Green Wombat

PG&E to Generate a Gigawatt of Wind Power

California utility PG&E this morning is set to announce its latest wind power deal, an agreement to buy 150 megawatts from a new Solano County project that now gives the utility more than 1 gigawatt of wind energy under contract. The wind farm north of San Francisco will go online in December 2008 and will be operated by enXco, a Southern California green power company owned by French energy firm EDF Energies Nouvelle. EnXco also runs wind farms in the Midwest and has a deal to supply 205.5 megawatts of wind power to San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE). PG&E (PCG) has lagged its Southern California counterparts in tapping wind energy. For instance, late last year in a single deal with an Australian wind developer, Southern California Edison (EIX) contracted to buy 1.5 gigawatts - 10 times the size of the enXco agreement. One gigawatt can power some 750,000 homes. Such projects in SoCal's windy Tehachapi region face at least one big hurdle: Without multibillion-dollar transmission line upgrades, there's no way to get all that greenhouse gas-free power from the wind farms to Southern California cities. Even with all the wind energy under development in California, the state ranks a distant second to Texas, where wind wildcatters are thinking big. Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens, for one, plans to prospect the skies by building a 4-gigawatt wind farm on 200,000 acres.

PG&E's Big Wind Deals

photo: FateOne
Overshadowed by PG&E's 553-megawatt solar power plant deal this week was the California utility's agreement with PPM Energy to buy 85 megawatts of wind energy from its new Oregon wind farm. That means PG&E now has 711 megawatts of wind power online with nearly a gigawatt under contract, according to PG&E (PCG) spokesperson Jennifer Zerwer. Tapping wind energy from border states like Oregon lets PG&E avoid the transmission obstacles that have bedeviled wind-rich Southern California where needed and expensive upgrades to power lines are slowing new projects. PG&E already obtains a large amount of hydro power from Oregon so it can piggyback new wind energy sources on to existing transmission lines. This week's announcements underscores how the United States has become a rich market for overseas green energy companies. So far PG&E's big solar power deals have been with Israeli companies while its latest wind energy agreement is with a subsidiary of the U.K's ScottishPower, which recently agreed to be acquired by Spanish energy giant Iberdrola. PG&E, meanwhile, is investigating getting wind energy from British Columbia and is talking to U.K. wave energy company Ocean Power Delivery about building a wave farm off the Northern California coast.

Portugal's Takeover of U.S. Wind Energy Giant an Opportunity for GE

Green Wombat is in Portugal today, where one of the biggest green tech deals of the year has just gone down: the $2 billion takeover of U.S. wind farm giant Horizon Wind Energy by Portuguese utility EDP. One potential beneficiary of the deal is GE Energy Financial Services (GE), the renewable energy dealmaking arm of General Electric. EDP's acquisition of Horizon from Goldman Sachs (GS) was all the buzz at the opening today of an 11-megawatt photovoltaic power plant - one of the world's largest - in Serpa, Portugal. PowerLight (SPWR) built the plant, which was financed and is now owned by GE Energy Financial Services. More on the Serpa solar power station in a later post. Among those present at the Serpa event was GE Energy Financial Services managing director Kevin Walsh.  "I see a substantial financing opportunity," Walsh told Green Wombat, referring to EDP-Horizon deal, as he looked out at the Serpa power station's 52,000 solar panels arrayed among groves of olive trees. The word today was that EDP will need to finance as much as $600 million of the acquisition, and after the solar power plant dedication Walsh headed to Madrid for a meeting with EDP execs.

If the deal goes through, it will make the Portuguese utility one of the largest renewable energy companies in the United States - as well the world - and the acquisition is another sign that European companies are increasingly looking at the U.S. as rich market for green tech. Horizon operates wind farms in 15 states that generate more than 1,500 megawatts, and the Houston-based company has another 9,000 megawatts in the pipeline, according to EDP. Walsh said GE Energy Financial Services could also help EDP navigate the U.S.'s byzantine system of state and federal tax credits for wind power. "I’m happy to congratulate you on the impending invasion of Portguese business into America," joked the U.S. ambassador to the Portugal, Alfred Hoffman, at the solar power plant dedication. 

