Two years after announcing plans to renovate its 100-year-old building in Schenectady, GE opened revealed its new, environmentally-friendly global headquarters this week.

A new report shows wind energy installations are up significantly; however, U.S. manufacturing of wind turbines has slowed.The new headquarters will house GE's fast growing renewable energy segment, reports the Times Union. This segment grew from $200 million in annual sales in 2002 to over $6 billion last year. GE's wind turbine business accounts for a significant chunk of this success; GE produces steam turbines as well as traditional generators at its Schenectady campus.

The $45 million renovation is set to boost employment in the Capital Region.  The new building is welcoming 650 new GE employees, many hired from local colleges.  As a condition of receiving grants from NYSERDA and the state, GE agreed to create 500 jobs in the region 2011. 

The opening coincides with a new report by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) that showed the U.S. wind industry broke its previous records in 2009 by installing nearly 10,000 megawatts in 2009. That puts wind power neck-and-neck with natural gas as the country's primary source of new electricity generation.