Element Power has advanced the project via one of the most rigorous state-level permitting processes in the country. The project is located in Crawford and Richland Counties on around 15,000 acres of agricultural land. The approved permit permits Black Fork Wind to choose from many turbine technologies giving the project the flexibility to use the most competitive technology & supply the finest value to the end consumer.

The project now moves one step closer to construction with a commercial operations date as early as 2013 and is being actively marketed to buyers all through Ohio and PJM. Extension of the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) and securing a energy sales contract are key for the project to move to construction.

Throughout project construction, roughly 200 men and women will be employed, providing a substantial financial enhance to the region, which has knowledgeable a major loss of tasks from plant closures in recent years. During operation, the project is expected to provide eight-12 full-time tasks over its 20- year duration & provide $1.8 million per year to the local communities in tax income. Moreover, the project will have the capacity to generate enough clean electricity for just about 55,000 households.

Consistent with its focus on delivering electricity generated from both solar & wind at a competitive charge, Element Power is improving utility-scale photovoltaic solar work in Ohio as well.

The appropriate local and state permitting processes still have to be taken care of but when they have been completed it can be expected that the first phase of the project can be running within seven months of breaking ground. The project is the Melbourne-based company’s third in Florida. The other two are in Gadsen and Hardee counties.

The company that will design, build and operate the solar farm for National Solar Power is Hensel Phelps Construction Co. It is expected that the full construction process will cover five years and during that time the project will create up to 100 jobs with up to 25 permanent jobs created when construction is complete.

“Florida is ripe with opportunities to establish successful solar-energy projects,” said National Solar Power CEO James Scrivener. “We are grateful to the Liberty County community for the warm welcome it has extended to us and stand ready to work with our new partners to build our new network of farms and begin harvesting the power of the sun.”

National Solar Power is negotiating with multiple large financial institutions and private equity investors to provide project financing. The company has entered into an agreement with Progress Energy Florida and is having discussions with other potential customers to purchase power generated by its Florida solar farm projects.

Along with the agreement with Progress Energy Florida, National Solar Power has executed power supply agreements for more than 3,000MW of solar farms in the south east of the US.

As well as the agreement with NREDCAP there are also separate agreements being set up for wind power projects in Andhra Pradesh with Suzlon Energy and Mytrah Energy.

It is expected that the developments that will be undertaken as part of this agreement will be completed by the end of 2014 and will involve an investment of Rs 3,000 crore.

The agreement that has been signed for this proposal means that Welspun Energy has positioned itself to become a prominent wind energy producer and developer in the India. An estimation has been put forward that when the proejcts are completed at the end of 2014 the combined total of carbon offsets produced by the company will come to around 682,000 tonnes.

“The recent agreement with NREDCAP has strengthened our commitment to become India’s leading power developer in the renewable energy sector. Welspun Energy is setting up large grid-connected solar and wind power projects across India. Short gestation periods for installing wind turbines, and the increasing reliability and performance of wind turbines has made wind power a favored choice for capacity addition in India.” said Vineet Mittal, Managing Director & Co-founder, Welspun Energy Limited.

The wind facility consists of 72 Siemens 2.3 megawatt turbines and they will supply TVA customers with renewable energy under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

Construction of the project began in December 2011 and financing for the construction was completed in January 2012 with the senior credit facilities provided by Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ and Union Bank of California who acted as Coordinating Lead Arrangers and they were joined by Helaba, Siemens Financial Services and Lloyds as the Mandated Lead Arrangers for the $262.8 million.

The project will be sited on around 13,883 acres of private land under Easement Agreement with CPV and will interconnect to the Southwest Power Pool electric grid via the existing on-site 345-kilovolt Sunflower Electric Power Corporation transmission line that traverses the area.

Construction of the project is being carried out by Wanzek Construction, a MasTec Company, and will be operated by North American Energy Services.

“CPV is pleased to once again bring clean renewable wind powered generation to southwest Kansas,” said Sean Finnerty, CPV REC Sr. Vice President. “The Cimarron project adds to CPV’s growing asset base and will provide low cost, reliable wind generation to the Tennessee Valley Authority for years to come.”

Commercial operation for the project is expected to be achieved by November 2012.

