Here in Renewables-World downunder, most people don’t know the grid has barely scraped through the last two weeks. We almost lost an Aluminium smelter, came close to a statewide blackout  and South Australia is (possibly) still islanded from the rest of the National Grid. The AEMO held a crisis meeting yesterday but this trouble started Friday week ago in what was described as a “white knuckle event” by energy analyst, Paul McArdle at WattClarity. 

General Australia

The hearing was about the condition that the PUC imposed on Crowned Ridge/Next Era in the permit. They were to install low noise trailing edge blades on all turbines. They didn’t, and they got caught. They also got caught erecting towers taller than permitted, generators bigger than permitted along with a host of allegations about noise and shadow flicker violations. ...Crowned Ridge’s excuse was it was too cold, they didn’t order them early enough, as Commissioner Hanson compared it to “the dog ate my homework” excuse.

General South Dakota

The electric cables for the Block Island Wind Farm were supposed to be buried in trenches at least four feet below the seabed, but workers couldn’t get down as far as they wanted, and over the last four years waves have exposed portions of the transmission lines that run to and from a beach on the island. Now, Orsted, plans to rebury one of the two cables starting in the fall. ...But for an indeterminate amount of time during construction, the 30-megawatt wind farm, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build, will have to go offline.

General Rhode Island

 “The allegations made by the Massachusetts Democrats are unfounded and uninformed. In reality, the Department of the Interior carries out the appropriate environmental review of impacts of all energy projects – renewable and non-renewable—based on the following: the law, the facts and often after extensive public input.”

General Massachusetts

POWYS County Council (PCC) has been rapped over the knuckles by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for failing to respond to a request for information within the statutory time limit of 20 days.

General UK

A proposed 24,000-acre wind farm near Lomond, Alta., has some area residents worried about the future of their farmland. It’s a small community, located about 75 kilometres north of Lethbridge near Vulcan.

General Alberta

Production stoppages at wind farms with a collective capacity of more than 900 megawatts have added to problems plaguing renewable energy ventures in the National Electricity Market, due to grid bottlenecks and instability.

General Australia

Now it has issued new operating guidelines, warning that the imports from Victoria via the remaining Murraylink connector will be constrained to zero, and 23 different wind, solar and gas generators could be constrained to zero output if South Australia’s minimum demand falls below 800MW. ...This highlights the fact that rooftop solar is largely uncontrolled by AEMO, and so it is the large scale renewable installations that have to make way. In this situation, it is causing a headache for the grid operator, and it underlines why AEMO has been pushing for new measures and mechanisms that allows it to have some sort of control over the output of rooftop solar, now totalling more than 10GW in Australia on more than 2.2 million rooftops.

General Australia

Vestas’ worldwide profits in 2019 were flat compared to 2018 despite all the growth. The business’ profit margins actually declined 1.6% for the year, reflecting tough price competition in renewable energy and the effect of trade wars on its supply chain, the company said. Steel tariffs are still having a big impact on Vestas’ supply chain internationally, even though the U.S. and China has reached a first-phase trade agreement and international trade tensions have lessened.

General USA Colorado

Wind farm proponent says he's baffled by seemingly contradictory positions on environmental issues, projects

General New Brunswick

Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.

General USA Wyoming

Energy produced by the turbines will be sold under long-term power purchase agreements ...The project’s completion comes despite significant pushback, with opponents saying it could disrupt wildlife habitat, intrude on scenic views, cause too much noise and lower property values.

General New Hampshire

The company then would need to find buyers for the electricity that would be produced. It could have buyers in place in time to start construction of wind turbines in October. The company also will be working with the Kennewick Irrigation District, to get an easement to the Bonneville Power Administration’s Red Mountain substation.

General Washington

In the global wind sector, we see nowadays a trend towards centralisation, in some cases even towards monopolistic structures. This development should be deeply concerning, as it goes hand in hand with less local positive involvement but increasing opposition against wind farms, usually originating from small but very well-organised and even better connected anti-wind groups.

General

Some of the conditions Number Three questions relate to the project’s impact on threatened and endangered birds, noise and the role of the Site Engineering and Environment Plan, or SEEP. Number Three’s petition also accused the Siting Board of providing insufficient explanations for some of the decisions handed down and of not giving the company’s information the same consideration as that provided by other parties in the process, such as the DEC.

General New York

 Siemens Gamesa’s increased order intake did not translate into an increase in revenue or earnings, with previously announced project delays hitting the company’s profits. The manufacturer reported first-quarter revenue of €2 billion, down 12% year on year ...Both of these metrics were blamed on the early arrival of winter weather preventing the manufacturer from carrying out installations at five wind farms in northern Europe.

General Europe

Revenue at the manufacturer fell by 12% to €2.00bn during the first quarter, while earnings before interest and taxes (Ebit) - before PPA and integration and restructuring cost – turned into a loss of €136m, compared to an Ebit of €138m a year earlier.

General Europe

Apex Clean Energy, the company orchestrating the Lincoln Land Wind Project in eastern Morgan County, is looking at areas near Modesto, Scottville and Virden in Macoupin County for another wind farm project.

General Illinois

Harris added that Ranger started developing solar projects in Michigan in 2017. The state’s newly raised 15 percent renewable energy standard, relatively high cost of electricity and a series of coal plant retirements all “drove our interest in Michigan.” “We’re finding even more interest from utilities in purchasing solar energy than we originally expected,” he said.

General Michigan

The average price of gas at one of the major hubs is now such that — making an allowance for the delivery cost to electricity producers — gas-fired electricity can be produced for about $34/MWh. Wind, at the average installed cost of $1,350/kW, can only compete with this at a site with a mean wind speed of 9m/s. Such high wind speeds are rare and tend to be confined to mountainous regions, where costs are above the average.

General USA