a time of re-
development at the engineering level. In the rush years, manu-
facturers often had paid less attention to development than to
production
Hence, development of a wind turbine was several
steps behind production. This simply meant that wind turbines
were produced that did not match the idea of what is called
“technically mature”. Selling them was preferred—a fact that applied
to both American and some European turbines.
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