A late comer to the wind turbine manufacturing industry, Siemens AG entered the wind business six years ago when it purchased the veteran Danish wind turbine manufacturer Bonus Energy. Europe’s largest engineering firm, Siemens is also one of the world’s primary suppliers of transmission infrastructure equipment. In 2010, the company’s 3 and 3.6 MW wind turbines emerged as the top choice for offshore wind projects. Currently ranked 6th in the world in terms of total wind turbine sales, Siemens is expected to creep up to among the top three wind turbine suppliers by the end of 2012. While other turbines have reported weak sales over the past year, Siemens is showing strong sales in both onshore and offshore wind arenas.

At present, the company’s turbines account for 77 percent of the installed and under development offshore wind projects in the United Kingdom, the market expected to lead the world over the next ten years, with as much as 30 to 50 GW over the next ten to 15 years. The company is also making major inroads in the United States, having been chosen to supply 130 3.6 MW turbines for the high profile Cape Wind project off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The key differentiator for Siemens is a variable frequency direct drive permanent magnet generator developed by Converteam, an engineering outfit whose wind turbine products are used by a variety of other firms and are featured in an accumulative worldwide capacity of 15 GW. (Unlike an electrically excited machine with a gearbox, a permanent magnet excited machine does not expend any energy on the excitation.) With half the parts of a conventional geared turbine, the Siemens machine has been deemed a “game changer” by insiders. The compact design allows for cost effective transportation on standard vehicles within most markets.

Of the five key components in a wind turbine – the blade, rotor hub, nacelle, tower, and controller – all but the components within the nacelle are adopted from the existing Siemens’ wind turbine portfolio. By utilizing proven components, Siemens has endeavored to eliminate many of the variables traditionally associated with the introduction of new products. This is a key comfort to investors looking to rely on proven technology when reviewing offshore wind turbine options.

One reason I’m betting on Siemens has nothing to do with its wind turbine technology. Instead, it is the company’s role in developing high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines. True, the company did not develop the first HVDC system for offshore wind – that honor went to ABB with a project in Germany. But the company has developed some unique DC power converters and other systems that may give the firm a competitive advantage. And it has formed a partnership with Mainstream Renewable Power, the world’s leading offshore wind developer, to help develop Phase 1 of the “Super Grid” designed to bring offshore wind developed in the North Sea to various European markets.

The reason why there is much greater interest in HVDC today is due to the following developments:

– Advances in power electronics originating within the industrial sector (electric drives, process plants and mass transit traction systems) have now been adapted to the so-called electricity Transmission and Distribution (T&D) industry.

– Some of the same kinds of power electronics innovations occurring with PCs, iPods, and other consumer gadgets have also occurred within larger industrial systems. More specifically, computers and software systems that create algorithms that enable real-time decision-making literally within nanoseconds are now infiltrating modern power grids.

– AC transmission systems suffer so-called “line losses” that can range from 10 to 15 percent. HVDC line losses are closer to just 2 percent.

– HVDC systems are 100 percent controllable – the power will only go where you want it to go – whereas AC systems flow sometimes in unpredictable ways, an attribute that contributes to rolling blackouts or brownouts. In this way, HVDC systems can act like firewalls, limiting grid disturbances to a small geographical area.

Given its leading market presence in selling HVDC, Siemens is now looking to expand its offshore wind products and services by buying infrastructure firms and looking to invest in installation equipment, including, perhaps, vessels.

They will never be the only game in town. Other promising wind turbine designs will be tested over the next five years that could also be game changers, among them a 10 MW design by Clipper Wind and a 6 MW two-bladed downwind turbine from 2-B Energy. For now, though, Siemens is well positioned in both Europe and the U.S. for offshore wind and transmission build-out opportunities.

