Wind

In our second annual report on the state and future of the U.S. power generation industry, we combine the considerable experience of POWER’s editorial staff with the market savvy of Industrial Info Resources Inc. (see next story) to preview the industry’s direction in 2008. We anticipate that the specter of carbon control legislation will hobble coal and make renewables the hot ticket while nukes continue to inch forward in a generation market that is basically treading water.

Industrial Info Resources’ strengths are tracking capital projects and cost projections and providing intelligence about the power generation market, among others. IIR has used its large industry databases and numerous industry contacts to develop its outlook for 2008. Here’s what you should expect and plan for this year.

POWER congratulates DONG Energy and Siemens Power Generation on the October 18 inauguration of their 90-MW Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm. This project was the first commercial application of Siemens’ new 3.6-MW wind turbine and exemplifies how the right developer and supplier team can quickly add much-needed offshore wind power to a country’s generation mix.

This year, for the first time, the U.S. wind power industry is poised to push past the 3,000 MW installed per year milestone. At 20 MW, Steel Winds may seem like a footnote, but its importance is measured in more meaningful terms than just size. Steel Winds is the first commercial deployment of the Clipper Windpower 2.5-MW Liberty turbine, the first installation on a former Superfund site, and is said to be the largest wind farm in the U.S. developed in an urban setting. In addition, the project anchors Lackawanna’s redevelopment of a former industrial site along Lake Erie for public use.

Acquiring capacity from renewable resources is now mandatory for many electric utilities, and nowhere is green generation being pursued with more vigor than in California. Regulators there want power from renewables to account for at least 20% of utilities’ annual sales by 2010, and Governor Schwarzenegger is proposing increasing the minimum to 33% by 2020. Wind power appears to have the lowest technical risks of the renewables options, but don’t ignore the rising development risks. Here’s a primer on developing wind projects in the Golden State—and elsewhere.

Siemens ships first blade from U.S. plant; GE’s frames hit 1,000; Battery problems hit hybrid EV programs; Solar thermal rebounds in California;Peabody’s Illinois coal plant gets green light;EPA could sink 278-MW CFB unit; Longest-serving NRC commissioner dies at 58; POWER digest; Readers talk back; corrections

PG&E mounts tidal power project / GE F-class turbine breaks record / Iowa welcomes ethanol-fed hog / NYPA upgrades pumped-storage plant / Bush blesses Browns Ferry 1 restart / Shearon Harris looks to live on / Nevada bets on solar thermal / Climate models questioned / POWER digest

Siemens, E.ON to test world’s largest GTG / Midwest to add 76-MW peaker in Kansas / Tapping the sun near Phoenix / Georgia Tech developing 3-D PV nanocells / Wind farms with hydrogen backup? / BNSF , union come to terms / IPL to buy 200-MW wind project / India to improve environmental monitoring / POWER digest

If little else is clear about the future of the U.S. power industry, this much is: Electricity rates are going up across the country, and will continue to. None of the esteemed panelists at the CEO session of the ELECTRIC POWER 2007 Conference & Exhibition in Chicago last month actually said those words. But much […]

Forecasting the direction of the U.S. electric power industry for 2007, much less the distant future, is like defining a velocity vector; doing so requires a direction and speed to delineate progress. In this special report, POWER’s first stab at prognostication, the editors look at current industry indicators and draw conclusions based on their more than 100 years of experience. To borrow verbatim the title of basketball legend Charles Barkley’s book: I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It.

Following the money invested in projects is a viable way to compare growth trends for power projects using the four major generation types: coal, natural gas, nuclear, and renewable.

Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen coined the term "disruptive technology" in his best-selling 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma. According to Christensen, a disruptive technology unseats a dominant technology by creating products that are so much cheaper or better in one or more ways that they quickly become the new mainstream standard, transforming an entire […]

Safeguarding coal-handling assets;
Giant wind turbine hard to bear

Utility resource planners are used to viewing new generation in terms of firm, dispatchable capacity. Dispatching a renewable resource such as wind requires a different perspective. Wind capacity can serve as a hedge against fossil fuel price risks and perhaps future emissions restrictions, but it requires a much more structured planning horizon. Integrating wind farms into their portfolios may be the most difficult challenge utilities face today.

