Jun 28

Renewable News 29th July

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AGL
AGL Energy will recoup A$164m ($171m) of costs and bank a development fee of A$38m from the sale of its 67.2MW Oaklands Hill Wind Farm south of Glenthompson Victoria to an unidentified corporate buyer, the utility says.

The sale is positive outcome for AGL, analysts say, and may indicate an upward turn for the Australian wind sector, given that the company’s development strategy has so far been hampered by weak wholesale electricity and renewable energy certificate (REC) prices.

The payments made by AGL under the off-take arrangements will reflect a sharing of the risks associated with the wind speed variability at the site.

The utility will retain until 2036 the rights to all renewable energy certificates from the wind farm, according to the statement sent to the ASX.

The development fee will be received from the Australian buyer when construction is completed with about A$30 million to be paid in the financial year 2011 and the balance in 2012.

The project, currently under construction by Suzlon Energy Ltd., is scheduled to be completed in early 2012. The buyer will fund all remaining development and construction costs.

AGL has said it expects the REC market to remain “soft and soggy” until at least 2014, but the Oaklands Hill deal suggests it sees a firming in the market post 2014. “An initial A$98/MWh off-take price, rising to A$115.50/MWh in 2014, shows the company’s confidence in the outlook for Large-scale Renewable Energy Certificate (LREC) pricing,” said an analyst for the Deutsche Bank.

Credit Suisse has upgraded its rating on AGL from neutral to outperform, after the sale news.

Dong Energy
Dong Energy, the largest operator of offshore wind farms, is seeking to lower the cost of developing power projects by signing a long-term supply contract for turbine foundations that will be made by Bladt Industries.

The agreement gives the energy company the option to buy as many as 600 of the structures, the industry’s first foundation supply deal that covers multiple offshore wind farms, Skaerbaek, Denmark-based Dong said today in a statement. Terms weren’t disclosed.

solar flagship

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Jun 26

Renewable News 27th June 2011

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Allendale East Wind Farm
The $175m proposed 69MW Allendale East wind farm near Mount Gambier has collapsed following an adjoining landowner winning an appeal against the proposed Acciona 46-turbine project.

The landmark ruling is believed to be the first time a court has upheld an appeal against wind farms based on visual amenity. The decision handed down last week could have long-term ramifications on the expansion of the wind turbine industry in Australia.

The proposed wind farm covers 1070 Ha in between Mount Gambier and Port MacDonnell in South Australia.

Google
Google, and Citigroup will provide $204 million in additional funding for the largest U.S. wind farm. The companies will each invest $157 million in the 1,550- megawatt Alta Wind Energy Center in Tehachapi being developed by Terra-Gen Power LLC, an affiliate of ArcLight Capital Partners LLC and Global Infrastructure Partners.

The wind farm is being built in stages. The first five stages have a capacity of 720 megawatts and are complete, with 300 more megawatts expected to go into operation this year. Citigroup and Google will now fund the fifth stage with the additional investment. Their prior support was for the fourth. Both investments are leveraged leases in which the backers purchase the projects as they go into service and lease them back to Terra-Gen, which will manage the operations.

Mexico
Mexico expects foreign investment in renewable energy to almost triple this year to $8 billion, helping U.S. states such as California to slash carbon emissions, said the head of the Latin American nation’s investment promotions agency.

ProMexico, as the agency is known, is in talks with European and U.S. wind and solar-power companies for four to five projects this year, compared with four projects totaling $3 billion in 2010, agency chief Carlos Guzman said in an interview in London today.

Companies with operations in Mexico, such as Italy’s Enel SpA, Spain’s Iberdrola SA (IBE), Acciona SA (ANA) or Abengoa SA could make additional investments, he said. Countries are taking advantage of Mexico’s mountain ranges and a 3,000-kilometer (1,800-mile) border with the U.S. to build wind, solar and small hydroelectric plants,

solar flagship

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Jun 20

Renewable News 20th June

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UBS
UBS may seek more wind farm opportunities in Western Australia, the AFR reported, citing the bank’s global head of infrastructure Paul Moy.

The company’s infrastructure fund owns 60 percent of the Collgar wind project in Western Australia with the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (REST) owning the remaining 40 percent. The wind farm is due for completion by August this year.

Egypt
Egypt’s wind power capacity may reach 3,040 megawatts by 2016 as the country seeks to increase its reliance on renewable energy sources, Electricity and Energy Minister Hassan Younes said.
The North African country decided to exempt imported components used in the renewable energy industry from duties as part of wider plan to encourage investment in the field, Younes said today in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

Jun 19

Solar Flagship News 19th June

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Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson today announced the record funding to support construction of the solar projects at Chinchilla in Queensland and Moree in New South Wales. The projects were selected in accordance with the recommendations of the independent Solar Flagships Council.