Other Major Kansas Wind Energy Facilities

The difference between these devices and many of the other wave power devices that are in the process of being tested and further developed is that these devices can be installed on existing stable structures. This means that they may be placed on existing breakwaters, piers and floating platforms which means the cost of installation will be greatly reduced and many of the environmental impact studies will have already largely been performed.

A small scale proof of concept system has already been completed in a wave pool at the Hydro-Mechanical National Institute in Kiev and the company is now moving forward to a medium scale version.

The two different devices have been designed for a couple of different scenarios.

The Wave Clapper is a device that might be used where space is limited and it can be deployed in series to maximize the use of the available space. It is proposed that this device be placed with the floaters having very small spaces between one another.

Images: Eco Wave Power  

The larger Power Wing is able to operate in a more varying environment and is versatile enough to work efficiently at different wave heights. Not only that but it can also be adjusted so that the edge of the device is always parallel to the wave and this will ensure the maximum energy from each wave hits the float.

Part of the testing process for these devices involves working out the most effective configuration arrangements in which they might be deployed. This will change depending on the environment and surrounding wave conditions that are common to the area. Options such as straight or curved line configurations, staggered arrangements and placement of small floats behind larger ones are being assessed to take advantage of the different sea conditions.

To find out more about the storm protection mechanisms that have been built into these devices as well as the corrosion protection, shock-waves protection mechanism, lever regulation mechanism and other features you can visit the Eco Wave Power website.

Maintenance costs for the devices have been planned to be reduced to as low as possible by placing the oil tanks and pneumatic equipment on land. This means that not only will it be easier for repairs to be carried out but the risk of pollution will be reduced.

Testing of the medium sized Wave Clapper and Power Wing will begin within the next few months.

The Wave Clapper is designed with three different mechanisms that may be employed to protect the device during storms and rough conditions. These methods may either lift the device out of the water or submerge it until conditions improve.

The company has signed a $204.5 million power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison to supply the output from the farm. It is planned that the project will be brought online in two stages with the first 106MW commencing by December 2011 and the last 14MW to be commercially operational in February 2012. At the time of writing this the last of the second phase of turbines have been erected and it is looking very likely that the project is on track for the expected completion date.

When the first phase of the project became operational it effectively doubled Western Wind’s operational wind energy capacity.

As well as producing electricity for more than 30,000 homes in the area the wind farm is also going to be generating over $12 million in revenue for the area through local tax payments over a period of 20 years.

The developer has been purchasing wind projects over eight separate states and has a portfolio of over 750MW. The wind generation that the company owns in Michigan has now been increased to 212MW with the completion of this project. The project is located southeast of the already operational 46 turbine Michigan Wind 1 project in northern Sanilac and Huron counties. Exelon Wind also operates Harvest I Wind in Elkton, Michigan. In early 2012, Exelon Wind will begin construction on Harvest II Wind, a 59.4 MW project in nearby Pigeon, Michigan.

“We’re excited to bring Michigan Wind 2 online. The clean generation from this project will help Michigan meet its renewable energy goals, it will provide clean energy for over 30,000 homes and brings significant economic benefits to the local community,” said David Drescher, Vice President Wind Energy for Exelon Power.

Exelon Wind is a division of Exelon Power, which owns and operates Exelon’s renewable, hydroelectric and fossil power plants. Consumers Energy, based in Jackson, Michigan, is purchasing the output from Michigan Wind 2 through a 20-year renewable energy purchase agreement.

Solar energy is still a developing energy with technological advances continually being made to make it more cost efficient and more abundant. Currently it is still a form of electricity that is only used by a minority of households, either as self-contained rooftop installations or on the grid direct from a solar power plant.

There are still pockets of opposition to the development of more solar farms with the main criticism being that it is a very expensive way to create electricity. While this is true compared to the traditional use of fossil fuel such as coal, if you take a wider view and compare the cost with what it is saving the world in terms of non-renewable resources you could say that the extra dollars are a small price to pay.

