Wind

BP aims to grow its wind business rapidly to become one of the leading project developers in the US by 2015 through focused investment

Our expertise lies in wind resource assessment, siting, project development, construction management, procurement, contracting, finance, and site operations.

Our Sherbino 1 facility in Texas started commercial operation in 2008 and is expected to have a capacity of 750MW

During 2008 BP made decisions relating to future investment opportunities across the portfolio and we decided to focus our wind power investments in the US where there is an attractive environment for investment with major opportunities for growth and where we have a large portfolio of potential projects, strong partnerships and a growing track record. We will not pursue further business development in the rest of the world.

Wind power is growing strongly in the US and elsewhere. However, the rate at which additional wind projects can be undertaken is limited by many factors including local permitting and the availability of suitable electrical grid capacity.

During 2008, we increased our gross operational wind capacity to 785MW (net 432MW), mostly in the US, where there is an attractive environment for investment with major opportunities for growth. We have now developed a total gross capacity of more than 1,000MW in the US, making us one of the largest wind developers in the country. Our US wind portfolio includes almost 100 potential projects with a total generating capacity of 20,000MW.

BP’s efforts have not been impeded by the shortage of wind turbine manufacturing capacity because we have a range of long-term supply agreements in place with Clipper Windpower, Nordex of Germany and General Electric.