Will U.S. power consumers ever rely on Chinese green power for their electricity? This notion, that just a few years ago seemed far fetched, will likely become a reality. On Tuesday, Chinese wind turbine maker A-Power Energy Generation Systems received Chinese regulatory approval to proceed with a 600 megawatts, $1.5 billion wind farm to be constructed in Texas. The greenlight by the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission is a crucial hurdle to pass and will allow the project developers to, among other things, start approaching banks for financing.
A-Power announced the project last fall and quickly ran into trouble when Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), learning that the wind farm’s turbines would be made in China, urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to reject a request by A-Power for $450 million in stimulus funds.
In his letter to Secretary Chu, Senator Schumer wrote:
The idea that stimulus funds would be used to create jobs overseas is quite troubling and, therefore, I urge you to reject any request for stimulus money unless the high-value components, including the wind turbines, are manufactured in the United States.
Shortly after Schumer’s very public letter, A-Power and its partners announced that they would build a turbine plant in Texas and vowed that a minimum of 70 percent of each turbine would be U.S.-made.
In Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hotly contested endangerment finding is facing a pile of law suits (16 at last count), according to GreenBiz.com.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose anti cap-and-trade stand has cost it the membership of various prominent companies, has joined one of these lawsuits. The list of plaintiffs reads like a who’s who of the carbon-dependent industry. Besides the Chamber, they also include the Georgia Motor Trucking Association, Peabody Energy Co., the National Mining Association, Competitive Enterprise Institute, as well as 15 U.S. House of Representatives.
General Electric, a big fan of President Obama’s renewable energy policy, and an unabashed backer of cap-and-trade, is making a noted return in the project finance arena. Its energy financing unit, GE Energy Financial Services, inked a $65 million production tax credit equity deal this week with CPV Renewable Energy Company to support the construction of its $319 million, 152 megawatts Keenan II wind farm in Oklahoma. That the second equity deal announced by GE in as many months – it underscores the company’s renewed confidence in the U.S. renewable energy market.
Samsung, which a couple of weeks ago inked a huge investment of its own in Ontario, said it would partner with ENCO Utility Services to build five solar photovoltaic power plants with a total of 130 megawatts of electricity that will be bought by Pacific Gas and Electric as part of a long-term power purchase contract.
Other noteworthy Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) announced this week include NextLight Renewable Power securing a 25-year contract with NV Energy for the 50 megawatt output of the NextLight’s Silver State Solar Power PV project in Nevada. Horizon Wind Energy signed a 20-year PPA with the Tennessee Valley Authority, which will buy 115 megawatts generated by Horizon’s Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm in Iowa.
On the earnings front thin-film PV maker First Solar announced strong fourth quarter results of $141.6 million, slightly down from the $153.3 million registered in the previous quarter, but higher than the $132.8 million earned over the same time period, a year ago. The company worked hard to assure the markets that an expected fall in demand in Germany brought on by a cut in the country’s solar feed-in tariffs would be offset by its project pipeline in Italy, France and North America. But to no avail, on Friday – just one day after the earnings call, First Solar shares fell by 8 percent. This was in part due to concerns by investors on the toughening market conditions in Germany, where First Solar generates a majority of its revenues.
VC Alert
Tragedy struck Tesla Motors, the California electric car company, this week when three of its senior executives were killed in a plane crash in Palo Alto, Calif. on Wednesday. VentureBeat reported that the three employees who died in the plane crash were Doug Bourn, Brian Finn and Andrew Ingram. The plane, which was owned by Mr. Bourn and heading to a Los Angeles area airport, crashed in foggy weather, early Wednesday, shortly after take off.
Tesla, which raised over $220 million in venture capital funding, recently filed for an Initial Public Offering.
Chrysalix Energy, a renewable energy-focused venture capital fund based in Vancouver, B.C., plans to close on a $150 million for its third fund by the end of next month.
Canadian biofuel company Enerkem brought on a new CFO, former Lazard M&A banker Patrice Ouimet. He replaces Pierre Richard, who left the company last month. Enerkem, scored $50 million in stimulus funding from the Department of Energy to support construction of a waste-to-biofuels power facility in Pontotoc, Miss. The company has also raised venture capital from Rho Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and BDR Capital.
eSolar, the developer of concentrated solar thermal power backed by Bill Gross’s Idealab, forged a strategic partnership with Germany’s Ferrostaal to develop power plants in Europe and the Middle East.
Rambling
This week Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the man who spearheaded the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (and the negotiations that preceded the event) said he would step down from the UN body this summer to work for global consultancy KPMG.
The former Dutch civil servant will stay on to help organize the next climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico in November.
His departure comes as confidence that the bureaucratic UN system can foster a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol is at an all time low. In a statement announcing his departure, de Boer alluded to the Copenhagen disappointment and reaffirmed his confidence in the UN system, saying it provided a sense of direction toward a low-emissions world.
Support for a CO2 and green house gas emissions cut is overwhelming, but actually implementing the political process to get to a low-emission reality, as de Boer experienced first-hand in Copenhagen, remains stalled both at the global level and in the U.S.