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  #161  
Old Posted Apr 23, 2014, 7:11 PM
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Google Signs Up to Buy 407 Megawatts of Buffett’s Wind Power
Ehren Goossens, Bloomberg
April 22, 2014 | 0 Comments

NEW YORK -- Google Inc. agreed to buy 407 megawatts of wind power from Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., the technology company’s largest deal to date for renewable energy.

The capacity will power Google’s Council Bluffs, Iowa, data center, according to a statement from Des Moines-based MidAmerican today. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Google, along with Facebook Inc., Apple Inc., Intel Corp. and other companies, are buying buying power from renewable energy projects to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. Google has agreed to buy more than a gigawatt of clean power. Corporate data centers are significant consumers of electricity.

MidAmerican will provide the capacity from multiple wind farms that are part of its Wind VIII effort to add 1,050 megawatts of wind energy in Iowa by the end of 2015.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/...tts-wind-power
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  #162  
Old Posted Apr 23, 2014, 7:29 PM
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Quote:
Connecticut OKs wind power rules, ends moratorium
By STEPHEN SINGER
Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, Apr. 22, 2014 - 8:51 am
Last Modified: Tuesday, Apr. 22, 2014 - 10:32 am

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut lawmakers broke an impasse over energy policy on Tuesday, approving wind power regulations that end a moratorium on new turbines producing clean energy.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/22/634...#storylink=cpy
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  #163  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2014, 9:28 PM
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Chart: Wind Dominates the 37GW of Power Under Construction
A picture worth a thousand words

Katherine Tweed
April 25, 2014

When it comes to new power capacity in the U.S., it's all about renewables.

Last October, renewable energy accounted for nearly 100 percent of all new generation capacity in the U.S. For the first quarter of 2014, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that renewable energy sources, primarily wind and solar, made up more than 90 percent of new installed power capacity, with natural gas making up the remainder.

The trend is shown below in a map from Ventyx, ABB’s software arm and a leader in IT/OT convergence and helping utilities integrate renewables into their systems. Wind power projects dominate new capacity under construction, according to the chart, followed by natural gas plants and then solar.


http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...r-Construction
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  #164  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2014, 2:27 AM
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I wonder just how accurate that map really is. Just looking at the area I live in I can see some projects under construction that aren't shown. Also, it significantly overstates wind and solar projects for two reasons. First it is going on installed capacity and not average generation which makes wind and solar seem much bigger than they really are because for the same capacity a coal/nuclear/gas plant can produce 2-3 times as much as a wind farm and 4-5 times as much as a solar plant. Also, the largest circle it shows is for projects 377MW and larger, but in the power generation world a 377MW project is considered rather small. This makes a lot of the small solar and wind projects look much more significant than they really are in the greater scheme of things. I'm all for being in favor of renewable energy, but this graph isn't a very honest comparison of different fuels.
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  #165  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2014, 4:15 PM
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Quote:
How much wind can Texas handle?
Is Texas wind power’s speeding expansion a boom or a bubble?

By Herman K. Trabish
April 25, 2014

Texas has a remarkable 8,700 megawatts of new wind capacity under development with signed interconnection agreements, including 3,600 megawatts expected to come online in 2014, 3,700 megawatts in 2015, and 900 megawatts in 2016.

That’s on top of 11,065 megawatts already installed, almost twice that of the next closest state and more than all but five countries.

“This is definitely a boom, driven primarily by the newly available Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) transmission capacity in the Panhandle and West, where the wind resource is exceptional,” American Wind Energy Association Director of Research Michael Goggin said.

Another factor in this burst of development is the structure of last year’s production tax credit (PTC), explained Warren Lasher, Director of System Planning for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s grid operator. It makes any project that started construction by the end of last year eligible. Texas developers qualified a lot of capacity in Q4 that they planned on completing this year.

A constraining factor could be the ability of the supply chain to keep pace with the boom, according to Rosendin Electric Preconstruction Manager Rick Rohde. Builders need to have the 8,000-plus components of a wind turbine at their sites in a timely manner.

