USAID Support for the Wind Power Industry –
The Clipper Example
Jim Dehlsen is a pioneer of wind power in the U.S. He founded Zond Wind Power in 1980, when wind
power was still an unproven novelty, and Zond played a key role in the development of many of the
largest wind farms constructed in the U.S. in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Dehlsen sold Zond
to Enron in 1997, and GE purchased Enron Wind in 2002, so the Dehlsen stamp is still indelible in
the industry. But three years ago Dehlsen started a new wind power company called Clipper Windpower,
and plans to move the industry forward even further.
And USAID is helping him do just that. Clipper Windpower is developing plans for 150 MWs of wind
power in the Mexican State of Oaxaca over the next few years – which will be the largest wind
project in Latin America. In 2002, the Energy and Climate Change Teams within USAID/EGAT collaborated
with USAID/Mexico to fund and produce an assessment of the wind resource in the State of Oaxaca. The
assessment was made available in
English (PDF 16,164K) and
Spanish (PDF 9,626K), and
was completed under an Inter Agency Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) – managed by EGAT/EIT.
The fact that Oaxaca is windy was no secret, but the assessment quantifies this information and
presents the data in easy to understand “wind resource maps” The assessment documents
that western Oaxaca has one of the best wind resources in the world – created by a mountainous
topography that levels off at a point where the land-mass also tapers down to a narrow ismith –
thus creating a natural wind tunnel for air flows going between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific
Ocean.
Clipper’s Mexican partner is a Mexican wind developer called Fuerza Eolica. Pablo Gottfried
of Fuerza Eolica states that the assessment is proving to be invaluable in efforts to create a viable
wind power industry in Mexico. “We use the USAID wind map to educate potential investors about
the amazing wind resource in Mexico – the study confirms and expands on our own research, and the
maps NREL produced make it much easier to understand” says Gottfried. He also states that the
assessment augments the independent studies done by independent wind power developers, and will make
the next phase of wind farms in Oaxaca much easier to complete. Gottfied adds: “New companies
are already using the assessment to plan projects without undertaking the many years of study that
we had to undertake before USAID completed this wind resource assessment.”
Jorge Landa, Energy Advisor with USAID/Mexico, sums up the project like this: “This project
is a good example of how USAID can help U.S. and Mexican companies grow and become more profitable,
while at the same time promoting clean and affordable energy to meet Mexico’s growing energy
needs.”
Access additional information on Mexico.
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