Green Energy News | December 31, 2000

December 31, 2000 – Vol.5 No.40

ENERGIES... week of December 31, 2000

DEVELOPING SOLAR HOMES. Looking to buy a new home in southern California? Concerned about the state’s power woes and yearn for a little self-sufficiency? A photovoltaic solar system will be standard equipment on 100 new homes to be built this year near San Diego by builder/developer Shea Homes. Your new solar abode may not produce power exactly when you need it, but the grid-connected system will spin your meter backwards when generating excess electricity and thus reduce your electric bill.

However, the best part about the builder-installed solar system is that it is included in the home mortgage. The cost is spread out over the life of the loan.

AstroPower and Shea Homes will work together to build the homes in the new Scripps Highland community. In addition, Shea plans to build a total of 200 solar homes over the next 18 months. With help from other energy efficient features, electric bills should be reduced by 50% or more when compared with similar conventional homes. Visit AstroPower at http://www.astropower.com/, Shea Homes at http://www.SheaHomes.com/, and J.F. Shea Company at http://www.JFShea.com/ .

BUILDING OFFSHORE WIND POWER. Vestas Wind Systems has announced that it has been chosen by energy group Elsam of Denmark as the wind turbine supplier for a 160 megawatt offshore wind farm to be built during the summer of 2002. When built it will be the largest - so far - of its kind in the world.

Turbines to be installed at Horns Rev in the North Sea will be Vestas’ top-of-the-line 2 megawatt V80 series. The facility will be the first of five large offshore wind projects that Danish utilities must build under government decree before 2008. The order for Vestas will be worth $127.6 million. Visit Vestas at http://www.vestas.com/.

TAPPING POWER DENSE OCEAN WAVES. As anyone who has battled the crashing surf while wading in for a dip knows, waves carry far more punch than the winds that drive them.

Australian based Woodside Petroleum has invested in U.S. based Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) to help further develop OPT’s modular PowerBuoy (tm) wave energy power systems.

Woodside’s investment will get them a 5 percent equity stake in OPT as well as the options to purchase a half million tons of carbon credits from OPT, and for a possible 40% equity stake in OPT’s Australian based subsidiary, OPT-Australasia. That company, along with Powercor Australia and the Australian Greenhouse Office, is now in the process of installing a 20 kilowatt PowerBuoy off the coast of Portland, Victoria.

According to the inventors PowerBuoys operate silently and out-of-sight a mile or so offshore, are friendly to fish and can generate electricity at less cost than wind energy. Visit Woodside at http://www.woodside.com.au/.

UTILIZING HOT MAGMA. Many faceted ALSTOM, which specializes in energy and transportation infrastructure, has been awarded a contract to build four 25 megawatt geothermal power plants for Mexican utility Comision Federal de Electricidad. The plants built in Los Azufres in the Michocan state will be powered by water heated to high temperatures by magma in the earth’s crust. Visit ALSTOM at http://www.alstom.com