Google, Buffett May Be Wind Turbine Buyers

Google Inc. (GOOG) and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) have shown interest in buying wind turbines to supply power along railroad lines and at computer server farms, two of the world’s largest manufacturers said.

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

Suzlon, India’s largest turbine manufacturer, and Vestas Wind systems A/S, the world’s biggest, are seeking to attract customers outside their traditional base of independent power producers after a drop in orders from U.S. developers such as NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE) and Exelon Corp. (EXC)

“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,” Martha Wyrsch, president of Vestas’s unit in the region, said in an interview. “We are seeing a lot of interest from carbon-conscious companies that we never saw before.”

The comments at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York indicate the measures turbine makers are adopting to make up for a lull in orders.

Sales in the U.S. from all manufacturers probably will remain 30 percent below 2009 levels this year, near 2010 levels when machines with a capacity to generate 4,900 megawatts were installed, the London-based researcher estimates. State renewable-energy mandates that encourage turbine sales will require a total of about 4,800 megawatts a year through 2020.