Article by Peter Asmus

Photo by Siemens

Related posts:

• Siemens Aims to Reach the Top of the Wind Power Market
• New Jersey to Take Lead in Offshore Wind Energy?
• U.S. Offshore Wind Could Provide 20 Percent of Electricity by 2030
• Offshore Wind Projects Moving Forward Along U.S. East Coast
• Offshore Wind Turbines Could Cost 30% Less

By helping stand up responsible large-scale renewable energy projects on America’s public lands and oceans, the Department of the Interior is playing a leading role in fulfilling President Obama’s vision for a new energy future.

As America’s principal public lands management agency with stewardship responsibility over 20 percent of the nation’s land mass and 1.75 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf, Interior manages areas with extensive renewable energy potential.

In 2010, we began to unleash the potential of these resources in unprecedented ways, approving historic renewable energy projects, as well as developing strategic plans for a strong future.

Some milestones:

Solar

• We approved nine large-scale solar energy projects in the sunny deserts of California and Nevada, including the first solar project ever permitted on public lands, and what will be the largest solar project in the world when completed.  Together, the projects will provide nearly 3,700 megawatts – enough to power more than one million homes – and create over 7,000 new jobs. 
• We teamed up with the Department of Energy to develop long-term, landscape level planning for solar energy that will lead to a more efficient and effective process for project permitting and siting. This initiative includes a comprehensive environmental analysis that identifies proposed ‘solar energy zones’ on public lands in six western states most suitable for environmentally sound, utility-scale solar energy production. 

Wind

• We signed a lease for the Cape Wind energy project, the nation’s first commercial wind energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf.  With the potential to power more than 200,000 homes in Massachusetts, Cape Wind signals a new era for offshore energy production.
• We launched a ‘Smart from the Start’ wind energy initiative for the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf to facilitate siting, leasing and construction of new projects. The initiative slashes red tape and will identify priority Wind Energy Areas for potential development. Smart planning and early environmental reviews will pay dividends in spurring responsible renewable wind energy development.
• We approved a 150-megawatt wind project in Nevada that will generate enough energy to power more than 52,000 homes. This project joins the 29 wind development projects already in production on public lands with an installed capacity of approximately 580 megawatts. 

Geothermal and Transmission

• We broke ground on the 235-mile One Nevada transmission line which will help deliver renewable energy to consumers. This line will join more than 500 miles of critical, new electric transmission lines crossing Nevada and Idaho that this administration has greenlighted. 
• We approved two new geothermal projects in Nevada which will harness the earth’s energy to produce about 79 megawatts of energy and generate enough energy to power about 79,000 homes.

Together these projects and initiatives are important, significant steps in our nation’s march toward a prosperous, sustainable renewable energy future.

Article by Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior

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• Dept. of Interior Signs First-Ever Offshore Wind Energy Lease in U.S.

Cape Wind signs 28-year offshore wind energy lease.

It’s officially official. After eight years of scoping, studying, permitting, legislating and legal wrangling, the United States today cemented its first-ever lease for an offshore wind farm on the Outer Continental Shelf.

At the inaugural North American Offshore Wind Conference & Exhibition in Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S. Secretary Ken Salazar and Cape Wind Associates, LLC, signed the nation’s first lease for commercial offshore wind energy development on the OCS.

“The signing of this lease sends an important market signal to the offshore wind industry that the United States is ready to move forward and that Cape Wind will be the first of many offshore wind projects in this country,” said Jim Gordon, President of Cape Wind.

The 468-megawatt Cape Wind project, which won final approval in April, will have an average output of 182 megawatts, or 75 percent of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island combined.

“We’re ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work building America’s first offshore wind farm that will create hundreds of jobs, increase our energy independence and promote a healthier and more hopeful energy future,” Gordon said.

The lease authorizes Cape Wind to construct the 130 turbine offshore wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, and to operate the facility for a period of 28 years. The company will be paying a lease fee ranging from 2 percent to 7 percent during production.

“Under the leadership of President of Obama, the renewable energy world is opening a new frontier,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in his keynote address at the conference before signing the Cape Wind lease.

Last month the U.S. Department of Energy unveiled a draft plan that calls for the U.S. to install 54,000 megawatts of offshore wind power capacity by the year 2030, which would require more than 100 Cape Wind-sized projects.

