Thursday, April 7, 2011

Berkshire (BRK-A) (GOOG) Interested in Wind Turbines?

Even though wind power isn't the most reliable source of energy, some companies, including Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A) has apparently shown some interest in wind turbines, according to a couple of the world's largest manufacturers.

The interest of Google and Berkshire Hathaway allegedly stem from railroads in the case of Berkshire, and large computer server farms with Google.

Andris Cukurs, head of North American operations at Suzlon Energy Ltd. (SUEL), said, “Railroads could be huge potential customers of wind turbines, and companies like Google have already shown some interest. We expect to see more large energy consumers get involved directly in wind.”

Even so, orders have been falling in the case of developers in the U.S. like NextEra Energy Inc. (NYSE:NEE) and Exelon Corp. (NYSE:EXC), pushing wind turbine manufacturers to seek other customers outside of independent power producers.

Martha Wyrsch, president of Vestas’s unit in the region, added, “In North America, we’ve totally restructured our sales force and hired more engineers to work with customers that don’t have much experience with wind farms. We are seeing a lot of interest from carbon-conscious companies that we never saw before.”

With wind turbine sales about 30 percent below 2009 levels in 2011, and expected to stay that way for the year, the industry is struggling, and when asked about interest in wind turbines, it's only in the sense of delivering parts, not for the company's own use, casting a shadow on some of the assertions made.

Google for their part, also hasn't ordered any wind turbines to build wind farms, although they did offer to help develop a $5 billion high-voltage transmission line that could connect to offshore wind turbines off the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to Virginia.

In conclusion, it appears the secondary connection of Berkshire and Google was used to make it look like interest was growing outside of the base wind turbine customers, when neither of the company's have had an interest in purchasing the turbines themselves.

1 comment:

Frank said...

ck helix company out