Hanover, Germany  - US President Barack Obama's advocacy of regenerative energy is offering industry one of its few glimmers of hope at the Hanover Fair in Germany.

Setting minimum quotas for renewable energy and rapid development of wind power mean a spurt of new work for engineering companies which not even a worldwide recession can spoil.

For the first time, the annual industrial fair in Hanover has opened a modest wind section.

Towering over the booths is the nacelle of one of the monster new turbines now going into service, an Enercon E82 with a capacity of 2 megawatts, made by a company based in Aurich, Germany.

From the ground, a wind-turbine's machinery pod does not look that big, sitting way up on top of an 80-metre mast.

But at the fair, visitors can climb a staircase and peer into the nacelle, minus its rotor blades. And from close up, it seems enormous, almost the size of a submarine or an airliner.

The interior is crammed with machinery and gears which are the size of a small car, and that is where opportunity may knock for the engineering companies which build gearboxes, controls, electrical generators and other parts.

Italian engineering group Bonfiglioli, based near Bologna, has been having a bad year.

It announced Monday that 2008 turnover rose 9 per cent to 664 million euros (877 million dollars), with earnings of 70 million euros. But this year the sector is in "free fall" and Bonfiglioli must lay off staff, according to Agostino Gagliardi, the company's marketing manager.

The sole bright spot, he said in an interview at the fair, is US energy policy.

The company, which also owns its own electric-motor factory in Vietnam, has developed a new heavy-duty gearbox for wind turbines, which Gagliardi said offered hopes for a recovery in sales.

Obama supports a national quota, requiring a minimum portion of clean energy in utility companies' generation mix, and several US states have already legislated such quotas. Last week the Obama Administration announced grants to make the US power grid "smart."

While wind energy is free, turning it into electricity is not cheap. To cut the unit costs, turbines are gradually getting bigger.

This demands advanced engineering to build strong masts, rotors that can withstand gales, and hubs and gears that can handle the intense forces up there as the huge blades turn.

Even the new 2-megawatt turbines offered at the trade fair this week by Enercon or by South Korean company Unison seem puny compared to a top-of-the-range 2.5-megawatt turbine made by US-based maker GE Energy.

GE Energy in Germany said that when production of this 2.5XL model started last September, it had firm orders for 400 of the turbines, able in total to generate electricity for 1 million European households, or 1 gigawatt of power.

Yet GE says the nacelle and tower dimensions of the new model allow builders to use similar transportation and installation procedures to the methods used when erecting standard 1.5-megawatt turbines. (dpa)