Canada, Montreal, 23rd January:

Hydro-Québec, a Québec state-owned electricity utility, is tendering for new wind farms and Repower Systems AG wants a big part of the pie.

According to the Gazette, ". . . among the scores of companies - Canadian and international - that participated in Hydro-Québec's current call for tender of 2,000 megawatts of wind power was REpower Systems, a German-based giant that has yet to make its mark in Canada".

and . . .

"Interest in the Quebec tender is intense. More than 25 developers proffered 66 bids for wind farms in proposals totalling more than 7,700 megawatts, or almost four times the amount that Hydro-Québec is seeking to add to its network. The new wind farms are expected to generate about $4 billion of investment".

If you're a West European wind turbine manufacturer, expanding in Canada makes a lot of sense. Deep down, I suspect many of them believe that the onshore West European wind boom, although not over, has its best years behind it. The other fastest growing markets over the next decade have to be the USA, South America and of course, Asia. Even the announcement yesterday ago by the European Union of even more ambitious - and less deliverable - renewables targets can't really change this.