There are definitely advantages to using solar power and some of these advantages are more important to some people than others. Here is a brief list:

• Solar energy is a renewable energy source. This means that no matter how much sunlight or heat we use to create electricity it won’t be exhausted.
• The creation of electricity does not disrupt neighboring residents. This is a completely silent process.
• Creating electricity from solar power does not produce pollutants, unlike coal-based electricity.
• Electricity from solar panels can be generated in locations that are isolated from an electricity grid without the need to run electricity cables all over the place.
• Solar power gives you the potential to become completely independent from a utility company.
• Over the long term you can save money on your power bill, in some cases not only will you no longer have to pay for your electricity, if you generate enough the power company could pay you for the excess electricity added to the grid.
• Once installed solar panels and solar cells don’t require any maintenance.
• Apart from the sun, solar energy requires no fuel.
• Your hot water bill will be greatly reduced after the installation of a thermal hot water system.
• With the development of CSP, it is possible to continue producing electricity from solar energy after the sun has gone down, or on cloudy days.
• Solar power can be used by a wide range of devices as well as for the production of electricity to power your home. Lights, watches, calculators, cars can all be powered by solar energy.

As was pointed out earlier, some people may not feel as though all of these solar power advantages are applicable to them. But every single person is affected by the increase of power that is generated by a means that reduces the amount of pollution that is pumped into the atmosphere. Forget about talks of the Greenhouse Effect and global warming, our immediate health can be improved by the closure of one power plant that burns coal to generate electricity.

In order to justify why there is so much technological and monetary effort going into solar power and the development of new solar energy facilities it might be worthwhile going over a few of the significant benefits that are achieved from using solar energy. Some of these may seem obvious, some may be debatable and some may be surprising to some, but make no mistake, regardless of the detractors, solar energy is a valuable resource to develop and to refine.

So here are 10 benefits of solar energy.

1. Solar energy is not only sustainable, it is renewable and this means that we will never run out of it. It is about as natural a source of power as it is possible to generate. Not only are we able to refuel our vehicles with it we can heat our water and light our homes.

2. We can generate our own source of electricity via solar panels potentially enabling us to live off grid. In other words we need not be dependent on the public utility companies to supply our power and we also won’t be required to pay for out power.

3. The creation of solar energy requires little maintenance. Once the solar panels or troughs have been installed and they are brought up to maximum efficiency there is little else to do to ensure they are in working order.

4. They are a silent producer of energy. There is absolutely no noise made from photovoltaic panels as they convert sunlight into usable electricity.

5. The creation of solar power is unobtrusive, particularly the solar electricity that is generated from photovoltaic panels that sit on top of the roofs of buildings.

6. Many governments around the world and locally offer generous rebates and monetary incentives to install solar panels and solar hot water systems. The governments of various nations understand the importance of the creation of electricity from renewable sources is to the entire world and are receptive to making it as attractive a proposition as possible for individuals.

7. If you produce enough solar electricity or if you don’t use all of the electricity that you produce you can sell it back to the utility company for electricity credits. This is a rare occurrence for the most part, unless you are away on vacation for a week or two, in which case your solar panels will go on producing electricity that you won’t be using.

8. Large solar energy facilities can produce electricity regardless of whether the sun is shining or not making them sustainable and reliable electricity producers. The solar power plants capable of achieving this feat are generally thermal solar power producers capable of storing the heat generated and using it when the sun is not shining.

9. The advancements in technology used to create solar energy are continuing to improve making it even more cost effective. As it becomes cheaper to install new solar energy generators the price of solar electricity will continue to drop bringing it more into line with traditional, fossil-fuel generated electricity.

10. Solar electricity power plants and personal solar panels produce zero emissions and make no adverse mark on the environment.

Work has started on the construction of the first biomass power plant in the state of Texas. The groundbreaking ceremony for the start of the project has just taken place hosted by Aspen Power in Lufkin, Texas.

The Lufkin Biomass Power Plant will have a maximum capacity to produce 50MW of renewable energy sourced electricity. The facility will be fuelled by 525,000 tons of logging and wood debris each year. It is reported that Lufkin and surrounding areas currently produces up to 600,000 tons of wood waste each year, so the facility will be helping to solve an existing waste problem.

The facility will provide enough power for the city of Lufkin and will provide 160 new jobs for the local community.

Early opposition for the Lufkin Biomass power plant came from members of the local community, but thanks to a public relations campaign by Aspen Power, the residents of Lufkin were reassured as to the benefit to the community and to the low environmental footprint such a biomass facility would leave.

It is expected that construction of the Lufkin Biomass Power Plant will be completed by October 2009.