Author: mattwvd

A-Power Energy Generation Systems has received Chinese regulatory approval to proceed with a 600 megawatt, $1.5 billion wind farm in Texas and established a company with its partners to develop the project, according to the company.

A-Power, through its subsidiary Shenyang Power Group, also contributed $36.6 million to the the company, which is a joint venture with U.S. Renewable Energy Group Wind Partners I and Cielo Wind Power. The company has not received financing commitments for the project.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has criticized the project because it the developers are seeking a manufacturing tax credit but the Chinese Shenyang Power Group is manufacturing the turbines.

However, A-Power later annouunced that it would build a wind turbine plant in the United States and the recent press release notes that a minimum of 70 percent of each turbine will be wholly manufactured in the United States.

The regulatory approval came from the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission.

Oil giant ConocoPhillips today announced that it won’t renew its membership in the US Climate Action Partnership, an industry group that advocates for climate legislation.

The company is following BP and heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar out the door, claiming that it will be more effective in reducing emissions by helping consumers increase use of natural gas.The new also comes on heels of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s announcement that it plans to sue the EPA to block administrative regulation of greenhouse gas.

It seems like businesses are starting to turn against the Obama Administration in its attempts to pass a climate change bill. Membership in these organizations was, for oil companies,  likely a way to shape  the proposed legislation to curb emissions.

If there’s no bill in the offing, companies won’t need that hedge and won’t lose anything by not having a seat at the negotiating table.

ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Jim Mulva gave other reasons:

House climate legislation and Senate proposals to date have disadvantaged the transportation sector and its consumers, left domestic refineries unfairly penalized versus international competition, and ignored the critical role that natural gas can play in reducing GHG emissions.

The Climate Action Partnership still counts General Electric, NRG Energy, PG&E, Shell and Rio Tinto among its members. The group seeks a cap and trade mechanism with allocation of emission allowances to capped businesses.

It c

The FT’s Energy Source is skeptical of all these companies dropping out of the group, yet claiming they still want action on climate change.

Sheila McNulty writes

If big name companies like these stop pressuring Congress and the Administration to act, the likely result will be that nothing gets done. Could that be what they are really hoping for?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is taking the Obama administration to court to block the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act.

The Chamber, which has established itself as a foe of the White House’s attempts to curb emissions, wants bipartisan legislation to address climate change and will challenge the administration in federal court.

In December, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are a public health danger and set in motion plans to regulate them.

The “endangerment finding” was widely considered the stick to drive Republicans and wayward Democrats to grab for the carrot of congressional action.

The Chamber’s General Counsel, Steven J. Law, said the Obama administration failed to follow procedure in reaching its finding. Law said,

Because of the huge potential impact on jobs and local economies, this is an issue that requires careful analysis of all available data and options.  Unfortunately, the agency failed to do that and instead overreached.  The result is a flawed administrative finding that will lead to other poorly conceived regulations further downstream.

More details about the challenge will be released in the coming weeks, Law said.

Tom Donohue, the rough and tumble lobbyist who heads the Chamber, has been spoiling for a fight with the Obama Administration since top advisers started going around him and speaking directly with business leaders.

The  Chamber claims that it supports greenhouse gas reductions but has never found a measure that it can actually back.

Now that the administration’s major initiatives on climate, health care and everything else have stalled, Donohue appears to be ready to get his revenge.

Photo by ian Wagreich / © 2010 U.S. Chamber of Commerce

A new report claims that the 468 megawatt Cape Wind project would save $4.6 billion in energy costs for New Englanders over 25 years and satisfy 1 percent of the region’s demand in 2013.

The report has done nothing, however, to cool the dispute over the offshore wind installation between developer Cape Wind Associates and the conservation group Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

Report authors Charles River Associates, who were hired by Cape Wind, found that the cost of power would be reduced $185 million annually between 2013-2037, and reduce the need for natural gas, oil and coal-fueled power plants.

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has posted a response to the study disputing the findings.

Audra Parker, president of the alliance, said:

To repeatedly mislead already overburdened electric ratepayers with the myth of cheap offshore wind is worse than disingenuous; it’s a deliberate attempt to hide the true cost to consumers of Cape Wind.

The study also also does not address the cultural and ecological concerns about the project, notably claims by local Indians who say the project’s 130 wind turbines would obstruct the views of Nantucket Sound necessary for their spiritual rituals.