“If we fully pursue our potential for wind energy on land and offshore, wind can generate as much as 20 percent of our electricity by 2030 and create a quarter-million jobs in the process,” Secretary Salazar said.

Salazar cited Cape Wind as a pioneer for offshore wind energy development in the U.S. and went on to explain how the long regulatory and permitting battle to approve the wind farm helped pave the way for a new streamlined permitting process for renewable energy on public lands. And just yesterday, the Department of the Interior approved the first two projects from this fast-track process.

The two large-scale solar projects in California are the first to be approved on public lands and together they will generate over 700 megawatts of power, and are among the world’s largest solar power plants.

In the coming weeks and months, the Department of the Interior has plans to finalize several major wind, solar, geothermal, and transmission energy projects in western states.

The goal is to get them reviewed by the end of 2010, when they can take advantage of the incentives made available by the Recovery Act.

“The renewable energy potential on America’s public lands is staggering,” Secretary Salazar said.

Article by Timothy B. Hurst, appearing courtesy ecopolitology.

Related posts:

• U.S. Offshore Wind Could Provide 20 Percent of Electricity by 2030
• New Obama Administration Rule Paves Way for Offshore Wind Power
• New Jersey to Take Lead in Offshore Wind Energy?
• Standing Up Renewable Energy on America’s Lands and Oceans
• U.S. Commits $50.5 Million to Promote Offshore Wind Industry

New Jersey passes law to encourage the development of 1,100 megawatts of new offshore wind energy capacity.

As the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind farm in Massachusetts fends off some last ditch legal challenges to become the first offshore wind farm in the U.S., New Jersey passed a law last week that would ultimately make it the leading provider of offshore wind energy in the country.

The Offshore Wind Economic Development Act directs the state’s Board of Public Utilities (BPU) to establish an offshore renewable energy certificate program that calls for a percentage of electricity sold in the state to be from offshore wind energy. The act would support the development of at least 1,100 megawatts of offshore wind energy capacity.

The bill was signed into law yesterday by Gov. Chris Christie yesterday at a former BP port facility that will be transformed into a regional hub for the offshore wind industry.

“Developing New Jersey’s renewable energy resources and industry is critical to our state’s manufacturing and technology future,” Christie said.

The package will offer incentives including financial aid and tax credits to attract wind energy developers to the state’s waters.

Two offshore wind development companies, Fishermen’s Energy and Deepwater Wind, already have plans to develop offshore wind energy off the coast of New Jersey.

A report released last year by the Interior Department said shallow-water offshore wind farms could supply as much as 20% of the electricity in most coastal states.

Article by Timothy B. Hurst, appearing courtesy Ecopolitology.

Related posts:

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• Offshore Wind Projects Moving Forward Along U.S. East Coast
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• India Looks Offshore to Meet Their Wind Power Needs

The Oil Spill’s Unlikely Victim: As oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill continued to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, it tarred the feathers of an endangered creature: the climate bill. Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman introduced a retooled American Power Act on Wednesday to little fanfare. Perhaps that’s because the media’s klieg lights were already divided between the grilling of oil executives on Capitol Hill or the so-far hapless efforts to plug the leak. Or maybe it’s because the two senators took to the dais without their erstwhile Republican ally, Lindsey Graham. Nevertheless, it was ironic to see a solution to our fossil-fuel addiction pushed to the side because of a fossil-fuel disaster. Must we cap the gusher before we get a cap on CO2?

More Electric Cars Roll to the Starting Line: You’ve heard that the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt are on the way, but how about the Think and the Wheego? Wheego, a maker of electric putt-putt vehicles based in Atlanta, hopes that 200 highway-ready copies of its Whip Life will roll off the assembly line by August, months ahead of the well-publicized launch of the Leaf. Meanwhile, the Norwegian carmaker Think raised $40 million this week and plans to start assembly of the tiny Think City in Elkhart, Indiana in early 2011.

