New Brunswick Gets $28.6 Million Gov’t Investment in Wind Projects
At the official dedication of the Caribou Wind Park in Bathurst, NB—the first of its kind in the province—Member of Parliament, Tilly O’Neill-Gordon announced a federal investment of up to $28.6 million in wind energy projects. The investment will be distributed over the next ten years through the ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program…Tenaska has chosen Fluor Corporation’s Econamine FG Plus carbon capture technology for use in its proposed Tenaska Trailblazer Energy Center, being developed near Sweetwater. Trailblazer will be a pioneering 600-megawatt (net) electricity generating plant fueled by pulverized coal and is expected to be among the first full-scale commercial power plants in the nation, and the first in Texas, to capture 85 to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide byproduct, sending it via pipeline to the Permian Basin to be used in enhanced oil recovery. Based on the projected rate of capture, the plant will emit significantly less CO2 than an equivalent capacity natural gas-fueled plant…Pacific Blue Energy Corp. plans to build a 150-megawatt solar power system in Gila Bend, Arizona. The town of Gila Bend – a burg located about 55 miles southwest of Phoenix – is helping expedite the permitting procedure.
Read MoreMini Turbines Built in Nova Scotia; St Lawrence River Turbines
Seaforth Energy Inc. of Dartmouth — a wind turbine manufacturer with a specialty in integrating renewable energy projects — will be able to use the $2 million it’s raised recently to scale up operations in order to deliver on backlogged orders for its 50 kilowatt turbine – an all Canadian product built in Nova Scotia. The company’s turbines are a fraction of the size of the three-megawatt turbines being installed on Dalhousie Mountain, Pictou County. The turbine would go on a 30- to 36-metre tower and it would have a rotor diameter of 15 metres. A large turbine would have a rotor diameter nowadays, probably, of 60 to 80 metres…The mighty St. Lawrence River will soon be home to an underwater power-generating project that could one day churn in rivers across Canada. a pair of 3.2-metre-high river turbines — which resemble giant jet engines — will be plunked into the waves near Montreal as part of a pilot project. The operation will start off small, producing a total of 500 kilowatts of energy. The federal and provincial governments are also on board, funding one-third of the $18-million project. But the underwater powerhouses have also been known to cripple — and kill — underwater wildlife – the bigger fish in the St. Lawrence, such as the sturgeon, are at the most risk…Ballard Power Systems announced the successful completion, during second quarter, of factory testing of a utility-scale distributed generation system using the company’s proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Installation and commissioning of the system for a multi- year demonstration at FirstEnergy Generation Corp’s Eastlake Plant in Ohio is planned for third quarter of this year. Ballard designed the generator to provide clean energy peaking capacity, which is particularly useful during heavy energy demand periods in the summer months, and tested the generator to a power level of one megawatt.
BC’s Columbia River System Expansion
The British Columbia government continues to give serious consideration to a major hydroelectric expansion project on the Columbia River system. Bill Bennett told The Vancouver Sun editorial board on Monday that plans for a 335-megawatt expansion of the Waneta generating station on the Pend d’Oreille River south of Trail are being seriously scoped out right now. Plans for the expansion were approved by government regulators in 2008, but Columbia Power Corp. announced nine months ago the process had stalled due to the absence of a deal with BC Hydro to buy the extra power that would be generated. A contract awarded last year to SNC-Lavalin to build a two-unit powerhouse expires in mid-August, adding some urgency to negotiations among Columbia Power, BC Hydro and Fortis to buy the power that would be produced. Bennett said he continues to impress upon his cabinet colleagues the urgency of preparing for a review of the Columbia River Treaty between Canada and the United States which expires in 2014. The treaty annually earns B.C. around $200 million, for water management services that facilitate flood control, irrigation and hydroelectricity production south of the border… International Power Canada Inc is taking a majority stake in what is expected to be Vancouver Island’s first operating wind power project from Sea Breeze Power Corp. – when construction of phase one of the $300 million project is complete, Knob Hill is expected to generate 99MW. As Knob Hill is located on the traditional territories of three First Nations – the Quatsino, Tlatlasikwals, and Kwakiutl — development is still subject to the signing of impact/benefit agreements with the aboriginals.
