GROWING BIGGER

Tacke Windtechnik of Germany will install its 1.5 MW prototype wind turbine at a site near Emden before the end of the year. The owner-operator will be the local utility, Stadtwerke Emden. Two other prototypes are to be installed in early 1996, says Tacke's Rainer Fiedler. One will go in the ground in Schleswig-Holstein, the other near Dunkirk in France.

An inland version of the 1.5 MW turbine is being developed with major utility RWE Energie for installation in the second half of 1996. The utility already owns a 600 kW Tacke machine, sited near Grevenbroich, but is apparently intending to install the 1.5 MW turbine outside Germany where financial returns are better.

Tacke also anticipates exports to "expand enormously" next year, reaching up to 100 turbines. Under the German Eldorado programme, the first two 600 kW turbines have recently been sent to Xinjiang province in China and in another first, two 600 kW machines have been sent to Latvia. Some 50 machines will be installed in India in 1996. Export financing is arranged by a Tacke subsidiary, Winvest, set up at the start of 1995.