The wind energy business is beginning to look as frenetic as the merchant gas-fired power business in the late 1990s—with some critical differences. If the 10 issues listed here are addressed soon, wind power may avoid a crash and burn similar to the one that beset the gas turbine business.

The length of term allowed for power sales contracts is a critical determinant of the ability of states to meet their increasingly ambitious renewable power targets. Many utilities advocate limiting terms to 10 or perhaps 15 years for renewable energy contracts, emphasizing the "flexibility" that shorter terms offer. In contrast, contract terms of 20 or […]

Russia’s new nuclear navy;Russia’s old nuclear navy; First LMS100 fired up by Basin Electric;More Jenbacher gensets to Hungary; A baseload-size wind farm?; EEI bestows Edison Awards; POWERnotes
 

U.S. wind power is on a roll, with wind farms sprouting like weeds. But in the near future, utilities may end up paying higher prices for wind capacity because state regulators are, in effect, imposing an artificial floor on national demand for generation fueled by renewable resources. At last count, at least 20 states had […]

Nuclear hot streak continues/Who’s winning in U.S. wind power?/ Canadian wind picking up too/ Brazilian port powers itself/ Biomass meets CHP in Sweden/ Power surfing from Scotland to Germany

Global Monitor

New Jersey’s gaming mecca is hosting one of the largest hybrid (solar-wind) power plants in the world (Figure 3). The Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm, with 7.5 MW of wind capacity and 0.5 MW from photovoltaic (PV) cells, is expected to generate 20,000 MWh annually. That should be enough to power an adjacent wastewater treatment plant operated […]

Several advanced battery technologies tailored for utility applications have doffed their white coats and donned hard hats. These new bulk energy storage devices, which can almost instantly shave peaks and shift loads, are the answer to the dreams of T&D system designers and operators. Finally, years of R&D in electrochemistry are beginning to pay dividends in the field.

One of the key projects at the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research is developing an integrated ship power system capable of supplying power both to propulsion systems and to advanced electric weapons, launchers, and high-power sensors. It would be the ultimate naval power T&D system. The "all-electric warship," which some predict will have as much of an impact on navies as the nuclear submarine, is still a decade or two away. But the first generation of electric systems is already being installed on U.S. warships currently under construction.

For thousands of U.S. businesses, a lesson learned the hard way over the past few years is the need for an absolutely reliable electricity source. Challenging the standard backup power options, proton exchange membrane fuel cells are making a play for this duty.

  Renewable power development will continue to grow in the U.S., with the nonhydro total reaching 53,121 MW by the end of 2016. So predicts a soon-to-be-released report from Boulder, Colo.–based Platts Analytics (which, like POWER, is a part of Platts, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies). If all that capacity goes on-line, it would […]

Siemens Power Generation (Erlangen, Germany) announced late last year that it had acquired wind turbine manufacturer Bonus Energy A/S (Brande, Denmark). With a market share of about 9%, Bonus was one of the top five manufacturers of wind turbines in 2004. On paper, Siemens now seems well-positioned to challenge the market leaders (GE Wind, Vestas, […]

  Promoting renewable exports The DOE is not the only U.S. government department promoting renewable energy. Any U.S. energy firm or supplier looking to export its goods and services can tap the services of the Energy Team at the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration (ITA), which is part of the U.S Commercial Service (USCS). The […]

Most people think of fuel cells within a single, "not ready for prime time" context: powering tomorrow's automobiles. But stationary fuel cell power plants are beginning to power some industrial facilities today. The need for heat as well as ultraclean power, and the availability of a renewable fuel, recently came together in a Seattle suburb, site of the world's first commercial megawatt-scale fuel cell power plant—powered entirely by gas produced by anaerobic digestion of municipal wastewater.

Installations of new renewable energy facilities in the U.S. slowed significantly last year. Why? The short answer is a lack of political will. Compared with the EU, the U.S. has much less progressive renewable energy policies. For example, although the Production Tax Credit was renewed last year, legislators in Washington had let it expire, and prospects for a comprehensive national energy policy are fuzzier than ever. Following is a brief roundup of what’s happening worldwide in the fields of wind, photovoltaic, and hydro power. (For a snapshot of today’s global geothermal industry, see p. 40.)