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| 31 Aug 2009 09:56:27 pm |
 WSJ Giveth and WSJ Taketh Away |
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As we noted in this space last week, there are signs that capital is now moving back to the wind sector. The Wall St. Journal has now picked up this trend, noting that " Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. have invested $100 million each to finance separate wind farms this month, taking advantage of a brand-new federal program that is paying substantial cash grants to help cover the cost of renewable energy investments." The Journal called this "the beginning of an active pipeline of new wind-farm financing."
But the Journal's online Environmental Capital Blog, written by Keith Johnson, notes that some in the industry are worried that wind's forward momentum will be stalled unless Congress enacts a strong renewable electricity standard (RES). "Finding buyers for that electricity could yet prove an obstacle" unless Congress passes a strong RES, the blog says.
Maybe Congress will take the hint. |
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Category : AWEA News
| Posted By : Chris Madison |
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| 31 Aug 2009 09:19:18 pm |
| Is Wyoming Becoming Wind Central USA? |
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It's long been clear that Wyoming had great wind resources. What was harder to fathom was why they had so few wind projects. Over time, that mystery may be moot. Today Duke Energy announced it was building a 200 MW wind farm near Casper, Wyo. It will be Duke's fourth planned wind project in the state.
The new project, named Top of the World, will be located on 17,000 acres of public and private land near Casper in Converse County. The project will consist of of 66 1.5-MW General Electric Co. turbines and 44 2.3-MW Siemens Energy Inc. turbines.
Duke has agreed to sell the power and associated credits to MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. subsidiary PacifiCorp, which does business as Rocky Mountain Power in Wyoming. Construction is expected to start in late 2009 or early 2010. Duke noted that the project will be built outside core sage grouse habitats.
In a sign of growing interest in harnessing Wyoming's wind, the state's governor and legislature recently held separate events related to wind energy. |
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Category : AWEA News
| Posted By : Chris Madison |
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| 28 Aug 2009 09:02:29 pm |
| NREL Rebuts Spanish Jobs Study |
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The Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has released a scathing critique of the so-called Spanish Jobs Study, which stated that renewable energy eliminates two jobs for every jobs it creates.
The NREL analysis states that "The analysis by the authors from King Juan Carlos University represents a significant divergence from traditional methodologies used to estimate employment impacts from renewable energy. In fact, the methodology does not reflect an employment impact analysis. Accordingly, the primary conclusion made by the authors – policy support of renewable energy results in net jobs losses – is not supported by their work."
The Spanish jobs study was cited by columnist George Will, members of Congress and others as a reason to oppose the efforts by the Obama Administration and Congress to promote renewable energy as a means of increasing energy security, reducing carbon emissions and creating jobs.
The Spanish study criticized actions by the Spanish government to promote renewables, saying it did so at the expense of job creation on other sectors of the economy. The NREL analysis says, "The study ignores the role of government in facilitating growth of valued new industries. Governments invest in renewable energy technologies to promote the growth of the industry as a whole. Emerging (renewable energy) technologies have not achieved levels of maturity and economies of scale that traditional technologies have; nor have they benefited from years of public and private investment. As a result, there may be a role for government to play in leveling the playing field between new and old technologies and in supporting emerging technologies. In the United States, all conventional energy technologies received government support in their early stages, and still benefit from government investment today." |
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Category : AWEA News
| Posted By : Chris Madison |
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| 27 Aug 2009 04:12:16 pm |
| Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm: You can't help but look up. |
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“You can’t help but look up,” Tom Lauletta, Vice President of the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) and my tour guide, said as I squinted into the sun, standing beneath a wind turbine that was getting some repairs.
The Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm, the first in the Garden State, helps power the ACUA Wastewater Treatment Facility in Atlantic City, NJ. The farm is currently maintained by GE and developed/co-owned by a partnership between Babcock & Brown (now Pattern Energy Group LP) & Community Energy, and is composed of five GE 1.5-MW turbines.
Tom, a PE & CME and a proud employee of the ACUA, has a real appreciation for the wind turbines and how they have benefited his facility. He explained the history of the Wastewater Treatment plant and how it grew with the development in the region.
