The nation's biggest wind-related energy project

[jtk1519]

"I want Texas to be the epicenter of energy development — wind, solar, clean coal, obviously natural gas, nuclear and biofuels," Perry said during a visit to California, which is considered the nation's leader in alternative energy development. He added that he can envision a day when the state gets more of its power from alternative energy than from fossil fuels such as oil and coal.

Perry's aspirations got a major boost Thursday, when the Texas Public Utility Commission gave preliminary approval to a plan to build billions of dollars worth of new transmission lines to move electricity produced by wind turbines in rural West Texas to more heavily populated parts of Texas. The lines would represent the nation's biggest wind-related energy project.

In an interview in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Perry said such transmission lines were necessary not just to bring much-needed power from West Texas to the state's biggest cities, but also to show investors and others that Texas is serious about alternative energy development. He said Texas is well on its way to producing about three times the amount of wind energy as California does.

"You've got to send the message to those people (who) are going to invest and to the public that's going to pay for it," he said.

http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...0718perry.html

[KevinFromTexas]

^ That wasn't the full article, click the link to read it.

Here's the follow up from today:

From the Austin American-Statesman
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten.../0718wind.html

WIND POWER

State supports $4.9 billion wind power plan
Texas power grid expansion would aid renewable projects.

By Claudia Grisales
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Friday, July 18, 2008

Big wind in Texas is getting even bigger.

State officials on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a $4.9 billion wind power project that will add a massive system of transmission lines to help move electricity generated along the windy patches of West Texas to power-hungry metropolitan areas such as Austin.

If the plan wins final approval, it would be the country's largest investment in clean and renewable power.

"What my mission is, it is to get this wind, that has the best capacity factor in the state, down to our citizens," said Barry Smitherman, chairman of the Public Utility Commission, shortly before voting for the plan.

The decision, approved on a 2-1 vote, triggers continued plans for ramping up the state's power grid system, adding more than 2,000 miles of heavy-duty transmission lines from West Texas near the town of McCamey and the Panhandle to the major population hubs of Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and elsewhere.

The $4.9 billion plan was favored in Central Texas, drawing support from Austin Energy and the Lower Colorado River Authority. It would bring the state's total wind transmission capacity to 18,456 megawatts (one megawatt can power 500 or more homes).

"It was prudent to take this big step, but leave bigger steps for the future," said Mark Dreyfus, director of regulatory and government affairs for Austin Energy. "We're pretty pleased because it will help us meet our renewable goals."

The plan approved Thursday, dubbed "Scenario 2," was vying against four other proposals ranging in price tags of $3 billion to $6.4 billion.

Austin Energy hopes to draw 30 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020. Scenario 2 showed the most promise in relieving congestion moving wind-generated electricity from the McCamey region to Central Texas, Dreyfus said.

Austin Energy's share of the plan's costs is estimated at $197 million, which would be passed on to ratepayers in their base rates over a period of about 30 years.

"We thought Scenario 2 was the best because, although it didn't provide the most wind power, it did provide the most wind power on a cost-effective basis," said Lower Colorado River Authority spokesman Robert Cullick.

Already, Texas has won bragging rights as the country's leading producer of wind power, with the capability to provide the renewable-generated electricity for 1 million homes. For the third year in a row, the state posted the largest increase in the amount of wind capacity added in 2007 with a 57 percent increase, or 1,618 megawatts.

By year's end, the state will be poised to reach 10,000 megawatts of wind power, and a major upgrade will make the state a leader in moving the renewable power as well.

"We will add more wind than the 14 states following Texas combined," said PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson. "I think that's a very extraordinary achievement. Some think we haven't gone far enough; some think we've pushed too far."

Smitherman and Hudson both voted for the project, with commissioner Julie Parsley dissenting. Parsley said she was concerned that further analysis was needed to ensure reliability and to be certain other forms of power would not be negatively affected by the project. "I think we could have taken a more measured approach," she said.

The plan wouldn't be in place for several years, but it could result in a $4 increase on Texas consumers' monthly bills, according to the PUC.

[SJPhillyBoy]

I think this is fantastic and the right direction that the entire nation needs to follow.

[Dr Nevergold]

Definately great news!

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

"We will add more wind than the 14 states following Texas combined," said PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson. "I think that's a very extraordinary achievement. Some think we haven't gone far enough; some think we've pushed too far."

A couple of comments:

- First of all, it's almost unimportant what some people think because Texas is almost certainly going as far as they can. There's a shortage of windpower components. For example, one of the major makers of windmill towers (and a Texas company), Trinity Industries, has a backlog for tower orders several years long. Similar shortages exist in other major windmill components like blades which have to be very tough and so are more and more being made from carbon finer.

