GE currently has 255 wind generators installed in Spain with capacities between 750 kilowatts and 3.6 megawatts. GE constructs and sells the generators to utilities, and provides maintenance services.

"We aim to increase this to 16 percent by the end of 2003," GE Wind Energy Director General Antonio Casla told Reuters in an interview.

Its main client is EHN group, in which Spanish utility Iberdrola holds a 37 percent stake.

GE Wind Energy is currently installing 11 more generators in the northeast region of La Rioja and plans to start installing a further 33 in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha.

However, a proposal to cut subsidies for renewable energy in draft legislation due to take effect in 2003 would stymie growth plans.

"We are worried by the situation," said Eduardo Medina, commercial director of GE Wind Energy in Spain. "If the subsidy is cut there will be lots of wind parks which are currently under development, with large sums of money invested, which will simply disappear." Spain, one of the windiest countries in Europe, currently gains around 3 percent of its electricity from wind power and is the second largest European producer of this form of energy and the third largest in the world.

It expects its current installed generation capacity of 4,100 megawatts from wind power to increase to 8,900 megawatts by 2010.

Spain's leading wind power generator is Gamesa (GAM.MC), while the country's principal utilities Endesa (ELE.MC) and Union Fenosa (UNF.MC) are seeking partners to share the risk of their investments in the sector.