World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

October 23, 2005 – Vol.10 No.31

WORLD WIND WATCH.

San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) has a goal of supplying 20-percent of its power to retail customers as renewables by 2010. With the latest wind energy contract signed the utility company will be well on its way to meeting that goal with 13.3 percent of retail electricity contracted to be supplied from renewables.

SDG&E has signed a power purchase agreement with enXco to purchase the entire output of a new 205.5-megawatt wind farm to be known as the Pacific Wind Facility. To be built in Southern California, Pacific Wind is expected to be up and operating in 2007. Visit SDG&E at http://www.sdge.com/ enXco at http://www.enxco.com/ .

Next in line for U.S. offshore wind development, after the Cape Wind’s 420-megawatt project and FPL Energy’s 140-megawatt Long Island Offshore Wind Park, may be a 150-megawatt wind farm off Galveston Island,Texas in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Texas General Land Office has signed an agreement to lease 11,355 square acres of the Gulf to Galveston-Offshore Wind, a division of Louisiana-based Wind Energy Systems Technologies (WEST).

The project, seven miles off shore, will begin with two 80-meter meteorological towers to collect wind data. Bird migration studies will be completed concurrently and, if all goes well, construction - expected to take five years - could begin.

Royalties from the lease of the site, which could be $ 26.5 million over the expected 30-year life of the project, will be deposited into the Texas’s Permanent School Fund. Visit the General Land Office at http://www.glo.state.tx.us/offshorewind

Vestas will be supplying 36, 2.0 megawatt turbines for the Braes of Doune wind project to be built in Stirlingshire, Scotland. The order includes delivery, installation, commissioning and a 5-year maintenance and service contract

The turbines for the 72-megawatt project will be shipped in the spring of 2006 and completion of the project is expected by October 2006. The developer is Airtricity Developments, a division Dublin, Ireland-based wind power supplier Airtricity.

The Scottish Government has a goal of producing 18-percent of its electricity from renewables by 2010. Visit Vestas Wind Systems at http://www.vestas.com/ , Airtricity at http://www.airtricity.com/