GE Energy, a U.S. supplier of wind turbines, announced on June 3 at WindPower 2008 that its installed fleet of 1.5-megawatt wind turbines has surpassed 115 million operating hours in commercial service worldwide. "This is an industry record for a single model of wind turbine," said Victor Abate, Vice President-Renewables for GE Energy. "This milestone has been achieved by more than 8,500 GE 1.5-megawatt wind turbines around the world, including more than 5,200 in the United States."
GEs customer support and remote monitoring centers in Schenectady, N.Y. and Salzbergen, Germany provide continuous monitoring and diagnostics services 24 hours a day. To further expand its parts capabilities for customers in the wind industry, GE is opened a parts fulfillment center in Schenectady, N.Y. that will feature 24-hour-a day access and new online ordering tools. Later this month, GE will also open a parts operation center near Memphis, Tenn., stocked with fleet-wide critical parts for overnight delivery, when needed.
To support regions with growing wind fleets, GE has also opened Wind Energy Service Centers such as the center in Sweetwater, Texas, where teams of wind technicians work to optimize the performance of wind turbine power plants in the area.
According to the American Wind Energy Association, Texas currently leads the U.S. in wind energy, with 5,316.65 megawatts of installed wind capacity by the end of March 2008, of which GEs 1.5-MW wind turbines account for over one-third.
GE has six wind manufacturing and assembly facilities in Germany, Spain, China and the United States.
