The growing pains of the wind industry have been covered here in detail on this blog a few times, most recently here. But some firms appear to be less able to deal with it than others and Suzlon, following a report in today's Wall Street Journal, appears to be exhibit A. 

Specifically, there seem to be two problems with their export models to America;

• The turbine blades - some - are cracking
  
• The turbines are having trouble running at the US power frequency of 60 hertz - different to India's of 50 hertz

The first point is a big deal because only one turbine blade has to go for the whole turbine to go out of action. Lost availability like that is lost money. People are also starting to wonder if the lifespan of the modern wind turbine is anything like as good as the 25 years the trade bodies like to quote. In the next two decades, we are going to find out and the manufacturer with the greatest reliability is going to win big.

The second reminds us that there is a whole world of technical connection issues with wind power that can't be glossed over. The power supply in India meanwhile is said to be so unreliable, wind turbines are obtained by factories as backup power.

All this matters because as the article says;

Three years ago, 90% of Suzlon's sales were in India; today, international sales account for 60% of the total. Suzlon's presentations to investors predict exports will jump to 75% of total sales next year, with the U.S., China and Europe accounting for an equal share. Since it began its push into the U.S. in 2005, Suzlon has secured an 8% share of the U.S. wind market, the world's fastest growing.

For all that, these problems are not insurmountable but the damage to Suzlon's reputation is serious. Whilst we'd all like to see windpower costs going down, that doesn't look too likely in the next few years. I question then if the industry has missed a trick by not building turbines that can genuinely last say, 35 years?

That just might deliver the kind of cost breakthrough in wind - cheaper than coal - that google.org has been fantasising about.