Canadian Wind Rush: California Utility Looks North for Renewable Power

photo originally uploaded by gary in van

Attention wind consultants: California utility PG&E (PCG) has got $14 million to spend as it investigates the feasibility of tapping British Columbia for wind power and other renewable energy. A day after the utility announced it would develop "wave farms" off the Northern California Coast, it received the green light this afternoon to head farther north to Canada in its quest for non-planet-warming sources of electricity. The California Public Utilities Commission authorized PG&E to spend up to $14 million on outside consultants as it explores the Great White North's green energy potential. "This represents an important first step in a mutual effort by California and its neighboring states to join with the province of British Columbia in an effort to combat global warming,” said PUC President Michael Peevey in a statement.  “British Columbia has been assessed in several recent studies for it potential to deliver substantial quantities of energy from a number of renewable resources, most prominently wind and hydro.”

Wind Farm Building Boom to Continue in 2007

Megawatts of installed wind power generating capacity by state

Wind power capacity in the United States grew 27 percent last year and is projected to increase another 26 percent in 2007, according to a report released today by the trade group the American Wind Energy Association. The U.S. now has enough installed wind power capacity - 11,603 megawatts - to power between 3 million and 3.5 million homes, which reduces annual greenhouse gas emissions by 23 million tons of carbon dioxide. The number of homes relying on electricity produced by wind energy will rise to nearly 4.5 million by year's end if the AWEA's forecast is accurate. 

The wind farm building boom - capacity has nearly doubled since 2003 - is likely to continue in coming years as global warming concerns intensify. Just yestersday, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of major industrial corporations such as General Electric (GE), DuPont (DD) and BP (BP), unveiled an aggressive global warming program that would, among other things, make long-term tax incentives for wind energy that currently expire every two years.

Texas and California are the wind energy superstates and will continue to add capacity in this year as California utilities like PG&E (PCG) and Southern California Edison (EIX) sign deals with wind farm developers so they can meet state-mandated renewable energy targets. For instance, last month Southern California Edison agreed to buy 1,500 megawatts of wind energy from a subsidiary of Australian company Allco Finance, a move that will boost California's wind power capacity by 65 percent. And Texas wind farms currently under construction will crank out another 1,013 megawatts, adding 37 percent to the state's wind power generation. (Texas wind farm photo at right originally uploaded by fieldsbh.) In Illinois, planned or proposed wind farm projects would increase the state's capacity from 107 megawatts to 1,541 megawatts. Idaho's wind energy production would more than triple if proposed projects are built.

Technological advances and utilities' demand for clean green power are opening up  states long considered poor candidates for wind farming, according to AWEA executive director Randall Swisher. "Now there are significant wind farms being built in Indiana, not something I would have thought was possible a decade ago," he told Green Wombat. "There are significant pockets of wind resource in Arizona. We’re learning that wind resources are more widely distributed than we thought. There is a strong interest in the electric utility industry in wind that’s driving the discovery of new wind resources."  While the southeast currently has few wind farms, Swisher identified North Carolina as one southern state with potential for wind development, particularly with new turbines that can operate at more moderate wind speeds.

Big California Wind Power Deal Faces Gridlock

Tehachapi wind farm originally uploaded by butch19

The massive 1,500 megawatt wind power deal announced Thursday by utility Southern California Edison (EIX) and a subsidiary of Australian company Allco Finance will crank up California's wind energy capacity by 65 percent. That will go a long way in helping the state meet a mandatory target of generating 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. But renewable energy projects like the huge wind farms to be built in SoCal's Tehachapi region face a big hurdle: insufficient or non-existent transmission lines to connect the windy and sunny parts of California to the power grid. Yesterday, as the Tehachapi project was being announced, the California Energy Commission released a report warning that, "the lack of transmission infrastructure to access remote renewable resources is the most critical barrier to meeting California’s 20 percent target by 2010."

"Despite efforts by utilities and the renewable industry in working groups for the Tehachapi wind area and Imperial Valley geothermal and solar resources areas," the report continued, "California’s efforts to spur investments in renewable transmission infrastructure have not yet been successful. Unless these challenges are resolved, renewable transmission projects will continue to languish." The energy commission identified the Antelope Transmission Project as crucial if big Tehachapi wind farms like those envisioned by Southern California Edison are to be built. The Antelope transmission project would allow 700 megawatts of wind power to be sent to the Southern California power grid. The project has been winding its way through the regulatory approval process for several years and approval of various environmental impact statements is not expected until at least sometime in 2007. Then it will be a race to construct the nearly $2 billion project in time to meet the 2010 renewable energy deadline.