Feds want to build massive wind farm larger than the City of Houston off the coast of Galveston
Galveston
Energy Central…
Your Source for Energy Jobs & Industry News
Galveston
Energy Central…
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) first official loan guarantee for a new clean energy technology project since 2014 will go to the Advanced Clean Energy Storage 1 project in Utah—one of the world’s largest renewable hydrogen energy projects.
The DOE on June 8 announced it closed on the $ 504.4 million loan guarantee for the first phase of the Advanced Clean Energy Storage project. The massive undertaking by ACES Delta, a joint venture comprising Magnum Development, Mitsubishi Power, and Haddington Ventures, seeks to create a new pathway for decarbonization of the Western U.S. grid. The agency offered the project a conditional loan guarantee commitment in April, contingent on several factors, including securing permits and financing for the $ 1 billion project.
The ACES Delta project envisions producing up to 100 metric tonnes per day of hydrogen from water and renewable energy sources using a 220-MW alkaline electrolyzer bank manufactured by Norwegian firm HydrogenPro—one of the largest deployments of its type to date.…
The chief executive of major India electricity producer Tata Power said his company is prepared to make major investments in renewable energy, primarily solar and also wind power, as the group looks to increase its clean energy portfolio from its present 4 GW to 25 GW by 2030.
Praveer Sinha, Tata Power’s CEO and managing director, told Nikkei Asia that “for a country like India, renewable is very good source” for power production. He said India’s sunny climate provides the country with “huge potential” for solar power, “so for us, this is a very important opportunity to leverage and see how we can increase our generation through renewable sources.”
Sinha told the news service that Tata could provide “excellent 24/7 renewable solutions” via solar, wind, and other clean energy sources. Tata Power, part of Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate, has said it would like to add 2 GW of new renewable generation annually over the next decade. Renewable energy today makes up about 30% of the company’s generation.…
GE Renewable Energy’s mammoth offshore wind 12-MW Haliade-X turbine is on track for an accelerated commercial launch in 2021, the company said as it unveiled the turbine’s first manufactured components on July 22.
Haliade-X features a 220-meter (m) rotor and a 107-m blade designed by GE subsidiary LM Wind Power. The turbine design also includes digital capabilities. GE says the wind turbine model features a 63% capacity factor—which is “five to seven points above the industry standard.” For GE, scaling up is important. “Each incremental point in capacity factor represents around $ 7 million in revenue for our customers over the life of a wind farm,” it noted. In January, the company said it would install a Haliade-X 12-MW offshore wind prototype in the Netherlands this summer.
On Monday, the company unveiled the first nacelle and said it would be shipped from its production site in Saint-Nazaire, France, to Rotterdam-Maasvlakte in the Netherlands “over the coming weeks.” The components will be installed on the prototype, which is land-based to facilitate testing.…
Swedish utility Vattenfall will take up deployment of the massive 12-MW Haliade-X offshore wind turbine in Europe, marking a major milestone for GE Renewable Energy’s effort to boost sales of the largest turbine currently on the market.
The two companies agreed to cooperate after a year of “intensive exchanges during which Vattenfall conducted an in-depth technical due diligence and both companies jointly worked on the customization of the platform,” Vattenfall said on May 16. The companies will likely finalize details of the cooperation this summer, after which Vattenfall plans a “deep dive on specific projects” within its offshore wind pipeline.
Wind power has increasingly buoyed earnings at Vattenfall, a company that wants to achieve “fossil free living” within one generation. During its first quarter 2019 earnings call on April 25, Vattenfall AB CEO Magnus Hall said Vattenfall’s wind investments have grown beyond 3 GW. Projects include the company’s first unsubsidized offshore wind farm, the 750-MW Hollandse Kust Zuid 1 and 2, which is being built off the Dutch coast and expected to come online in 2022.…
FirstEnergy Corp. bled $ 2.64 billion from its competitive businesses over 2017, financial losses exacerbated by marked declines in contract sales, higher operating expenses, and costs associated with asset impairment and plant exit.
The Akron, Ohio–based company, which in January received a $ 2.5 billion equity injection from four private investment groups to boost its transition to a fully regulated utility company, on February 20 reported full-year 2017 losses of $ 1.7 billion on revenues of $ 14 billion. In 2016, the company recorded losses of $ 6.2 billion on revenues of $ 14.6 billion.
The losses, though significant, are indicative of progress for the company, which has, since 2016, announced the sale or closure of 2,471 MW of competitive generation operated in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
On February 16, FirstEnergy announced it had notified PJM Interconnection of a plan to deactivate its 1979-built Pleasants Power Station in Willow Island, West Virginia. The 1,300-MW plant will be sold or closed on January 1, 2019.…