Green Wombat

photo originally uploaded by gary in van

Attention wind consultants: California utility PG&E (PCG) has got $14 million to spend as it investigates the feasibility of tapping British Columbia for wind power and other renewable energy. A day after the utility announced it would develop "wave farms" off the Northern California Coast, it received the green light this afternoon to head farther north to Canada in its quest for non-planet-warming sources of electricity. The California Public Utilities Commission authorized PG&E to spend up to $14 million on outside consultants as it explores the Great White North’s green energy potential. "This represents an important first step in a mutual effort by California and its neighboring states to join with the province of British Columbia in an effort to combat global warming,” said PUC President Michael Peevey in a statement.  “British Columbia has been assessed in several recent studies for it potential to deliver substantial quantities of energy from a number of renewable resources, most prominently wind and hydro.”

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Megawatts of installed wind power generating capacity by state

Wind power capacity in the United States grew 27 percent last year and is projected to increase another 26 percent in 2007, according to a report released today by the trade group the American Wind Energy Association. The U.S. now has enough installed wind power capacity – 11,603 megawatts – to power between 3 million and 3.5 million homes, which reduces annual greenhouse gas emissions by 23 million tons of carbon dioxide. The number of homes relying on electricity produced by wind energy will rise to nearly 4.5 million by year’s end if the AWEA’s forecast is accurate. 

The wind farm building boom – capacity has nearly doubled since 2003 – is likely to continue in coming years as global warming concerns intensify. Just yestersday, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of major industrial corporations such as General Electric (GE), DuPont (DD) and BP (BP), unveiled an aggressive global warming program that would, among other things, make long-term tax incentives for wind energy that
currently expire every two years.

Texas and California are the wind energy superstates and will continue to add
capacity in this year as California utilities like PG&E (PCG) and Southern
California Edison (EIX) sign deals with wind farm developers so they
can meet state-mandated renewable energy targets. For instance, last month
Southern California Edison agreed
to buy 1,500 megawatts of wind energy from a subsidiary of Australian
company Allco Finance, a move that will boost California’s wind power
capacity by 65 percent. And Texas wind farms currently under
construction will crank out another 1,013 megawatts, adding 37 percent
to the state’s wind power generation. (Texas wind farm photo at right originally uploaded by fieldsbh.) In Illinois, planned or proposed
wind farm projects would increase the state’s
capacity from 107 megawatts to 1,541 megawatts. Idaho’s wind energy
production would more than triple if proposed projects are built.

Technological advances and utilities’ demand for clean green power are opening up  states long considered poor candidates for wind farming, according to AWEA executive director Randall Swisher. "Now there are significant wind farms being built in Indiana, not something I would have thought was possible a decade ago," he told Green Wombat. "There are significant pockets of wind resource in Arizona. We’re learning that wind resources are more widely distributed than we thought. There is a strong interest in the electric utility industry in wind that’s driving the discovery of new wind resources."  While the southeast currently has few wind farms, Swisher identified North Carolina as one southern state with potential for wind development, particularly with new turbines that can operate at more moderate wind speeds.

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Tehachapi wind farm originally uploaded by butch19

The massive 1,500 megawatt wind power deal announced Thursday by utility Southern California Edison (EIX) and a subsidiary of Australian company Allco Finance will crank up California’s wind energy capacity by 65 percent. That will go a long way in helping the state meet a mandatory target of generating 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. But renewable energy projects like the huge wind farms to be built in SoCal’s Tehachapi region face a big hurdle: insufficient or non-existent transmission lines to connect the windy and sunny parts of California to the power grid. Yesterday, as the Tehachapi project was being announced, the California Energy Commission released a report warning that, "the lack of transmission infrastructure to access remote renewable resources is the most critical barrier to meeting California’s 20 percent target by 2010."

"Despite efforts by utilities and the renewable industry in working groups for the Tehachapi wind area and Imperial Valley geothermal and solar resources areas," the report continued, "California’s efforts to spur investments in renewable transmission infrastructure have not yet been successful. Unless these challenges are resolved, renewable transmission projects will continue to languish." The energy commission identified the Antelope Transmission Project as crucial if big Tehachapi wind farms like those envisioned by Southern California Edison are to be built. The Antelope transmission project would allow 700 megawatts of wind power to be sent to the Southern California power grid. The project has been winding its way through the regulatory approval process for several years and approval of various environmental impact statements is not expected until at least sometime in 2007. Then it will be a race to construct the nearly $2 billion project in time to meet the 2010 renewable energy deadline.

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