Despite the sustained demand for wind turbine parts from the US, an established manufacturer has highlighted that the lack of a long-term and stable market can be a major concern.

Even as it emerged that manufacturing of wind turbine parts in the US grew last year as wind turbine imports from Europe and Asia rose from $60 million in 2004 to $2.5 billion in 2008 (according to Customs data reviewed by McClatchy), Roby Roberts, a senior vice president with Vestas, reportedly said “you can’t set up reasonable-cost manufacturing in a boom-bust business cycle,” because component manufacturers need a sense of a long-term and stable market before they invest in making the large parts for turbines.

The American Wind Energy Association estimates that the share of U.S.-made parts in wind turbines increased from 30 percent in 2005 to nearly 50 percent at the end of 2008.

According to the U.S. International Trade Commission: the number of companies assembling nacelles increased to five last year (including Clipper Windpower of Carpinteria, Calif.; Acciona and Gamesa of Spain, and the Composite Technology Corp. subsidiary DeWind of Irvine, California).

At least 11 blade manufacturers and 16 tower manufacturers have plants or plan to open plants in the US.

A month back or so, it was shared that turbine manufacturers installed almost 11 GW more turbines in 2008 than in the previous year – totaling nearly 30 GW of turbines activated during the year, almost double the volume in 2006, with the US and China accounting for 48 percent of that amount.