Charles River Associates calcuclated the cost savings by projecting wholesale power prices over the 25 year period and determined that the project would cause the prices to trop $1.22 per megawatt hour (MWh) on average.

The consultants had to make some assumptions to get to this number, of course, one of which was a federal greenhouse gas projgram with prices of $30 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2013, rising to $60 per ton by 2030.

The report goes on to describe New England’s hourly power pricing scheme and concludes

Cape Wind will displace higher-cost generation and the associated greenhouse gas emissions in almost every hour of every year, resulting in a reduction in the market price.

Still, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound disagrees on this point too, claiming that Cape Wind is negotiating a power purchase agreement with electric company National Grid.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been encouraging the two sides to reconcile their differences by March 1 or he will step in to obring the “permit process to conclusion.”

The desert tortoise has won!  Or something like that.

BrightSource Energy has proposed an alternative design for the Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating System in the Mojave Desert that would reduce the project’s footprint and megawattage but have less impact on about 25 threatened tortoises.

We wrote about the issue last month.

The BrightSource mitigation proposal was filed yesterday with the California Energy Commission and Bureau of Land Management, according to the company.

The project, which creates energy by using 400,000 mirrors to reflect sunlight onto seven 459-foot metal towers, had been sited on 6 square miles in the California Mojave Desert, just south of Las Vegas.

The proposed changes would:

–       reduce the project’s overall size from 440 to 392 megawatts.

–       reduce the footprint of the overall project by 12 percent

–       reduce desert tortoise relocations by 15 percent.

–       avoid areas with rare plant density and seek to mimimize impact on the land.

The area is home to several species of flora and fauna, including the tortoise, and The Sierra Club wanted BrightSource to find another site or pay to relocate the tortoises.

But in a release yesterday, BrightSource Vice President of Environmental Health and Safety Steve DeYoung said the company wanted to minimize its impact:

With this proposed alternative design, we are further avoiding the habitat of rare plants and other species, and  setting another great precedent for projects that follow.

Environmental groups were not as impressed with the new plan as the company probably hoped.

Joshua Basofin, the California representative for Defenders of Wildlife told Green, Inc.’s, Todd Woody

This reconfiguration is pretty minimal from what we’ve seen, and it hasn’t really addressed the core issues on the impact on desert tortoise and rare plants.

The issue has become a major front in the “green on green” battle between green energy companies and environmental and wildlife advocates.

BrightSource, which has backing from Google, VantagePoint Venture Partners and BP, among others, needs to begin the project by the end of the year or it won’t qualify for its Energy Department loan guarantee.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has called the ABC/American University Investigative Reporting Workshop report that found green stimulus dollars are flowing overseas “a fictional account.”

The AWEA’s Into the Wind blog  today posted a scathing repudiation of the story,  which found that 79 percent of the $2.1 billion in green energy stimulus funds has gone to companies based overseas.

The AWEA counters that “100 percent of stimulus dollars going to the wind industry have gone to wind projects constructed and operated in the United States.”

The post continues,

What AU and ABC are really riled up about is the fact the turbines being erected across the United States contain 53% American-made content, instead of 100%. The U.S. wind industry is trying to increase those numbers as fast as it can, encouraging foreign-based manufacturers to locate here, and in just 4 short years we’ve added dozens of new manufacturing facilities

The AWEA also posted a point by point list of “inaccuracies and distortions” for which they would like an on-air correction.

We discussed the investigative piece yesterday with lead author Russ Choma.

SunPower Corp. has announced an agreement to acquire SunRay Renewable Energy, a Malta-based solar power plant developer, and its project pipeline of photvoltaic projects of 1,200 megawatts, for about $277 million.

SunPower, a San Jose-based,  is buying SunRay from its shareholders, including management and private equity firm Denham Capital, for $235 in cash and $42 million in a letter of credit and promissory notes.

SunPower does not plan to raise equity capital to finance the deal and has retain J.P. Morgan Securities as exclusive financial adviser.

Howard Wenger, president of SunPower’s utilities and power plants business group, said

SunRay has a proven track record of developing bankable solar power plants in a complex environment.

SunRay’s pipeline includes projects at different stages of development in Italy, France, Israel, Spain, the United Kingdom and Greece. Denham Capital made an initial commitment of $200 million to the company, according to its Web site.

SunPower has been increasing its presence in Europe in recent years, with more than 200

Megawatts of solar power plants operating there.

