Florida energy exports include wind power
The State of Florida has been making a big push to promote the use of sawgrass and other agricultural products to produce ethanol, but that is not the only form of alternative energy produced with an eye toward international markets.
Pensacola's GE Wind Energy assembly plant has grown into one of the world's leading suppliers of generators made for the growing international market for wind energy generation.
A report in the Pensacola New Journal said that while the market for the specialty generators is mostly inside the U.S., some of them go overseas, as far as Europe and Asia.
The plant, which operates on shifts 24 hours a day, also uses a sophisticated logistics program to meet customers' frequent time-sensitive demands. As an assembly only facility, parts a shipped in from both domestic and international sources.
The plant puts out one of its 1.5 megawatt generators every 40 pant hours, the report said. The generators are then shipped by truck or rail to U.S. destinations or outbound ports.
The Port of Pensacola has been talking to GE about starting direct shipments from the port, but so far the company has only used the port for excess storage space for generators, the report noted.
Florida energy exports include wind power