Solar Dawn and Moree Solar Farm have been selected as the two successful consortiums to build the power plants under Round 1 of the Australian Governments $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program.

The Gillard Labor Government will contribute $464 million for the Solar Dawn project in Chinchilla worth an estimated $1.2 billion and $306.5 million towards the BP project in Moree worth an estimated $923 million.

Solar Dawn is a proposed 250 megawatt solar thermal gas hybrid power plant to be built near Chinchilla in South West Queensland by a consortium including AREVA Solar, CS Energy and Wind Prospect CWP. While Solar Dawn is designed as a standalone solar thermal power plant using Areva’s Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) technology, the site will have a gas boiler system to produce power without the solar field.

The Moree Solar Farm, being developed by BP Solar together with its consortium partners Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) and Pacific Hydro will build a 150 MW single axis tracking photovoltaic power plant near Moree.

This solar flagship program news comes on top of the funding for the Kogan Creek Solar Boost project in April this year. CS Energy will spend $104 million installing solar panels at the Kogan Creek coal-fired power station near Dalby, north-west of Brisbane. Apparently the CS solar installation was the best way to correct for the incorrect sizing of the original boiler system for the coal power plant. The solar field once operational will pre-heat the feed water allowing the power plant to produce maximum power on the hotter days correcting the design fault.

Funding for the solar boost project includes a $70 million contribution from CS Energy and a contribution of more than $34 million from the Australian Government’s Renewable Energy Demonstration Program. CS Energy has received support from the Queensland Government through a contribution of $35.4 million to CS Energy’s Carbon Reduction Program, which has enabled the company to direct funds to the Kogan Creek Solar Boost Project.

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Jun 14

Renewable News 15th June 2011

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Infigen
Infigen Energy announced that it has agreed to sell its portfolio of German wind energy assets with an installed capacity of 128.7 MW to a European based renewable energy fund for an enterprise value of EUR154.6 million.

The wind-farm developer is awaiting German regulatory approval that may take 30 days, Infigen said today in a statement. The company said it plans to use the proceeds to cut debt and will provide details on the sale of the assets, which have a capacity of 128.7 MW, when the deal is completed.

Infigen’s Managing Director, Miles George, said “The sale of our German assets will achieve a fair value for security holders and will represent an important step in improving our capital structure.”

The renewable-energy developer, whose shares have dropped almost 60 percent in Sydney in the past 12 months, won’t pay dividends in the years ending in June 2012 and June 2013 to help fund expansion in Australia, Infigen said in a separate statement yesterday. Investors are still worried about the company’s strategy in the US.

Woodlawn
Infigen Energy announced that financial close has occurred under the Woodlawn Wind Farm project finance facility and that electricity has been successfully exported to the grid as part of the wind farm’s pre- commissioning testing procedures. On 23 December 2010 Infigen advised that it had signed a project finance facility agreement with Westpac Banking Corporation for the 48.3 MW Woodlawn Wind Farm. All conditions precedent under the loan documentation have now been satisfied and first draw down under the facility has occurred. The facility limit at financial close is $55 million.

Infigen achieved a milestone last week by successfully exporting electricity generated from the first of the 23 Suzlon 2.1 MW wind turbines to the grid. The commissioning phase for the wind farm will continue into the second half of the year.

woodlawn wind turbine

Alstom
Alstom the world’s third-largest power-equipment maker, will build and service three wind farms in northeast Brazil for Brasventos SA. The 200 million contract is its biggest sale of wind equipment in Brazil, Levallois-Perret, France-based. It will produce the turbines at its factory in Bahia state.

Repower
Repower, said agreements with lenders will continue to hold after a planned takeover by its debt-strapped parent. A proposal by Suzlon, to buy out Repower’s minority stockholders won’t affect covenants covering the German unit’s 600 million euros in debt and a letter of credit.

Suzlon’s plan to buy the remaining 4.8 percent stake in Repower prompted questions from investors about the impact on financing arrangements and lending costs. Ahmedabad-based Suzlon resumes principal repayments next year on 100 billion rupees ($2.2 billion) of refinanced loans taken in part to buy a stake in the German firm.

Repower has a higher cash ratio, a measure of a company’s ability to pay off short-term debt with cash on hand, than most of its competitors. Suzlon will get access to Repower’s 275 million euros in cash to help manage its debt, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) said in an April 4 note.