Vestas missed its 2009 revenue target in 2009, reporting revenues of EUR6.6 billion today, and lowered its 2010 earnings outlook to EUR7 billion. Still the company expects to receive orders of 8,000-9,000 megawatts in 2010, almost triple the order of 3,072 megawatts it received in 2009.

The company had previously forecast revenues of EUR 7.2 billion for 2009. The company also trimmed its previous forecast of EUR 7-8 billion for 2010 to the lower end of the range, saying that firm and unconditioned orders will likely come late in the year.

Europe will account for half of the orders, while the Americas will account for 30 percent and Asia/Pacific 20 percent.

Orders in 2009 were slightly more than half of 2008 orders of 6,019 megawatts.

The company has an ambitious Triple15 target of achieving an EBIT margin of 15 percent, revenue of EUR15 billion and, which requires annual growth of 15 percent.

The company continues to promote a fixed priced for CO2 but its release reads.

COP15 did not turn out to be the global and supranational climate breakthrough that Vestas had hoped for. On the other hand, the large number of heads of states and governments from around the world attending the conference clearly showed that the climate and the environment, or clean air, water and energy, are now at the very top of the international agenda, underpinned by the many national targets and initiatives.

The New York Times has waded back into the IPCC debate today, with a piece about Rajendra K. Pachauri that can be effectively summed up as “we’re not saying he did anything wrong, we’re just saying.”

One thing the article gets right: there have been an series of attacks on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that started after the release of the Climatic Research Unit emails and then moved on to the incorrect claim about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting.

Now Pachauri is being targeted for doing some consulting work on the side, for which he personally receives no remuneration. Pachauri’s critics themselves are a predictable group, notable only for their consistent desire to discredit anthropogenic global warming.

We have:

–       Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who is just to the right of Oklahoma’s James Inhofe on climate science.

–       Lord Monckton, who branded a group of US Youth delegates to the Copenhagen climate summit the “Hitler Youth.”

–        the Sunday Telegraph, that employer of fine climate journalists such as James Delingpole, who decided that the mere existence of the CRU emails was Ipso Facto proof that climate change is a crock.

Reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn’t want to discredit her own source but isn’t this sort of like asking Jennifer Aniston for her assessment of Angelina Jolie’s career?

Pachauri, if anything, comes across as humble (this man made a $49,000 salary last year? That’s it!) and desperate enough to prove his innocence that he provided his tax returns to The Times and addressed every single claim against him.

The only reasonable critic in this is Dr. Roger A. Pielke, Jr., who often makes good points about scientific integrity and is correct to say that the IPCC should have a conflict policy.

Duly noted.

But would such a policy preclude Pachauri from doing consulting that benefits his nonprofit Energy and Resources Institute and the charity Lighting a Billion Lives? Almost certainly not.

As Hal Harvey of Climate Works notes, government panels in the U.S. tolerate conflicts of interest as long as they’re disclosed.

So what’s the problem here?

Petra Solar announced today that it raised $40 million to expand its utility pole mounted-smart grid and solar systems business from new and existing investors.

New investors Craton Equity Partners and Espirito Santo Ventures pitched in, as did existing investors Element Partners, Blue Run Ventures, OnPoint Technologies and Kuwait’s National Technology Enterprises Company (NTEC).

Petra Solar, based in South Plainfield, N.J., will use the new round of financing to hire another 30 executive and professional employees. By 2010, they will have 165 staffers.

Climate Change Capital has closed its property fund after raising £69 million, according to the firm.

The Climate Change Property Fund (CCPF), which invests in commercial property and aims to retrofit existing buildings to improve energy efficiency, is 40 percent invested with assets in Birmingham and Edinburgh. It was launched in August 2008.

The investors were from the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia

Joint Founder Partner of the fund Tim Mockett said,

We have already seen real asset management wins and are continually reducing the carbon footprint in our portfolio, leading to significant cost reductions for our tenants – a working example of how global environmental issues can be addressed with local strategies.

China Huaneng Group Corp., plans to spin off its wind power unit in a $1 billion initial public offering later this year, according to a report in Bloomberg.

China Huaneng Group, based in Beijing, has hired Chinag International Capital Corp., Goldman Sachs, Macquarie Group and Morgan Stanley to put the IPO together, sources said.

A state-owned enterprise, China Huaneng Group is the country’s largest power producer. It has developed and operates more than 85 thermal and hydropower plants.

The company plans to bring the first 500 megawatts of its wind farm based in Jiuquan, Gansu Province early this year.

