- Superhighway for wind power proposed for Mid-Atlantic Coast. Via the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Investors on Tuesday proposed to build an underwater electricity superhighway that would carry wind power generated off the Mid-Atlantic Coast to land.
The $5 billion transmission line, announced by backers including Google, would run about 15 to 20 miles offshore.
It would act like a spine, linking the offshore projects to land at four locations – North Jersey, South Jersey near Atlantic City, the coast of Delaware and the coast of Virginia south of Norfolk.
“This is a huge, bold project,” said Robert Mitchell, CEO of Trans-Elect, an independent transmission company operating nationwide, which is leading the project. “It’s going to result in thousands of megawatts of offshore wind being delivered to the East Coast” along with thousands of jobs.
“Instead of multiple connections, this will serve as a superhighway with on-ramps for wind farms,” said Rick Needham, director of green business operations at Google, a major investor.
It also would increase the reliability of wind, they said. By joining the projects together, the variability of wind at any one location is smoothed out, lulls in one place compensated for by gusts elsewhere.
- Google backs ‘superhighway’ for wind power. Via the Washington Post:
Internet search engine giant Google announced Tuesday that it is investing in a mammoth project to build an underwater “superhighway for clean energy” that would be able to funnel power from offshore wind farms to 1.9 million homes without overtaxing the already congested mid-Atlantic power grid.
The project, dubbed the Atlantic Wind Connection, calls for spending as much as $5 billion to create a 350-mile network of underwater cables stretching from northern New Jersey to Virginia. It would eliminate the need for offshore wind developers to build transmission lines of their own, easing what can be a barrier for such projects.
Google is partnering with Good Energies, an environmentally focused international investment company based in New York, London and Switzerland, and Tokyo-based Marubeni to finance the project. The project is led by Trans-Elect, an electric transmission company in Chevy Chase.
- Report Identifies Transmission Corridors to Deliver 8,600 MW of New Wind in the Upper Midwest. Via Renewable + Law:
[The Upper Midwest Transmission Development Initiative's] renewable transmission corridors are based on the Midwest ISO’s estimate that about 8,600 MW of new renewable capacity will be needed in the region by 2025 to serve the renewable energy standards and goals of these five states. The group identified twenty “wind zones” where it would be most efficient to develop wind power based on available wind resources, existing wind generation, existing interconnection queue requests, and local geography. The six transmission corridors were chosen as the best general areas for transmission lines to move wind energy from the wind zones to load centers in a cost-effective manner.
- In 2009, 40% of new U.S. electricity generation came from wind. Via EERE News:
The U.S. Department of Energy has distributed the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) recently published IEA Wind Energy Annual Report 2009, which is now available for free download. The report presents the latest information on domestic and international wind generation capacity, national incentive programs, progress toward national objectives, benefits to national economies, research and development results, and issues affecting turbines, market growth, and costs of projects. The Executive Summary synthesizes the information presented from IEA’s member countries, cooperative research tasks, the European Commission, and the European Wind Energy Association. Read the Executive Summary
.Wind power is a fast-growing source of clean energy. In the United States 40% of new electricity generation came from wind last year, while in Europe, wind power installations accounted for 39% of new capacity. IEA Wind member countries added more than 20 gigawatts (GW) in 2009, for a total of more than 111 GW of wind generating capacity. Five countries added more than a gigawatt of net capacity: the United States (10 GW), Spain (2.5 GW), Germany (1.9 GW), Italy (1.1 GW), and the United Kingdom (1 GW). Additionally, wind power electrical generation capacity grew more than 32% worldwide in 2009. These and other statistics on wind energy development are highlighted in the report.
The IEA Wind member countries—located in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Pacific Region—contain 70% of worldwide wind generating capacity. These countries share information and research efforts to increase wind energy’s contribution to their electrical generation mix, and they reach out to other countries to join the IEA Wind cooperation.
- Study: Offshore wind could generate all U.S. electricity (with graphics below). Via USA Today:
U.S. offshore winds, abundant off the coasts of 26 states, have the potential to generate four times as much power as the nation’s present electric capacity, a new Department of Energy report says.
Developing this resource would help the United States reduce air pollution, achieve 20% of its electricity (or about 54 gigawatts) from wind by 2030 and create more than 43,000 permanent, well-paid technical jobs, according to the 240-page study by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Images via a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