Keephills#2 Off and Online; Tenaska Carbon Capture
Keephills#2 went offline at 21:04 Friday and back online at 13:52 Sunday… Maine & Maritimes Corporation announced that a majority of its shares were voted in favor of adopting the merger agreement with BHE Holdings Inc. of Bangor, ME , a subsidiary of Emera Inc. Maine & Maritimes Corporation is the parent company of Maine Public Service Company, a regulated electric transmission and distribution utility serving approximately 36,000 electricity customer accounts in Northern Maine while Emera Inc. is an energy and services company with $5.4 billion in assets-electricity is Emera’s core business. Approximately 94% of Emera’s revenues are earned by Nova Scotia Power Inc, Bangor Hydro Electric Company and the Brunswick Pipeline…New technology to capture carbon dioxide byproducts has been selected for use at the Tenaska Trailblazer Energy Center, the proposed coal-fired power plant near Sweetwater, TX. The plant will be among the first in the nation — and the first in Texas — to use the Fluor carbon capture technology for the coal-fired, 600-megawatt electricity generating plant. The technology is designed to capture 85 to 90 percent of the CO2 byproduct and send it via pipeline to the Permian Basin, where it will be used in enhanced oil recovery. The technology has been licensed on a commercial scale at 26 industrial plants worldwide, including three in the U.S… Renovalia Energy SA, the Spanish solar and wind power producer that in May postponed an initial public offering, said it plans a $258 million wind park in Alberta. The facility will have an electricity generating capacity of 120MW, and construction will begin the first quarter of 2011.
Read MoreOEB Announces Conservation Measure
OEB Announces Conservation Measures
The Ontario Energy Board announced it is resuming work on province-wide programs related to low-income energy customers. The Board’s work on Conservation and Demand Management includes coordinating with the Ontario Power Authority as it develops a program for low-income residential consumers to ensure there is a coordinated approach to deliver CDM and Demand Side Management programs by electricity and natural gas distributors.
The Board also issued a draft CDM Code for electricity distributors on June 22, 2010 setting out the obligations and requirements that licensed electricity distributors must comply with in relation to their CDM targets. The targets aim to reduce electricity consumption by 6,000 gigawatt hours and to reduce peak provincial electricity demand by 1,330 megawatts over a four-year period…APS and NextEra Energy Resources of Florida announced plans for a 99-megawatt wind energy facility on public and private lands 13 miles north of Williams, Az. The Perrin Ranch Wind Energy Center will contain 62 turbines spread across 20,000 acres west of Highway 64 with construction expected to begin in mid-2011.
Read MoreSundance#3 Off and Back Online; Vestas Gets Order for 190 Turbines
Sundance#3 was offline from 10:18 until 02:01 this morning pushing 7X24 Price up to $136.34…Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has won a record order for a single site for 190 turbines with a total capacity of 570 megawatts for a California project. Vestas did not disclose financial details of the order, from Alta Wind Holdings, a subsidiary of Terra-Gen Power LLC – it sealed a $1.2-billion financing deal for four wind power projects at its Alta Wind Energy Center in Kern County, Calif…A weekend steam leak at a southern Indiana power plant prompted its operator to temporarily take the coal-fired facility offline so that workers can check all of its units for similar problems. Ohio Valley Electrical Corp. shut down all six of the 1,230-megawatt Clifty Creek plant’s units as a precaution Saturday after a boiler tube failed in one unit and steam began leaking. Those boiler tubes carry superheated high-pressure steam to the plant’s power-generating turbines – each of the plant’s six boilers have 112 boiler tubes and workers are inspecting all of those for problems. The Ohio River plant’s absence hasn’t left the power grid short of electricity because the recession has reduced demand and there is enough power. Environmentalists have called the plant one of the Indiana’s dirtiest in terms of its air emissions. It began producing electricity in 1955.
Read MoreTumbler Ridge Receives Environmental Assessment Certificate
Capital Power’s proposed wind project in northeastern British Columbia has received an Environmental Assessment Certificate from the provincial government. The $455 million Quality Wind Project will be a 142MW wind farm with 79 wind turbines across the site located near Tumbler Ridge. The Environmental Assessment process concluded that the proposed project is not likely to have significant adverse effects, based on the mitigation measures and commitments included as conditions of the environmental assessment certificate. Commercial operation is expected by the end of 2012…Progress Energy Florida estimates its Crystal River nuclear power plant will be back on line by the end of September now that the utility company is working to replace a cracked section of the facility’s containment wall…A bomb and gun attack on a hydroelectric power station in Russia’s Kabardino-Balkaria region has killed two guards and injured two others. Supplies to the electricity grid were not affected – the flow of water from the dam had been stopped to prevent any flooding downriver.
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