GE Vernova touts made-in-America credentials as mega-project's wind turbines roll out
Manufacturer says production of Sun Zia machines reaches half way stage
The OEM, which announced the deal in January 2024, is manufacturing nacelles at its factory in Pensacola, Florida, while subsidiary LM Wind Power and TPI composites are supplying the 2,022 single-piece blades. LM’s US plant is in North Dakota.
“The roughly $70m we’ve invested in Pensacola since 2023 is enabling us to help meet America’s and the world’s accelerating energy demand,” GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said in a statement.
“Such strategic investments and the jobs they create in the US aim to both help our customers meet the doubling of demand and accelerate American innovation and technology development to boost the country’s energy security and global competitiveness,” he added.
SunZia is the launch customer for the 3.6-154. It is GE Vernova’s latest “workhorse” turbine, one of several targeted for the US onshore market, by far its biggest, and critical for the wind division to regain profitability in 2026 and achieve high single-digit margins or better thereafter.
Wind posted a $588m loss in 2024. Strazik told analysts in January the OEM anticipates lowering the red ink to $200-400m this year.
GE Vernova aims to complete the SunZia order in the first quarter of 2026. Pattern also awarded Vestas a 1.1GW SunZia contract for 242, V163-4.5MW turbines, also that vendor’s largest-ever turbine contract in the US.
Pattern aims to have the 3.5GW wind farm and a related new 550-mile (885 km) interstate transmission line that will carry most of the electric power to California and adjacent states in full commercial operation by mid-2026. It would then become the largest wind project in the western hemisphere.
Today’s GE Vernova announcement comes with the US wind industry under fire from President Donald Trump’s administration, which openly supports fossil fuels and clean baseload geothermal and hydro power over intermittent renewables.
American Clean Power Association (ACP) , a national trade group, said the US had 25.2GW of onshore wind capacity under construction or in advanced development. GE Vernova has about 60% of turbine orders for projects where a supplier is known.
To what extent the administration would try and disrupt onshore wind activity is unclear. The 79 projects in ACP’s development pipeline database are eligible for generous federal tax credits available in the 2022 climate law.
While Trump would like his party, which has a majority in Congress, to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act with new legislation, at least 21 Republicans in the lower house oppose such a move.
Several leading onshore wind developers such as NextEra Energy say they are moving ahead with contracted projects and stepping up origination efforts to add to their backlogs amid strong demand for electric power.
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