Delays are not impacting project economics yet because developers already met the PTC’s in-construction requirement. But they could, at least in the Panhandle, when the volume of building peaks, Rohde said.

The new capacity will not, however, challenge ERCOT’s advanced grid operations, Goggin said, because Texas has plenty of natural gas capacity to balance wind’s variability. And the deregulated Texas electricity market wants wind as a hedge against natural gas’s price volatility.​

http://d1bb041l1ipbcm.cloudfront.net...04-24-2014.jpg
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-...handle/255837/
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  #166  
Old Posted Apr 29, 2014, 12:46 AM
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Spanish island to be fully powered by wind, water
By Guest Post Editor's Pick, Featured, Green Building, Green Living April 28, 2014

The smallest and least known of Spain's Canary Islands, El Hierro, is making a splash by becoming the first island in the world fully energy self-sufficient through combined water and wind power.

A wind farm opening at the end of June will turn into electricity the gusts that rake the steep cliffs and green mountains of the volcanic island off the Atlantic coast of Africa.

Its five turbines installed at the northeastern tip of El Hierro near the capital Valverde will have a total output of 11.5 megawatts -- more than enough power to meet the demand of the island's roughly 10,000 residents and its energy-hungry water desalination plants.

Although other islands around the world are powered by solar or wind energy, experts say El Hierro is the first to secure a constant supply of electricity by combining wind and water power and with no connection to any outside electricity network.
http://earthtechling.com/2014/04/spa...by-wind-water/
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  #167  
Old Posted May 3, 2014, 10:03 PM
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May 3, 2014
Suzlon Reaches Deal to Restructure $485 Million of Bonds

May 3 (Bloomberg) — Suzlon Energy Ltd., the wind-turbine maker responsible for India’s biggest convertible-bond default, reached an agreement with investors to restructure $485 million of notes.

The board has approved the deal to issue new five-year convertible bonds maturing in the financial year ending March 2020, Pune-based Suzlon said in an e-mailed statement. The conversion price has been set at 15.46 rupees, it said.

They will be step-up bonds, meaning the coupon rate will rise over the five years, and the yield will average out to approximately 5 percent, according to the statement.

The deal is “an optimal solution to our last remaining piece” of a program to reduce liabilities, Kirti Vagadia, head of finance of the Suzlon Group, which also owns German offshore turbine maker Senvion SE, said in the statement.

The agreement with bondholders follows a year and a half of negotiations prompted by the company’s failure to repay $209 million of notes in October 2012. That default also triggered a clause allowing holders of a further $265 million of 2014 and 2016 bonds to demand immediate repayment.

The restructuring covers all of the 2012 and 2014 notes and half of the 2016 ones, according to the statement.
http://about.bnef.com/bnef-news/suzl...ructure-bonds/
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  #168  
Old Posted Jun 13, 2014, 6:33 PM
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Canada Installs Record Wind Power Capacity in 2013
June 12, 2014 @ 11:14 EDT

2013 was a record year for wind energy development in Canada with new installed capacity from 23 wind energy projects totaling nearly 1,600 MW, ranking 5th globally for new installed capacity.

Canada finished 2013 with 7,802.72 MW of total installed capacity—supplying approximately 3 per cent of Canada’s electricity demand with enough power to meet the needs of over 2 million Canadian homes.

In 2013, wind energy projects were built and commissioned in the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. At the end of 2013, Ontario and Quebec led the country in total installed capacity with close to 2,500 MW each.

http://dailyfusion.net/2014/06/wind-...da-2013-29333/
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  #169  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2014, 8:23 PM
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Wind turbine payback

US researchers have carried out an environmental lifecycle assessment of 2-megawatt wind turbines mooted for a large wind farm in the US Pacific Northwest. Writing in the International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing, they conclude that in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online.

Wind turbines are frequently touted as the answer to sustainable electricity production especially if coupled to high-capacity storage for times when the wind speed is either side of their working range. They offer a power source that has essentially zero carbon emissions.