The deal would be the second major IPO in the last several months after the China Longyuan Power Group attracted $2.2 billion in investments, including $100 from American billionaire Wilbur L. Ross, in November.

China is hot on wind, more than doubling its capacity in 2009, according to the Global Wing Energy Council.

A Goldman Sachs research report released last week also speculated that the Chinese government would increase its 2020 target for wind power capacity to 150 gigawatts, from 100 gigawatts.

Benedikt von Butler, formerly of CantorCO2e, is joining Citi’s emissions trading desk in London on Monday, according to a Reuters report.

Von Butler had been the director of sales for carbon markets at CantorCO2e, brokering the transactions of several million tons of certified emission reduction (CER) and other reduction credits.

He joined CantorCO2e in 2005, after serving as a director at Evolution Markets and interning at Goldman Sachs.

His LinkedIn profile indicates he is “on gardening leave.”

Von Butler, a multi-linguist, was feted in this August 2002 Reuters profile as a pioneer of emissions trading.

Copenhagen marked “the end of the beginning” of the effort to curb carbon emissions; it was the first time countries agreed to act, regardless of whether there is a global treaty, BP CEO Tony Hayward said yesterday.

In a speech that repeatedly evoked Churchill, Hayward argued for a middle road in energy policy: he urged carbon pricing to encourage investment in renewables but largely dismissed “headline-grabbing” but costly projects such as offshore wind.

The speech, at the London School of Business, was effectively Hayward’s “State of the Union” address, where he laid out his agenda and analysis of the global energy climate.

It comes several days after the company announced its earnings and talked about scaling down its renewables business to focus on commercially viable areas such as biofuels and solar.

In his talk, Hayward consigned gains in renewable energy technology and production to the future and argued for realism in energy policy

He listed a series of opposing concepts – energy security vs. energy independence, hydrocarbons vs. renewables – and each time came down on the side of a moderate approach.

Energy security is “legitimate and desirable” while independence is “likely unattainable” and Hydrocarbons will “remain dominant” even in low carbon scenarios.

Hayward said that the U.K. need to confront climate change through “the lowest-cost energy pathways” and added

Today we say ‘there are no silver bullets.’ A century ago Churchill said the same thing in the language of his time when he declared that ‘Safety and certainty in oil lie in variety and variety alone.’

He stressed efficiency as the most effective way to achieve carbon reduction and again pushed natural gas – of which BP has plenty – as an effective way to curb greenhouse gas reductions using available technology.

He also issued what sounded like a warning to politicians for the upcoming election, saying,

Equally, for those inclined to propose more radical action to wean Britain off imported hydrocarbons, there is an important distinction between energy security and energy independence. The former is a legitimate and desirable goal; the latter is costly and probably unattainable.

Photo: © BP p.l.c.

Following the recent rage for big offfshore wind projects, Hongkong Electric Holdings today proposed a 100 megawatt offshore wind farm at a cost of about $385 million.

The project could meet 1-2 percent of the company’s electric output with 28 to 35 wind turbines installed over a 600-hectare site in the Southwest Lamma Channel.

Hong Kong Electric’s announcement comes on the heels of a report by the Global wind Energy Council that shows China is adding wind capacity much faster than any other country.

China added 13,000 megawatts in 2009, more than doubling its capacity.

Honkong Electrric is considering eight sites for the project, which is slated for completion in 2015. The environmental impact statement will be available on Monday here.

The site is 4 kilometers from Lamma Island, just south of Hong Kong island, where the company has a power station that can provide support for the construction stage.

The company does not anticipate any adverse impacts on fisheries, bird habitats or any wildlife, according to its release.

Valleywag reports that buried in the Initial Public Offering documentation Tesla filed with the SEC about its stockholders was “a possible Google front” – a company called Amphitheatre LLC.

Amphitheatre LLC also invested in several other Google related ventures, including 23AndMe, the genetic testing firm co-founded by Sergei Brin’s wife.

It wouldn’t be terribly surprising if the Googlers poured some cash into Tesla, since both Brin and Larry Page drive the sexy electric Tesla cars. Page is also rumored to be friendly with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Besides that, they’ve invested in many of the talked-about green energy and cleantech companies and they’re rumored to be investing in many more ventures.

Interest in Tesla’s IPO just went up…

Photo: Courtesy Tesla/ James Lipman / jameslipman.com

A national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) of 25 percent by 2025 would add 274,000 new green energy jobs, particularly in the Southeast, according to a new study funded by an industry group.

