Canada: budding wind market

While the American market for wind power has stalled, the Canadian market is coming to life. Danish actors on the wind power scene are optimistic.

A few Canadian delegations have been visiting Denmark in the past month and Vestas CEO, Svend Sigaard, has recently expressed a clear interest in establishing production facilities in Canada. The Canadian Wind Energy Association CanWEA is inviting Danish suppliers to a wind power conference in October.

“I think that Canada is one of the markets that will be a positive surprise. The Canadian market is slowly expanding with a few smaller projects indicating bright market prospects,” says Birger T. Madsen a wind power market analyst from BTM Consult.

One example is Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island, which has made a renewable energy strategy requiring that 10% of the energy supply comes from wind power by 2010. Simultaneously Quebec has put 1000 MW out to tender, while other provinces are setting targets for renewable energy’s share of the energy consumption - Canada has some of the best wind resources in the world.

Eva Balslev (2004-12-12)