Coupled lifecycle cost and environmental assessment in terms of energy use and emissions of manufacturing, installation, maintenance and turbine end-of-life processing seems to be limited in the discussions for and against these devices. "All forms of energy generation require the conversion of natural resource inputs, which are attendant with environmental impacts and costs that must be quantified to make appropriate energy system development decisions," explain Karl Haapala and Preedanood Prempreeda of Oregon State University, in Corvallis.

The pair has carried out a life cycle assessment (LCA) of 2MW wind turbines in order to identify the net environmental impact of the production and use of such devices for electricity production. An LCA takes into account sourcing of key raw materials (steel, copper, fiberglass, plastics, concrete, and other materials), transport, manufacturing, installation of the turbine, ongoing maintenance through its anticipated two decades of useful life and, finally, the impacts of recycling and disposal at end-of-life.

Their analysis shows that the vast majority of predicted environmental impacts would be caused by materials production and manufacturing processes. However, the payback for the associated energy use is within about 6 months, the team found. It is likely that even in a worst case scenario, lifetime energy requirements for each turbine will be subsumed by the first year of active use. Thus, for the 19 subsequent years, each turbine will, in effect, power over 500 households without consuming electricity generated using conventional energy sources.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-wtp061614.php
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  #170  
Old Posted Jun 24, 2014, 1:16 AM
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June 23, 2014
Texas hits new peak wind output

At 8:48 p.m. on March 26, wind generation on the electric grid covering most of the state of Texas reached a new instantaneous peak output of 10,296 megawatts (MW). At that moment, wind supplied almost 29% of total electricity load, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid's operator. The average wind production in that hour was 10,120 MW. The new wind record surpassed two highs reached in the previous week, while the record prior to March was 9,674 MW set in May 2013.

March's wind power record will likely be surpassed in the near future as wind capacity continues to be added in the state. Texas currently has more than 12,000 MW of operational utility-scale wind capacity (see graph below)—about one-fifth of the total wind capacity in the United States. According to preliminary data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Electric Power Monthly, Texas added 150 MW of utility-scale wind capacity in 2013, less than one-tenth of the nearly 1,600 MW added in the previous year.




http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16811
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  #171  
Old Posted Jun 24, 2014, 3:45 PM
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June 24, 2014
Fewer wind curtailments and negative power prices seen in Texas after major grid expansion

Curtailments of wind generation on the Texas electric grid have steadily dropped since 2011 as more than 3,500 miles of transmission lines have been built, largely as a result of the state's Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) program. Occurrences of wind-related negative real-time electricity prices have similarly declined as the CREZ transmission expansions have allowed wind power to flow to more electricity demand areas in the state.

Wind capacity in Texas grew rapidly in 2006-09, when more than 7,000 megawatts (MW) of utility-scale wind capacity (more than half of the state's current total wind capacity) was built. The Texas grid experienced major transmission congestion as the large volumes of electricity from these wind plants, which were concentrated in the rural western and northern areas of the state, were sometimes unable to reach the population centers in the eastern half of the state. The limited transmission capacity connecting the wind production and power demand centers was insufficient for the amount of wind power being generated in the west. During these situations, excess wind generation was curtailed by the grid's operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), in order to keep the transmission network operating within its physical limits.

In addition to wind curtailments, the regional supply and demand imbalances caused real-time wholesale electricity prices at the West Hub in ERCOT to drop, and even go negative, during periods of substantial wind generation. The negative West Hub prices (see graph above) reflect the region's local oversupply of wind power compared to its electric demand and the inability to move the excess wind power to other areas with more demand. Negative prices occur when generators are willing to pay for the opportunity to continue generating electricity.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16831
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  #172  
Old Posted Jan 13, 2016, 7:42 PM
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London [Offshore] Array smashes offshore wind farm record
Giant offshore wind farm sets new monthly record as output for the year supports more than 600,000 homes
By James Murray | 11 Jan 2016 |

The London Array offshore wind farm smashed its monthly output record during December, according to new figures released late last week.

The giant 175-turbine offshore array generated 369,000MWh of clean power, well in excess of its previous monthly best of 317,000MWh, which was set last November.

London Array Limited, which is owned by a consortium of E.ON, DONG Energy and Masdar, said the capacity factor for the month reached 78.9 per cent.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news...nd-farm-record
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