The study, conducted by Navigant Consulting for the RES Alliance for Jobs, found that an RES would prevent the long-term stagnation of the wind industry and the collapse of the U.S. biomass industry.The study itself is here.

The RES Alliance is an industry group that includes General Electric, Vestas, the American Wind Energy Association and Iberdola.

The study also calls for near-term RES targets of 12 percent by 2014 and 20 percent by 2020 which would attract the necessary long-term investment.

Texas, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Florida would stand to gain the most jobs according to the analysis. Most of the jobs would come in manufacturing.

What’s up with BP’s Tony Hayward?

He has significantly scaled back the company’s Alternative Energy unit in recent years, causing big name executives to seek greener pastures, and shelved the “Beyond Petroleum” slogan of his predecessor.

Yet, today he’s chirping about the good intentions of U.S. and Chinese negotiators at Copenhagen and BP’s plans for continued investment in renewables.

The FT has a preview of Hayward’s speech to the London Business School today (which is not up on the BP Web site yet), which seems like a PR effort to blunt criticism following the fourth quarter earnings call on Tuesday.

Hayward, apparently, will say that the company still plans to invest $1 billion a year in alternative energy, focussing its efforts on biofuels and solar power equipment — commercially viable areas.

He also is bullish on the price of carbon, expecting a doublig of today’s price of €13.

According to the FT, Hayward will say

this is our way of ensuring that our investments are competitive not only in today’s world but in a future where carbon has a more robust price.

Is the company trying to hold onto its enviro-credibility while becoming an increasingly marginal player in renewables?

 

“Obama now not as green as Lindsey Graham.” 

That little gem from Talking Points Memo’s Brian Beutler summed up our topsy-turvy world today. He was responding to a speech in which the South Carolina Republican senator said President Obama was unwise to propose an energy bill without putting a price on carbon.  

Graham accomplished a seemingly impossible feat (for a Republican) in his speech at the “Business Advocacy Day for Jobs, Climate & New Energy Leadership” in Washington D.C.: he outflanked Obama from the LEFT.Here’s an excerpt (the whole speech is posted at Grist.org.)  

I don’t think you’ll ever have energy independence the way I want it until you start dealing with carbon pollution and pricing carbon. The two are connected in my view—very much connected. The money to be made in solving the carbon pollution problem can only happen when you price carbon in my view. 

He added that he won’t get behind “some half-assed energy bill.” 

Graham also showed his mastery of the green jobs message, conjuring up the determination of China to win the cleantech race and saying, 

It is not about polar bears to me, it’s about jobs. I like the polar bears as much as anyone else but I want to create jobs. 

With his speech today, Graham hasn’t just taken up the mantle from John McCain as the best hope for cooperation from the Republicans. He has actually become the most effective advocate – Democrat or Republican – in the senate for curbing carbon emissions. 

His work with sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., hasn’t brought forth a tangible bill yet, but he’s doing his best to keep the issue alive while Obama seems to be resigning.

When have you officially arrived as a green energy company? When you’ve installed your first gigawatt? That’s so old economy. It’s when you fork over ridiculous money to sponsor a sporting event.

Yingli Green Energy, a photovoltaic solar panel manufacturer, officially crossed the threshold this morning when it trumpeted its sponsorship of the World Cup in South Africa this June. The release from FIFA, the international soccer body, is here.Yingli is the first green energy company, and the first Chinese concern, to sponsor the FIFA World Cup.

No word about the amount of cash that changed hands in the deal, though “tier one” sponsorships, or Partners, start above the $100 million mark. Sponsors include McDonalds, Budweiser and the Indian-owned Satyam IT services company, among others

The parties also made a claim to greater significance in the deal.

Yingli’s statement claims,

Yingli Green Energy is answering FIFA’s call to make the world’s most popular sport not only a celebration of the game but also a sign of respect for the planet that we inhabit.

FIFA is hoping that Yingli is the first of many Chinese companies to plow money and resources into the event and hopes to grow the game in the world’s most populous country.

FIFA’s marketing director Thierry Weil told Reuters, “China is a given, China is one of the powerhouses of the world,”

Yingli gets global marketing rights, including ticket and board advertising, and the right to showcase its solar products in the fan zones. The company can also showcase its logo next to the World Cup Official Emblem.

Yingli had earlier committed to providing solar panels for the official 2010 campaign “20 Centres for 2010,” a building program that will provide community centres and pitches in areas throughout South Africa.