^{Photo: The Environmental Blog}

Vestas, which has their North American headquarters located in Portland, Ore., announced a major sale to our neighbor to the north. They received a 178 megawatt wind turbines order for two wind farm projects in southwestern Ontario, Canada.

The wind energy contracts include delivery and commissioning along with five-year service and maintenance agreements. Delivery for both wind farm projects is scheduled for the second half of 2012 and commissioning expected by late 2012.

Vestas will manufacture 99 V90-1.8 MW wind turbines to meet the total 178MW for the two wind power projects in Canada. The contracts include delivery and commissioning along with five-year service and maintenance agreements. Delivery for both projects is scheduled for the second half of 2012 and commissioning expected by late 2012. Everything will be manufactured in Vestas factories in Colorado.

The projects will be built under Ontario’s feed-in tariff (FIT) program, which offers stable prices under long-term contracts from renewable-energy sources such as wind. The projects’ names and specific locations will be disclosed at a later date.

In a press release on the subject, Martha Wyrsch, President of Vestas-Canada said, “We look forward to bringing more clean energy to the grid. These projects will provide construction and maintenance jobs in Ontario and even more clean energy to the region. The V90-1.8 MW, which is designed for areas with medium wind speeds, will provide enough electricity to power 60,000 Ontario homes.”

Since 1997, Vestas has supplied more than 1,000 wind turbines in all 10 Canadian provinces, equating to 1,710 MW of installed wind capacity. This provides enough electricity to power more than 500,000 Canadian homes. Vestas, which has a sales office in Toronto, had its first wind turbine installed in the Ontario market in 2001. In 2011, Vestas has sold 431 MW in Canada.

Vestas is the world leader in providing high-tech wind power systems. Since 1979, Vestas has supplied more than 44,000 wind turbines in 66 countries. Vestas sold its first wind turbine to North America in 1981 and since then has provided more than 12,000 turbines to the United States and Canada. It appears that Vestas is helping the world meet renewable energy goals. According to the WWF Canada, it may be possible to be on 100% renewable energy by the year 2050. These sales by global wind companies are a step towards that goal.

This marks the second major order this week, with another major sale just announced for Texas with 55 V100-1.8 MW turbines churning out a total of 99MW of renewable energy.