Repower will also start making turbines in India for the first time and is increasingly buying components from cheaper Asian suppliers, which will help trim costs and increase its competitiveness. By the end of the financial year, the company could manufacture as much as 50 units of the 2MW MM turbines at a Suzlon plant in southwest Mangalore city. The machines that they will produce will go to the U.S. market and, in the next step, may potentially go to Australia.

suzlon wind turbine

Gamesa
Greentech Energy Systems, the Danish renewable power developer, agreed to buy a wind park in Spain from Gamesa. Greentech will pay about 45 million euros for the 15-turbine project in Tarragona.

Google
Google agreed to put $280 million in a new project financing fund for SolarCity Inc., a financier, installer and owner of rooftop photovoltaic systems, in the Internet search engine’s biggest clean-energy investment.

As an alternative to tax credits, the program reimburses investors for 30 percent of project expenditures for solar. The program was created after the 2008 financial crisis to revive spending on clean energy. Projects must begin construction by the end of 2011 to be eligible.

SolarCity will use the funds as the equity component in project financing. The company finances solar-energy systems through an arrangement known as a power-purchase agreement or solar lease, in which it owns the solar panels. Customers pay nothing upfront and buy the generated electricity at a fixed monthly rate that’s lower than a typical utility bill.

Abengoa
Abengoa, the world’s largest developer of solar thermal plants plans to build Mexico’s first solar-thermal power plant as part of a gas-fueled combined cycle project in the northern state of Sonora. Integrated Solar Combined Cycle (ISCC) technology combines the benefits of solar energy with the benefits of a combined cycle. The solar resource partially substitutes the fossil fuel.

The Spanish group will build a 12-megawatt solar field using parabolic trough technology in Agua Prieta which will be integrated with a 464MW combined cycle gas power plant. for the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission, it said last week. The plant is expected to start operating in 22 months.

Abengoa commissioned two plants of the same type in Morocco and Algeria last year and Solar Millennium AG (S2M) opened a 20-megawatt facility near a 130-megawatt gas project in December.

Q-Cells
Q-Cells, the German solar-cell manufacturer that’s fallen 56 percent in Frankfurt trading over the past year, is open to a takeover bid, Chief Executive Officer Nedim Cen said. Q-Cells is among a group of European and U.S. solar-gear makers that have faced increased competition from Chinese competitors including JA Solar Holdings Co. and Suntech Power Holdings Co., the world’s largest makers of cells that are used in photovoltaic panels to convert sunlight into power.

GE
General Electric to supply its new turbine designed to integrate gas and renewable generation was chosen by Turkey’s MetCap Energy Investments for their integrated solar-natural gas plant. The 530MW Karaman site in Turkey will use technology from closely held eSolar Inc., wind and the “FlexEfficiency” gas turbine GE announced. The combination will be able to operate at a fuel- efficiency rate of more than 70 percent, greater than the rate of 61 percent for the combined-cycle turbine alone, GE said. It also makes solar more cost-efficient.

GE plans to purchase a minority stake in esolar. The investment would give GE an exclusive license to sell eSolar’s solar thermal technology, which it plans to combine with its energy-efficient gas turbines

Wind Farm Senate Committee Report
A senate committee report into the social and economic impact of wind farms to be released today is expected to call for greater restrictions on where they can be built. The inquiry, established last October by the independent senator Steve Fielding, attracted 900 submissions - most of which support rural wind farms and renewable energy in general.

But about a third of the public submissions say wind turbines have adverse health effects on people living nearby, and point to ”wind turbine syndrome”, under which some people report having headaches and nausea as a result of the sound of spinning turbine blades.

A report by the National Health and Medical Research Council last year found there was ”no published scientific evidence to positively link wind turbines with adverse health effects”. Other government studies have reached the same conclusion, but the studies were attacked during a senate hearing in March for relying on government and industry data.

The Senate inquiry also addressed questions about the effect on property values, job opportunities and farm income. While some advertisements for properties with turbines are now including the revenue as a selling point, many of the submissions say that turbines ruin an area’s character and drive away tourists.

Of the 900 submissions received, about 54 per cent support wind farms, 39 per cent were negative and 7 per cent were confidential or neutral.

There are 54 wind farms in Australia with a total of 1092 turbines. Many more are planned and being assessed by state planning bodies.

wind farm demostration

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Jun 06

Renewable News 7th June 2011

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O’Farrell abandons plan to cut solar tariff
WEEKS of campaigning by the solar energy industry and the threat of a backbench revolt have forced the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, to dump plans to cut the tariff paid to participants in the solar bonus scheme.