Because of the size of the facility and amount of energy used to conduct the wastewater treatment processes, the daily operational needs require about 2.5-MW of energy each day, making the ACUA an ideal candidate for renewable energy-- specifically wind. The high demand, combined with the high wind potential and the lack of zoning regulations made it an extremely conducive environment for the developers. They are able to use between 30-70% (the high was this past winter) of the power from wind generation that translates to about 70% of the facility’s needs.
This is the first “urban” wind farm and the first combined wind/solar-powered facility; in addition to the turbines, there are 500-kW of photovoltaic solar panels on site. They also have an electric “GEM” (Global Electric Motors) car on the grounds, along with a car-charging station. The ACUA is continuing to make efforts to make the facility more “green” and they’re working toward being LEED certified.
Tom views the Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm as a prime example of a mutually-beneficial relationship between public and private entities because of the arrangement between the developer/user to purchase the wind energy at a set rate for 20 years. In fact, the ACUA has nearly reached the $2 million mark in savings just since the turbines came online in December 2005.
There was little resistance locally to the installation of the turbines. In fact, the local community has “embraced” the wind turbines, according to Tom: Since the turbines became operational in 2005, they have given over 14,000 tours. They actually had to put in a security gate because people were wandering all over the grounds to catch a close-up glimpse of the turbines. Even those at the nearby casinos have shown an interest in the wind farm.
The ACUA works closely with other regional institutions to ensure that the local community stays invested in the project. The NJ Audubon Society monitors bird fatalities, of which there have only been three since 2005, and they all coincided with other variable conditions, such as the Atlantic City Airshow, an annual aerial acrobatic event with performances by private and military planes. During the development of the project, the ACUA offered a bus trip to about 50 local residents who were concerned about the sound issue. They visited an operating wind farm in Pennsylvania and concluded that sound was a non-issue; in fact, the noise from traffic and other sources is much louder than turbines on the ACUA property.
The Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm has met and exceeded the challenges that are often associated with introducing wind to an unfamiliar community. The ACUA has done much to be a leader in environmental innovation and has helped set the stage for New Jersey’s welcoming of offshore wind.
Please see AWEA's Flickr page for more photos of the facility.
Guest Blogger Anyah Dembling |
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Category : AWEA News
| Posted By : Chris Madison |
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| 25 Aug 2009 10:33:07 pm |
| Grandpa's Knob, 1941 |
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Last Saturday, August 22, at the invitation of Jan and David Blittersdorf (of NRG Systems and Earth Turbines, respectively), I drove to the base of Grandpa’s Knob, a 1,900-foot mountain northwest of Rutland, Vermont. David and Jan and I climbed the mountain along with members of the board and staff of the newly formed American Wind Wildlife Institute, a nonprofit founded by several wind companies and environmental groups, and David and I spoke briefly to the group.
Grandpa’s Knob is the location where the world’s first large-scale wind turbine was installed (in 1941!) in a visionary experiment funded by the S. Morgan Smith Co., a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of hydro turbines. The turbine was tested for 4 years (testing was slowed by the failure of a bearing, which was very difficult to replace during World War II). It was then commissioned as a regular generating station on the Central Vermont Public Service system, but ran for only about a month before throwing one of its two 8-ton steel blades about 750 feet down the mountain. The four concrete footings for the turbine’s tower are still in place, along with the short metal plates to which the tower legs were fastened.
David Blittersdorf grew up near Rutland, within sight of Grandpa’s Knob, and was inspired to enter the wind business by learning about the Smith-Putnam (Palmer C. Putnam was the turbine’s designer) turbine. I had read about it shortly after joining AWEA, and climbed the mountain on my own a few years ago. It was quite a thrill to find some remains of the turbine.
I told the AWWI representatives that we have high hopes for their organization and that we are hoping the research it funds will be high quality and help environmental groups see their way to more active support of wind power because of the enormous environmental benefits that it brings compared with fossil fuels.
There is a nice summary of the history of the Smith-Putnam turbine here. Some amazing photos of its manufacture are located here. And you can see actual film footage of it operating here. |
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Category : AWEA News
| Posted By : Tom Gray |
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