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The Cape Wind drama continues; no surprise there. This week Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took a tour of the site of the 420-MW offshore wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound. At the same time, the Interior Department's Inspector General reported that some federal agencies felt they were being rushed to meet Salazar's imposed March ...
What would happen if the wind industry, the regulators, and the conservationists got together to see if they could agree on guidelines for siting wind farms in a way that avoids or minimizes the impact on wildlife? We may be about to find out.
Since 2007, a Wind Turbine Guidelines Advisory Committee, representing industry, government and wildlife groups, has been meeting to draft recommended
Guest blog by AWEA's Carl Levesque
This has turned out to be the week that the need for a national renewable electricity standard (RES) became impossible to ignore. And the drumbeat keeps getting louder.
The latest such message: according to a study on jobs and a renewable electricity standard released today from the independent firm Navigant Consulting, Inc., a 25%-by-2025 RES would result in 274,000 more jobs supported by the renewables industry. Moreover, without a national RES, many states will actually lose jobs already supported by renewable energy, according to the study, which was commissioned by the RES Alliance for ...
There is good news today in the just-released global wind energy numbers: the world’s wind energy capacity grew by 31% in 2009, despite the global recession, and the United States remains the global leader in total wind installed, with more than 35,000 MW.
But the numbers are also a warning to the United States that it needs a more aggressive policy if it is going to stay in the race with China for wind energy and particularly for wind manufacturing. For 2009, China installed about 13,000 MW, compared with the U.S. total of just under 10,000 MW. While U.S. lost some manufacturing jobs last year because of a fall off in orders, China's wind manufacturing sector was booming, especially since most of its wind turbines are domestically produced.
“China is hard on ...
E Wind LLC has received approval from the Town of Randolph to construct a 30 MW, 18 turbine community wind farm in Columbia County, about 40 miles north of Madison, Wisconsin. The project is unusual because it is locally owned and hopes to sell the electricity to local utilities. The owners must secure a buyer for the electricity, enough to power about 7,200 homes, before beginning construction.
One of the owners, Bob Lange, farmed in Columbia County for 25 years before getting involved with E Wind.
In arguing for the Renewable Electricity Standard, we at AWEA try to explain how a national renewable target will help create the right policy environment that companies need to make investment decisions. But it's better to listen to the companies that will be making the decisions. Here's a statement from Lew Hay, chairman of FPL Group:
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A renewable energy standard that requires power providers to get a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources will give the renewables industry certainty. In the electric power sector, we make capital decisions with a 30-year ...
President Obama did not mention wind energy tonight--he did mention clean coal and nuclear. In some ways he did not need to mention wind, especially since in recent days members of his Administration have been citing the latest wind energy growth statistics as a successful outcome of the Recovery Act.
What was more striking than the omission of the word wind was the fact that each time he talked about jobs--the highest priority for his administration going forward--he immediately mentioned clean energy jobs. The two ideas became a single vision. The President reiterated his commitment to building a new energy economy and showed that he understands the role wind energy and solar and other renewables are playing in the creation of new jobs. That sends a strong signal to the ...
AWEA CEO Denise Bode today issued the following statement on President Obama's State of the Union address:
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The wind energy industry applauds the President's emphasis on job creation. Under the President's leadership, the Recovery Act saved 40,000 wind jobs. The industry now looks forward to working with the President to put in place the policies—including a national Renewable Electricity Standard—that will create thousands more jobs, including in manufacturing. A Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) with strong, aggressive near-term targets is the best way to provide the certainty needed for businesses to expand domestic wind manufacturing.
...Today AWEA released its numbers for 2009, and the news was good-- record-breaking, in fact. For the year, the wind energy industry installed nearly 10,000 MW of new capacity, compared with last year's record-breaking total of 8,500 MW.
Denise Bode, AWEA's CEO, said the Recovery Act incentives played a big role in the wind industry's growth last year, calling it "a historic success in creating jobs, avoiding carbon, and protecting consumers." She added, “U.S. wind turbine manufacturing – the canary in the mine -- is down compared to last year’s levels, and needs long-term policy certainty and market pull in order to grow. We need to set hard targets, in the form of a ...
Yesterday, the Amarillo Globe-News carried an opinion piece by Public Utilities Commission of Texas Chair Barry Smitherman on how Texas has become a national leader in wind power and how expanding transmission is needed. Two readers posted negative comments, one on costs and the other on a variety of complaints. Here is a response from Michael Goggin, AWEA's Electric Industry Analyst:
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I'd like to thank Mr. Smitherman for his very thoughtful article that logically explains why new transmission lines are essential for Texas to continue leading the ...
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