The state government enraged participants in the scheme last month with a decision to cut the tariff rate they are paid for generating electricity back into the grid from their solar panels from 60¢ a kilowatt hour to 40¢. At the time, the Energy Minister, Chris Hartcher, said it was necessary to rein in the cost of the scheme, which was unfunded by $759 million and had blown out by a total of $1.9 billion from initial estimates.

The solar energy industry launched a campaign against the plan and presented the government with figures that showed the cost of the scheme had been overstated by $230 million. The government is expected to release new figures that show the size of the total blowout in the scheme was about $1.44 billion.

Six Fold Green Energy Increase
The country’s Treasurer Wayne Swan has made a claim ahead of a key speech tomorrow, when he is expected to reveal the Australian government’s own detailed economic modelling of the impact of its planned carbon tax. Swan says “the introduction of a carbon price would result in renewable output rising six-fold over the next 40 years, while gas-fired electricity production would grow by 150%.

“Dirty energy will become more expensive and clean energy cheaper under a carbon price, creating the jobs of the future and helping to protect our environment and our economy,” the Treasurer writes in an economic bulletin ahead of his climate speech to the National Press Club.

Renewables currently account for 8.7% of total power production, with 21.7TWh of output in Australia in the 12 months to October 2010. Swan’s figures also suggest coal will remain a significant part of the Australia’s power supply for decades to come.

wind turbine

Clear Solar
ONE of Australia’s largest rooftop solar panel retailers, Clear Solar, has gone into receivership, costing 40 people jobs and prompting warnings from the industry of more closures in coming months.

Clear Solar, which boasts on its website to have done 10,000 solar installations and is a sponsor of the A-League side Melbourne Victory, called in administrators Pitcher Partners yesterday.

But household customers have been spared with Clear Solar being bought out by one of its creditors, the electrical wholesaler Middy’s, which guaranteed 500 outstanding contacts to install solar panels.

This comes a week after Origin Energy closed their Adelaide solar manufacturing plant which is being moved to the US.

Class II and Class III turbines
General Electric Acciona, and Suzlon Energy last week began selling wind turbines that generate power in more gentle breezes, aiming the product at largely undeveloped markets such as the U.S. southeast and inland Australia.

Manufacturers have been making towers taller, blades longer and lighter, and turbines more reliable since demand for wind energy in the U.S. dropped about 50 percent last year to 4,900 GW.

The push to improve turbine output and reduce the cost of energy may also help U.S. manufacturers compete against lower- priced wind products from new entrants in China, said Amy Grace, a New York-based analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

“It’s a shift from turbine prices, which have been falling with increased competition, to the cost of energy over its lifetime,” Grace said in an interview. “Improving the efficiency by 1 percent can yield more profit over the life of a turbine more than offering a $100,000 discount on the price.”

Suzlon, India’s biggest wind-turbine maker, has lost 8.2 percent in the stock market this year. In comparison Alcobendas, Spain-based Acciona and General Electric, whose products and services are more diversified, have gained 37 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively.

GE expects to sell 60 to 100 of the new 1.6-megawatt turbines this year, which have a 47 percent longer sweep that can generate up to 19 percent more power annually. Acciona and Suzlon have also improved their turbines to lower lifetime costs and reach new areas in the U.S. market.

To win customers for its newest turbines, Suzlon yesterday said it would finance installation of two of them in the Texas panhandle this August.

Kennedy Wind Farm
The 750MW Kennedy wind development is one of several major renewables projects near Hughenden, Queensland, that would benefit from the $1.5 billion proposed 1028km CopperString transmission line, allowing them to supply to Australia’s power network.

CopperString, a joint venture between CuString and Leighton Contractors, hopes to begin construction work in February 2012. The consortium says it has secured agreements with major energy users in northwest Queensland’s industrial Mount Isa region – thought to be mining groups Xstrata and BHP Billiton, and chemical company Incitec Pivot – and can now progress to the “final stages of development”, including design work and contract negotiations.

The project includes a 720km high-voltage main line between Townsville and the North West Queensland electricity supply system, and 210km of lines and substations to link remotely-located major energy users.

The transmission project’s progress was hailed as an “exciting development” by Kennedy’s developer Windlab, which says it is obtaining the remaining approvals for the wind farm needed ahead of a planned start to construction in mid-to-late 2012.

Windlab plans to develop Kennedy with the help of outside investors and sell a majority stake to a larger owner-operator in the later stages of the project.

Other renewables projects clustered around Hughenden include Windlab’s 300MW Kaiwedera solar farm and PhytoFuel’s biodiesel and biomass plant.

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