Feb 27

Renewable News 28th February 2012

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Acciona Joins Solar Flagship Venture After BP Drops Out

Acciona, has joined Pacific Hydro in a venture seeking Australian funds to build the Moree solar farm in New South Wales state after partner BP Solar pulled out.

Acciona will provide engineering and construction services to the solar-power project, while Pacific Hydro and Fotowatio Renewable Ventures will take up the ownership stake previously held by BP. The venture will sign a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Pacific Hydro, which plans to start its own retail energy group, according to the statement.

While the partners in the proposed A$923 million solar plant won government funds last year, they failed to sign a power-purchase agreement in time to reach a December financing deadline. That prompted the government to reopen the funding competition to other bidders, including AGL.

moree solar farm

Minister approves Hawkesdale, Ryan Corner wind farms
Two Victorian wind farm developments at Hawkesdale and Ryan Corner have been approved by Planning Minister Matthew Guy after months of negotiation.

Spanish proponents Union Fenosa announced yesterday that work on the two sites would start as early as next month, ahead of state government reforms of the renewable energy sector. More than $500 million will be pumped into the two projects, one which is located in farmland south-east of Hawkesdale and the other between Yambuk and Orford.

Union Fenosa managing director Domingo Asuero said the company would provide site possession to Portland-based GR Carr Construction. He said early works on the sites would start within weeks. The two projects will generate a combined 196 megawatts of renewable electricity, enough to power the needs of about 80,000 houses.

Abengoa Beats Estimates as Construction Surges
Abengoa net income jumped last year, exceeding analysts’ estimates by 22 percent as sales from its engineering and construction division surged.

The Spanish based company, which develops solar thermal power plants, builds power transmission lines and ethanol refining facilities, posted profit of 257.4 million euros compared with a mean forecast of 210.3 million euros in a survey of 13 analysts.

GE and JP Morgan Chase
GE and JP Morgan Chase & Co. jointly purchased a minority stake in the Capricorn Ridge wind farm in Texas for US$225 million from NextEra Energy Inc.

The 662.5-megawatt Capricorn Ridge wind farm, which began operating in 2007, uses turbines produced by both GE and Siemens AG (SIE) and can produce enough power for about 220,000 homes.

Suzlon
It is rumored that Mauritius’s state-owned Central Electricity Board named a group led by Suzlon Energy Ltd. as the preferred bidder for a 29.4-megawatt wind farm, the Port Louis- based Le Mauricien reported.

This news comes after Suzlon Energy’s convertible bonds have been falling at the fastest pace since 2009 after India’s biggest wind-turbine maker signaled it will fall short of funds to repay debt maturing this year.

Suzlon is exploring options including asset sales to meet $569 million in bond redemptions this year as losses widen, said Chairman Tulsi Tanti.

Fitch Ratings sees “extremely high” risk of default for a fifth of Indian convertible bonds due this year, according to a report dated Feb. 21. Another 17 percent of the debt may need to be reorganized, mostly by extending maturities, Amey Joshi, a Mumbai-based analyst at Fitch, wrote in the report.

The global wind power market rose 6 percent to 41 gigawatts last year, led by China, the Global Wind Energy Council said in a report on Feb. 7. Suzlon currently has orders worth $7.5 billion, according to a Feb. 11 statement. Vestas Wind Systems A/S of Denmark, the biggest turbine maker, announced a loss in 2011 that was four times wider than expected on Feb. 8. Sinovel Wind Group Co., China’s biggest supplier, said Jan. 30 it expects 2011 earnings to fall by more than 50 percent.

Port Fairy Wind Farms

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Jun 21

Acciona trading at a discount

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Acciona SA, Spain’s second-biggest wind farm owner, is the cheapest investment among 88 renewable- energy stocks after the nation’s government said it’s planning to reduce subsidized prices for clean power.

The stock trades at about 18.5 times estimated 2010 earnings per share, below the 22.5-times industry average, and trails its peers on sales and enterprise value in worldwide ranking by Bloomberg. Madrid-based Acciona tumbled 20 percent this quarter after Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian said he wants to cut rates paid to producers of clean energy by July 1.

Abengoa SA, the engineering company planning 13 Spanish solar-thermal power plants, ranks third-cheapest on the global value list of stocks based on Bloomberg data and analytics. It trades at 8 times earnings, compared with the 22.5-times average for the 88-member WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index.

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Feb 03

Australia lacking on renewable initiative

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RENEWABLE energy is the world’s fastest-growing power source. It is already generating baseload electricity at utility scales. Wind power is being installed at scales that dwarf Australian grid requirements. These and other clean-energy technologies are replacing coal on modern energy grids, while Australia continues to throw money at 19th century technologies.

Spain has a level of electricity consumption equivalent to Australia’s, although it has roughly twice the population. Like Australia, Spain has strong, consistent sunshine, and the Spanish use this asset to ensure energy security. They have already built 24-hour baseload solar plants, using molten salt to store heat, which is then used to create steam and turn turbines. They started with Andasol 1, a 50-megawatt plant, and have now completed another two similar projects. Projects to generate more than 1800 MW are being built and the government just approved another 2440 MW.

The Gemasolar project is the shining light of the Spanish baseload solar boom. This solar thermal plant has created 1500 jobs and will operate at 60-100 per cent of maximum turbine output for up to 90 per cent of the hours each year. Low maintenance shutdown requirements allow this efficiency.

Torresol Energy Gemasolar Plant

The Spanish are also harnessing the wind. Wind turbines provide 11 per cent of the nation’s electricity and this will increase to 25 per cent by 2020.

Chinese wind power also blows us away - 30,000 MW of wind power was planned to come online by 2020, but this target will now be met early this year. On the back of that, China is now planning for 150,000 MW of wind power by 2020, and again it is likely that this will be achieved much earlier. Within that target is China’s ”Three Gorges of Wind” project; it will produce twice as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam - about the same as the electricity grid on Australia’s eastern seaboard, but at half the cost.

Authorities in the US are also swamped with plans for wind and solar thermal power installations. More than 97,000 MW of solar thermal projects are before the US Bureau of Land Management for approval. An underdeveloped grid is the main obstacle to the expansion of wind power in the US, but President Barack Obama has announced a huge modernisation plan.

Projects include a big complex in Nevada by Spanish multinational Abengoa and another in California by Israel’s BrightSource Energy. These companies are now exporting their expertise, a far more valuable commodity than coal.

Those who perpetuate the myth that renewable energy can’t satisfy our electricity demands have an interest in long-established, emissions-intensive industries. The federal government seems happy to encourage this approach, offering $7 billion of compensation to coal-fired electricity generators under the emissions trading scheme while stonewalling on renewables.

See The Age 3rd Feb 2010, for the full article.

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