- Other states like California, which has had extensive windpower farms for a long time, is possibly better suited to grow its renewable energy generation in other ways. Texas has lots of agriculturally marginal but windy land on its high plains. Suitable CA land is much more valuable--except in the desert and there a more appropriate use may be solar power.

- Other factors are in play, especially grid infrastructure:

Friday, July 18, 2008
Renewable energy strains grid
San Francisco Business Times - by Lindsay Riddell

Renewable energy developers are overloading California's electric grid.

Now the state is fighting back. New generators will have to pay $250,000 up front to apply for new grid connections as part of the California Independent System Operator Corp.'s new plan to reduce delays in the project approval process and to weed out speculative projects.

"It was very easy to get projects into the queue and we had lot of non-viable projects drop out and get in the way of more viable projects," said Dennis Peters, external affairs manager for the state ISO.

With state mandates requiring utilities to get 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2010, the state ISO is overwhelmed with requests from new arrivals like BrightSource Energy Corp.'s large-scale solar thermal plants. The state's infrastructure cannot support these new requests to transmit newly generated electricity, which total 12 times the capacity renewable generators were requesting in January 2006.

The transmission issue is crucial to the state's efforts to bring new renewable energy sources online. Transmission connection requests from new renewable power developers make up about 65 percent of all requests to the state ISO, which controls the electricity grid. Meanwhile, the federal investment tax credits, set to expire at the end of the year, also threaten the viability of any increased renewable power supply.

In response, the state ISO voted on a new approval process in July that still must pass federal regulators. The new plan allows the agency to look at clusters of proposed projects instead of one at a time, reducing the approval process from four or five years to just nine months. The fee increase will mean projects will be farther along when they apply for transmission connections, which will speed up approvals.

Requests come from traditional generators like natural gas-fired power plants and hydroelectric power plants, as well as renewable generators like wind turbines and solar and geothermal power plants. Without the approvals to connect, new projects can't move forward.

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...ml?t=printable

But, the bottom line here is that renewable projects are moving forward at full tilt and we seem to be nearly at our limit of being able to do them, creating backlogs and capacity roadblocks everywhere you look.

[austin242]

Most of these wind mills are built in the dessert on top of mountains everytime I go up to San antonio I see wind blades on big trucks going down I-10 towards El paso.

[guajero]

There is a wind farm opening up in NH that is going to be owned by Iberdrola a spanish energy firm. I like renewables but I like them more when they are owned by american companies.

[Jasonhouse]

^This is not a coal discussion. Please remain on topic.

[isaidso]

The nation's biggest wind-related energy project? I believe the largest is in Shelburne, Ontario with a capacity of 199.5 MW.

Future development of a 133 turbine wind farm is projected to have an annual output of 545 GWh, enough to power 70,000 homes. All of that electricity will be sold to the Ontario Power Authority.

The EcoPower Centre is just one of three Ontario-based wind projects to go online within the next two months. Alberta and Quebec also have smaller wind farms and ongoing projects. By the end of the year, all three areas combined will be producing 1,917 MW of wind power.

Canada plans to shut down all coal power plants by 2014 and will be relying on wind and solar power to step in as renewable energy sources. Projects like the EcoPower Centre may seem less significant when looked at individually, but as part of a large national movement towards clean energy, they're very important.

[Heaven Net]

The development of wind energy in Northwest Iowa will expand again with the formation of Red Rock Wind Energy, LLC of Estherville, a community-owned wind farm development company. Red Rock Wind Energy, with their project manager National Wind of Minneapolis, plans to develop up to 300 megawatts (MW) of wind energy in Emmet and Dickinson Counties, Iowa within the next 3 to 5 years, producing enough electricity to power up to 90,000 homes. Many of the investors in Red Rock, including National Wind, are also developing the NorthStar Wind Farm, a 200 MW community wind project adjacent to Red Rock Wind Energy in Emmet and Dickinson Counties. The NorthStar Wind Farm is slated for construction in late 2009.

Red Rock Wind Energy has formed a management board that consists of the following local founders: Alan Blum, Stacy Olson, Deb Olson, and Richard Bockman.

Al Blum, a local business owner in the Estherville area for over 30 years and Chairman of the Red Rock management board, said, “We have learned a tremendous amount by developing the NorthStar Wind Farm and look forward to bringing that experience to Red Rock Wind Energy. We can help landowners in Emmet and Dickinson County understand what’s involved in having a turbine on their property.”

Already, the project’s site control specialists have leased over one third of the acres needed for the project’s construction. National Wind Assessments, the wind analysis division of National Wind, has also installed a meteorological (met) tower in Emmet County to collect wind data in the area for a minimum of one year, helping create an accurate picture of the wind resource in the area. Meteorological tower data from the NorthStar Wind Farm will also be utilized.