How Is an Electric Car Like an iPad? The CEO of Coda Automotive announced a novel approach to manufacturing and selling his company’s electric car — less a come-on-down dealership blitzkrieg and more like a visit to Apple’s Genius Bar. “We are looking at this not as a new-car-model introduction, but as a new-technology introduction,” CEO Kevin Czinger told a transportation conference in Ohio. But that’s just one way Coda is creating an auto company on the cheap. Models will be partially assembled at a factory in China, imported to the U.S. as “parts” to avoid import duties, and finished near company headquarters in California. Coda will have just one dealership in Los Angeles but seven satellite stores where the curious can come for a test drive — kind of like the way Steve Jobs warmed people up to the iPhone and the iPad. Models are due in 2011 for $30,000 to $40,000.

Toyota Bets on Hydrogen: Toyota surprised everyone by announcing it would debut a somewhat affordable, hydrogen-powered sedan by 2015. By whittling down the use of expensive materials like platinum, the company’s engineers dropped the cost of production by a factor of ten, and said they could offer the car for $50,000 and get within striking distance of a profit after launch.

How Does Power from Nantucket Sound? Less than two weeks after winning its hard fight for approval, the Cape Wind wind farm off Nantucket Sound closed a deal to sell half of its electricity. National Grid, the utility for a chunk of the Eastern Seaboard from New York to New Hampshire, will buy power at 20.7 cents per kilowatt-hour — a rate that will increase the average homeowner’s bill by about $1.59 a month. The $1 billion project is expected to start feeding power in 2013.

China: Winds of Change. U.S.: Pocket Change. The Department of Energy announced some nice grants for renewable energy projects this week. Investments include $13 million in seed money for projects that will help make industry emit less CO2, $62 million to develop concentrated solar power, and another $33 million on the way for innovations in biomass-to-fuel. That’s $108 million. Not bad!

Then China Longyuan Power Group, one of the largest wind-energy concerns in China, announced its own investment to become the world’s leader in installing wind turbines in five years. The amount? $13 billion.

Innovation Watch: Australia works on the world’s first biofuel helicopter; MIT grads invent a shock absorber that generates electricity; and Dell wonders if it could prosper without ever building another data center.

Article by David Ferris appearing courtesy Matter Network.

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Nine years into a regulatory battle that has been fought in virtually every legal , political and bureaucratic venue imaginable, Secretary of State Ken Salazar said today that the stakeholders must come to a compromise by March 1 or he would intervene and make the final decision on the proposed offshore wind farm in the waters of Nantucket Sound near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Salazar reiterated that if the timeline he laid down last week wasn’t met, he would consult with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, an independent party, to make a final decision.

In a series of meetings with about three dozen representatives of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Native American groups, Cape Wind and the primary opposition group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, Secretary Salazar said “the public, the applicants and all the stakeholders deserve resolution,” calling the nine-year process an example of government failure.

Cape Wind CEO Jim Gordon and other project supporters welcomed the direct intervention from Secretary Salazar. On a phone call today with reporters, Gordon said that he is “convinced that when Secretary Salazar has the complete record before him that the verifiable public benefits of creating jobs, greater energy independence, cleaner air and mitigating climate change will far outweigh any perception of negative impacts.”

But Native American groups expressed some disappointment in today’s meetings. “It was insulting,” Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, the council chair of the Aquinnah Wampanoag, told the Boston Globe outside the Interior Department. “I’ll be frank, it was disrespectful — there seems to be no real reason.”

The Aquinnah Wampanoags are one of two Native American tribes that say the offshore wind project would destroy spiritual sun greetings and disturb ancestral culturally significant lands on the seabed. The Aquinnahs were bolstered by a recent decision handed down from the National Park Service saying that Nantucket Sound was eligible for a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Here is where we still arrive to greet the new day, watch for celestial observations in the night sky and follow the migration of the sun and stars in change with the season,” wrote Bettina Washington, historic preservation officer for the Aquinnah Wampanoag, in a letter to federal officials.

But supporters of Cape Wind have pointed out that the Aquinnah Wampanoag’s land is actually on the western side of Martha’s Vineyard, which does not face Nantucket Sound. But the National Park Service ruled that the sound was significant to both tribes.

