Iberdrola and Gamesa who are partners in a venture called Nuevas Energias Ibericas (NEI) plan to go to court to ask for the suspension of the tender process for wind farm licences in Portugal and seek re-admittance to the auction.

If you're wondering why they're so desperate to get back into the game, it's because this is a huge contract. It is a two-phase 1,500-megawatt project which will at a stroke, more than double wind power capacity in Portugal, among world leaders in installing new wind power in 2005.

Meanwhile, Ibedrola and Gamesa - both Spanish companies - must be smarting from the fact that they would not win a contract on home iberian turf.

As I touched on these pages a week ago, although it is the biggest wind company in the world in a booming industry, Vestas is in a tight spot.

Citing component delays, a weak dollar, warranty provision and a patent dispute, Societe Generale believes all of these could prevent the group from reaching 4%-7% margin (not very much even then) in 2006. Consequently, they are holding on to their sell rating.

I tend to think that the future of manufacturing is no longer in Western Europe, less still, Scandinavia. Suzlon is making inroads and rightly so. As someone who admires and agrees with much of Thomas L. Friedman's book "The World is Flat", I tend to think that if you're not doing everything at lowest possible cost with the highest possible service, your potential customers either already know or will do very quickly.

Whether you like it or not, in a transparent world market, high cost, high tax countries like Denmark, will never manufacture wind turbines at a competitive price, no matter how good your management is.

Suzlon Energy - the Indian Wind Company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange - has just landed orders from Italy and Portugal for supplying 29 2.1 MW wind turbines.

As far as foreign markets were concerned, Suzlon has already had some success in the US market. Breaking into Europe like this and beating European manufacturers to a supply contract is very promising. This deal could be a spin-off from the European Wind Energy Association's EU-India Wind Energy Network . My guess is that this is going to benefit India a lot more than the EU !

According to the website, " . . .the main objective of the 36-month project is to facilitate partnerships among wind energy actors in Europe and India. Indian industry stands to gain improved technological collaboration, cheaper capital and outsourcing opportunities, while European industry will have improved access to the Indian market and the exciting returns it offers."

I think it's highly doubtful that any European wind turbine manufacturers will succeed in selling into the Indian market. But for India, greater access to the European marketplace and it's intellectual and financial capital, is upside all the way.

Vestas Wind Systems has fallen 2.25 to 169.75 today on profit taking. It may also be something to do with the sell rating given to it by Jyske Bank a week ago.

The wind turbine maker will report its first-half earnings this Thursday. It's hard to overstate the importance of this - Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, is almost a bellweather for the European Wind Industry. Although the sector continues to boom, manufacturing turbines - in Europe - is not a high-margin business.

In 2004, Vestas' gross margin was just 2.4%.

Babcock & Brown Wind Partners have reached an agreement with NZ Windfarms, an offshoot of Christchurch turbine manufacturer Windflow Technology, to build a NZD 80 million wind farm - Te Rere Hau.

New Zealand has some of the best sites in the world for windfarming. The circumpolar winds of the Roaring Forties blow unchecked by land until reaching New Zealand and the airstream is then accelerated further by their mountain ranges. This translates into load factors of up to 55% - double the norm.

So windpower in NZ has tremendous scope for low cost expansion. Hydropower is the cheapest form of electricity generation (at least levelised over a lifetime or as a production cost) bar none and contributes the lion's share of NZ electricity. In 2003, of 41 billion kWh of electricity generated in NZ, 58% was hydro, 24.5% gas, 7.6% coal, 6.7% geothermal, 2% wind and 1.3% biomass.

With NZ's hydropower potential now fully exploited and imported gas now at record prices, the case for wind in New Zealand has never been better.

Just in case anyone was in any doubt of the importance of windspeed to a windfarm's power output, here is exhibit A.

Babcock & Brown Wind Partners (as listed on the Australian Stock Exchange) said it had generated 100 gigawatt hours less than forecast and generated $10 million less revenue mainly because of the delays in three Spanish wind farm acquisitions, but also because the wind did not blow in May and June.

Low windspeed years can always happen, which is why global diversification of wind assets is so vital to consistent returns.

The wind is always blowing somewhere in the world.

Suzlon Energy, India's wind giant, is likely to invest Rs 14 billion in 2006-07 across three plants in India. The company plans to raise its wind turbine manufacturing capacity to 4200 mw from the current 3300 mw in the course of this fiscal year.

According to a recent report "Here comes the wind" by Tom Astle of National Bank Financial, Suzlon sticks out from the other wind turbine manufacturers, because its operating margin and gross are twice that (22% and 38%) of it's nearest competitor - Gamesa. And yet Suzlon still only has a 6% world market share.

That's why Suzlon is one company well worth paying attention to in the years to come.

France has the highest penetration of nuclear power - up to 80% of annual terawatt hours consumed- pretty much the highest in the whole world. So it's fascinating to watch the progress of Theolia, France's sole listed wind energy company faced with the Wind Industry's traditional enemy.

Just yesterday, they formally transferred over to the Euronext Eurolist B market. This means a new ISIN (FR0000184814) and stock code TEO.

The news follows on from their acquisition a couple of weeks ago of a 30 MW wind farm project in Fruges, in the Somme department of Northern France. Theolia will own a 60% stake in the 30 MW project, including pre-emptive rights to the 40% held by local partners.

The aims of the company are tied in with the ambition of the French Government. Theolia aims to reach an installed capacity of 100MW by the end of 2006 and to build an additional 150MW per year until 2010, i.e. 550 MW. The French government has set a target of installing 10,000MW of wind capacity by 2010, so Theolia would theoretically have a 5.5% share. Not very much in the grand scheme of things, but a big jump from where they are now.

Just recently, the French government also announced increased feed-in tariffs for wind that would be comparable to Germany.

I would however bet a lot more on the returns generated on a French windfarm than a German one. Why?

Because France is a much windier place in general, starts from a lower base with far more virgin land to exploit and French planners love infrastructure. There are no famous winds in Germany that are given names like the Mistral, the Marin or even the Transmontana. And there really isn't much room for onshore expansion. Windspeed matters because it hugely affects the power curve of a wind turbine; every doubling in the speed of the wind multiplies the turbines power output by 8 times. Germany is actually a pretty dismal location for windspeeds and Southern Germany is terrible. That's why German wind subsidies are so high and future expansion is almost certainly going to be offshore where windspeeds are higher.

France though has only just got started.