World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

July 21, 2002 – Vol.7 No.17

WORLD WIND WATCH.

Early in the week there was one offshore wind project proposed for the windy waters off Massachusetts. By week’s end there were two. Winergy LLC hopes to build on one of four sites it is examining 7-11 miles from the island of Nantucket. The sites, all in about 40 feet of water, range from 47 square miles that would produce 608 megawatts of power to 64 square miles to produce 831 megawatts, enough for 250,000 homes or so.

Cape Wind, a 420 megawatt project is proposed for Nantucket Sound, the area between the island and arm of Cape Cod. All of the Winergy sites are beyond the island and further from shore.

The Bush Administration would like to make it easier for wind farms and possibly other renewable energy projects, such as ocean energy projects perhaps, to be developed offshore. In a bill now being offered in Congress, the Department of the Interior would be given the authority to issue permits for offshore renewable energy projects in federal offshore waters. The Department does not have that authority now.

One concern is, however, that the permitting authority would be abused and used to allow more platforms built for oil an gas exploration. The bill as it stands would allow the construction of offshore facilities that service oil and gas platforms.

TXU ENERGY and Cielo Wind Power have announced they will build yet another wind farm in Texas. The 240-megawatt Noelke Hill Wind Ranch (tm) will have 240, one-megawatt Mitsubishi Turbines and is scheduled for completion in little more than a year. The companies have two other projects in West Texas in Crockett County and Upton County. Visit TXU at http://www.txu.com/ ,Cielo at http://www.cielowind.com/ .

Shell WindEnergy will once again expand its wind portfolio through the purchase of the 61.5 megawatt Whitewater Hill wind farm now under construction in the San Gorgonio Pass in California. The project, now owned by an affiliate of Cannon Power, is utilizing 1.5 megawatt turbines from GE WindEnergy, formerly known as Enron Wind. The purchase of Whitewater Hill brings Shell’s U.S. wind portfolio up tp 230 megawatts. In May the company purchased another Cannon project, the 41 megawatt Cabazon Pass wind farm. Visit Shell Renewables at http://www.shell.com/renewables .

The Bonneville Power Administration will stop penalizing wind energy producers when wind generated electricity they’ve promised fails to be to delivered to BPA’s grid when scheduled. Apparently wind power operators working under contract for the BPA promise to deliver power at specific times to the grid. But when the wind doesn’t blow on schedule the BPA has been fining them $100 per megawatt hour of power not delivered.

The BPA has now dropped than fine but will instead will charge wind farm operators for the power from other sources BPA must purchase to replace wind generated electricity not supplied. Visit the BPA at http://www.bpa.gov/ .