Gordon said that Cape Wind has already taken several mitigatory steps to reduce the impacts of the wind farm including: a reduction in project size from 170 to 130 turbines; reconfiguration of turbines away from any areas considered archaeologically sensitive; eliminating daytime lighting; reducing nighttime lighting; and using off-white colors to reduce visual contrast. In addition to physical mitigation, Cape Wind has also offered a compensation package, but it is not entirely clear how much it would be, or to whom it would go.

“We’ve had this on the table, but we have had no response from the parties,” said Gordon, of Cape Wind’s efforts to engage the other stakeholder parties.

Thus far, the only proposal opponents have come up with is to move the entire project to an area that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has already examined as a possible location for a wind farm. Moving the site would certainly cost the developers millions of dollars and essentially reset the entire regulatory and permitting process back to square one, with no guarantee it would ever even go through; a fate that Cape Wind supporters–and the offshore wind energy industry as a whole –are hoping against.

Cape Wind CEO Jim Gordon thinks the nine-year battle has no reason to carry on. Said Gordon, “This is the right project in the right place at the right time.”

Article by Timothy B. Hurst, appearing courtesy of Celsias

Related posts:

• Dept. of Interior Signs First-Ever Offshore Wind Energy Lease in U.S.
• New Obama Administration Rule Paves Way for Offshore Wind Power
• U.S. Offshore Wind Could Provide 20 Percent of Electricity by 2030
• Controversial Offshore Wind Farm Approved
• New Jersey to Take Lead in Offshore Wind Energy?

Ken Salazar's solar array and cowboy hat combo should be more common under the plan announced yesterday for the Southwest

Yesterday’s big announcement by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar heralded what may be a new era for solar power, as thousands of acres of federal land in six Southwestern states were set aside to become a special federal solar energy zone designed to facilitate siting, construction and deployment of as much as 70,000 MW of new solar capacity.

Today, it is wind’s turn in the sun. The front page of the Boston Globe and local broadcast reports are abuzz with the news that Governor Deval Patrick’s administration has released a new plan to re-zone state coastal waters to better balance the need for marine ecological protections with the hope that Massachusetts can harvest more of its offshore wind as useful electricity.

In the absence of all of the plan’s details (a full presser was scheduled for the afternoon of July 1 at the New England Aquarium in Boston), the media has already shifted to score-keeping. There is at least one clear loser, as the plan deals a death blow to a particular Buzzards Bay proposal for 300 MW of offshore wind. The wind farm would sit in what is now a restricted area.

The plan does set aside two specific areas for large-scale wind, and Jim O’Sullivan of the State House News Service quotes Ian Bowles, the state’s energy secretary, as telling reporters that “the Commonwealth [of Massachusetts] will want to put those areas out to bid and they would be, relatively speaking, on the fast track for development.” (sorry, SHNS is a subscription site – no link). Bowles allowed that the proponents of the Buzzards Bay project could bid to shift their 90+ turbines to one of the newly-designated areas, but added that he had no idea whether they intended to do so.

Bowles’ “fast-tracking” comment is direct, but not surprising. His own March Op-Ed in the NYT made reference to the administration’s perception of major offshore wind potential; and, those comments were strengthened considerably by the testimony Paul Hibbard, a state regulatory commissioner, gave before Congress in mid-June.

All the international investment, Washington clout and technological innovation in the world is for naught in a climate where a neighbor and ten friends can still get together and tie a project into a Gordian knot of appeals and reviews.

Until the full rule-making process is complete on both of these new policies, it is unclear what the real impact on siting will be. But, it seems obvious that neither policy will address all of the potential delays in getting turbines spinning. For example, the Massachusetts plan still grants local towns and regional planning agencies the authority to approve smaller wind projects in state coastal waters.

Taken together, yesterday’s federal announcement of a new plan for Southwestern solar zones and the Massachusetts offshore wind farm rezoning plan, demonstrate some interesting trends: first, a shift that brings policy more in line with rhetoric and second, a clear bias for executive action as against legislative enactment.

