Industry Overview

Renewable energy will lead the transformation of the global energy supply structure towards a truly sustainable future based on indigenous, clean and competitive renewable technologies.

Demographics, urbanization and global warming together with the other changes society is experiencing, will continue and permanently transform our world.

Government policy and the resulting regulation passed in an effort to mitigate the effects of global warming and the evident degradation of our environment, will ensure continued growth in this sector will continue.

Technology, tax and other financial incentives for the generation of renewable energy, not only make investment attractive in terms of social good, but make it an investment of choice based objectively on financial metrics, which are comparable to those used in other sectors and are inherently less volatile.

Against this backdrop of transformation, is a generational opportunity to participate in the development and commercialization of new sources of energy which will have a profound effect on how we live today and our children will live tomorrow.

Wind energy is the fastest growing renewable energy source in Canada with an average annual growth rate of 60 percent since 1998 with installed capacity increasing from 26 megawatts (MW) in 1998 to 3,432 MW by summer of 2010: 950 MW of that was installed in 2009. Canada is expected to experience significant growth in the upcoming years.

The U.S. wind industry broke all previous records by installing nearly 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity in 2009 (enough to serve over 2.4 million homes). These new projects place wind power neck and neck with natural gas as the leading source of new electricity generation for the country. Together, the two sources account for about 80% of the new capacity added in the year.

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) predicted that the global market for wind turbines will grow by over 155 per cent from 94 GW in 2007 to reach 240.3 GW of total installed capacity by 2012 . The US market, in particular, is expected to expand dramatically.

One of the significant advantages of wind energy, is that the fuel is free. Therefore, the total cost of producing wind energy throughout the 20 to 25 year lifetime of a wind turbine can be predicted with great accuracy. Neither the future prices of coal, oil or gas nor the price of carbon will affect the cost of wind power production. This, is probably wind energy’s most significant competitive advantage in the global energy market and why we have made the development of wind energy, the core our business.