The two announcements are tangible steps toward aligning policy with the increasing rhetoric about the desire for greater renewable deployment. The major problem remains siting. Even in a fantasy scenario where there is no additional public opposition (which does NOT happen), the environmental and administrative processes at the local, regional, state and federal level are cumbersome.

Streamlined siting of generation assets is less meaningful without equivalent relief for building the transmission interconnections that are required to get wind off the high seas and solar rays out of the desert, and deliver usable energy to load centers.

The siting problem is a drag on development even as aggressive renewable portfolio standards have sent utilities out on the market for new renewable capacity (in spite of a year where they saw overall demand drop). It remains true even as huge sums of public money have been made available to subsidize renewable power and to spur development of new generation capacity.

Both of these announcements should – ostensibly – make siting, permitting and constructing a project easier. Both are still subject to public comment periods and possible amendment, but however the details emerge, it seems clear that what we will be left with is a more favorable climate for developers.

Both plans face at least one big additional question: even if they allow for streamlined siting of the generation asset, do they offer equivalent relief for building the transmission interconnections that will be required to get the wind off the high seas and the sun’s rays out of the desert, and deliver usable energy to load centers? Just ask Cape Wind, who was able to site their entire proposed farm in federal waters, whether relief from zoning and local/state court appeals for transmission infrastructure is needed.

The second trend is perhaps a little more wonkish and nuanced, but what does this spate of executive action mean for the future of energy infrastructure siting? Based on the blood bath that emerged in the House trying to get Waxman-Markey through, the measured bill that emerged, and the dim hopes of getting even that kind of bill through the Senate, it seems clear that if we are going to see swift, aggressive action on game-changing energy policy matters, it is likely to come from the executive corner of the government. While we can’t say how that trend might be greeted by the legislative bodies off in the other corner, we do have some indication of how the third member of the troika – the courts – will respond.

Swift, aggressive action on game-changing energy policy matters is likely to come from the executive corner of the government.

This spring, the Fourth Circuit rejected FERC’s attempts to grab a greater share of power under Federal Power Act amendments that were a part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Piedmont decision interpreted FERC’s backstop authority as a sort of riding crop that allowed the executive agency to help spur movement in state siting decisions and prevent undue or bad faith delay. The court expressly rejected FERC’s claim that the EPAct 2005 amendments allowed it to overturn the decisions of state siting agencies.

We may soon have a similar indication of the expansiveness of executive agency authority in Massachusetts. After receiving a consolidated “super-permit” from the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board, Cape Wind faces a new SJC appeal that is sure to allege that local zoning approvals should not have been preempted. Cape Wind already prevailed in a 2006 SJC decision that focused more on the question of administrative authority and practice than on the substantive issues around siting.

It will be interesting to see if the Massachusetts court follows the 4th Circuit in some sense by limiting executive authority over energy infrastructure. Either way, the fact remains that project developers will remain subject to a full panoply of potential legal remedies that opponents can use to delay construction. These policies themselves – in whatever form they ultimately take – will inevitably be tested and interpreted by the courts.

In spite of the new policies, a fundamental conflict in renewable energy generation siting remains: the resources are most often not collocated with load. In other words, the locals who are experiencing the hardships presented by the development are probably not the ones who need the increased capacity. Even if a developer can site a project in one of the Commonwealth’s new zones (say on the beaches south of Boston headed toward Cape Cod), they still face the fundamental question from locals: why should I allow 10 turbines on my beach so that you can generate more power for skyscrapers downtown? And that is to say nothing of the permits required to construct transmission lines, transformation facilities and other ancillary infrastructure needs.

It is a positive sign for developers when the leaders of our nation and our states decide to put some of their political capital where their rhetoric has been. But, none of these policies are a panacea. Developers need to focus on the whole project picture, but they must keep a wary eye at ground level. All the international investment, Washington clout and technological innovation in the world is for naught in a climate where a neighbor and ten friends can still get together and tie a project into a Gordian knot of appeals and reviews.

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