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August 27, 2008
Pacific Gas & Electric signed a contract
to get 90 Mws of power from Klondike Wind Power in Sherman
County in Oregon. It previously said it would buy 85 Mws
from the Klondike wind field. The new contract
will provide enough power for 38,000 homes a year. Deliveries of the electricity are expected to
begin in December. Klondike
is owned by Iberdrola Renewables, one of Spain’s largest utilities.
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August 26, 2008
New
York’s Mayor Bloomberg unveiled an ambitious alternative energy
plan last week in which New York City
would be powered by wind turbines. He
hopes the city will become a clean-energy powerhouse through off-shore and
on-building wind farms. Bloomberg spoke
at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas where he outlined his proposal for more
renewable energy in New York City
and called for a more serious discussion about national energy policy.
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August 21, 2008
Vestas Wind Systems, the world's largest
maker of wind-power generating equipment, will build two factories in southern Weld County, Colorado
that will provide manufacturing jobs for 1,350 people. The company will build a turbine blade factory and a facility for manufacturing nacelles, the school bus-sized pods to which the
blades are attached that contain gearboxes, generators and transformers.
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August 19, 2008
JC Penney has reached an agreement with
Broadstar Wind Systems on a pilot program to install wind turbines at JC
Penney's 1.6 million-square-foot distribution center in Reno, Nev.
The program will utilize Broadstar's innovative, building-mounted AeroCam wind
turbines, which capture energy and generate power more efficiently than
conventional three-blade turbines.
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August 18, 2008
A
subsidiary of American Electric Power (AEP) Company has made its third
investment in wind energy since last year.
AEP’s Appalachian Power of West
Virginia will buy wind energy over 20 years from Beech Ridge Energy LLC, a
subsidiary of Invenergy Wind LLC.
Appalachian Power Co in the past has focused on generating electricity
with coal.
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August 15, 2008
Investors
are looking for a way to become involved in the growing field of alternative
energy. ETF issuers have responded with a smattering of funds, designed to
offer investors exposure to everything from the growth of energy alternatives
to the reduction of fuel emissions. Together, these funds represent ways to
invest in the future of energy.
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August 13, 2008
Beardy's and Okemasis, a First Nation
community, and SkyPower, a Lehman Brothers Company, have entered into an
agreement to develop the Willow Cree Wind Project. The partners' proposed plan includes
developing a 100 MW wind park in Big Quill, Saskatchewan.
The project currently encompasses approximately 12,000 acres of land and will generate clean energy sufficient to power more than 30,000 homes
annually.
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August 12, 2008
GE
Energy Financial Services is partnering with ACCIONA to investing $141 million
in the Tatanka Wind Farm on the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The
transaction represents the GE unit's first wind equity investment in the
Dakotas and the first wind farm in the United States built entirely by
ACCIONA.
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August 8, 2008
Babcock & Brown announced that a federal court in Texas dismissed a final lawsuit, clearing the path to
bring wind energy to South Texas. Babcock & Brown's wind farm on the Texas Gulf
Coast will be completed
and operational later this year. It is
expected to provide power to 80,000 Texas
homes. Once operational, the wind farm
will consist of 118 wind energy turbines with a total output capacity of more
than 283 megawatts (MW).
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August
5, 2008
Recent pressures on energy resources have boosted world patenting
activity in the energy sector, in particular in relation to solar energy, fuel
cells and wind energy. Applicants from Japan
accounted for the largest number of applications in the fields of solar energy
and fuel cells, while Germany
joined Japan
as one of the top two countries of origin for wind energy technologies.
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August 4, 2008
Delaware
state officials on Thursday approved an agreement between Delmarva Power and a
wind farm developer that could lead to the nation's first offshore wind farm
off the Delaware
coast. The agreement between Delmarva
Power and Bluewater Wind LLC was unanimously approved by the Public Service
Commission and representatives of three other state agencies.
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August 4, 2008
Pennsylvania's
largest wind power project has the greenlight from the state, although one
county's approval is being challenged in court. The state Department of Environment Protection last week said it approved plans by AES Corp. to protect creeks, streams and
residential properties on Armenia Mountain in northcentral Pennsylvania.
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August 1, 2008
On Wednesday, for the fourth time
this summer, Republicans stopped the Senate from taking up tax credits to an
array of renewable energy producers. Major business groups have implored
Congress to act on the tax credits, many which expired at the end of last year
or will run out at the end of this year. The Bush White House, citing new taxes
and other objections to the bill, threatened a presidential veto.
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July 30, 2008
Hydro Green Energy and the Wind Energy Systems
Technology Group (W.E.S.T.) have agreed to explore the potential to develop the
world's first hybrid offshore wind-hydrokinetic ocean current power projects.
If fully developed as envisioned, Hydro Green Energy and W.E.S.T. will utilize
the Gulf of Mexico's wind and water currents
to generate nearly 5,000 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity.
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July 25, 2008
RenewPac this week mounted a nationwide
call-in action to support the renewal of the solar and wind tax incentives.
These incentives, known as Investment Tax Credits for solar and Production Tax
Credits for wind energy will expire at the end of 2008. According to RenewPac
the lack of action in Congress is paralyzing investment in the renewable energy
sector.
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July 24, 2008
Marquiss Wind Power, an innovator in
developing and deploying wind turbine technology, announced Wednesday that it
has completed the acquisition of the assets of Cirrus Technologies of Carson
City, Nev. Cirrus Technologies holds 7
patents on technologies related to wind energy. Turbines based on Cirrus Technologies'
patents have been installed and tested at the Desert Research Institute and for
a major utility.
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July 23, 2008
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the US has passed Germany to become the world’s biggest generator of wind power. The U.S. is still running behind Germany in total installed capacity, because its average wind speed is significantly stronger. The total capacity of wind installations in Germany was 22,000 MWs in 2007, compared with 17,000 MWs in the US.
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July 23, 2008
Landowners in northeastern South Dakota are being asked to invest in a large wind farm that is designed to spread across three counties. Dakota Wind Energy, a South Dakota community-owned wind development company, has announced an intrastate public offering of its securities. This offering is only open to South Dakota resident landowners who grant wind-related rights to Dakota Wind Energy.
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July 21, 2008
New Jersey lawmakers
have proposed numerous measures to make the state more energy efficient. They include a proposal to change the
definition of farming to include solar and wind farms, which would affect up to
a million acres in New Jersey
and would offer tax breaks to farmers who harvested energy from the sun or
wind. And a measure to add production of
solar and wind energy to the list of land uses deemed "inherently
beneficial," thereby making it easier to get approval for solar and wind
farms.
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July 18, 2008
The Texas Public Utility Commission approved a
new $4.93 billion plan on Thursday allowing the building of power lines that
can transport wind and solar power electricity from West
Texas throughout the state.
An estimated 18,456 MWs of renewable electricity will be transmitted by
power lines to major Texas
cities. The PUC approved the massive
plan after considering four competing plans.
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July 17, 2008
Noble Environmental Power and a another
wind-energy firm are under investigation by the New York Attorney General's
Office for "improper dealings with public officials and anti-competitive
practices." District Attorneys from
eight counties, public officials and citizens have complained to the AG’s
office about Noble and Massachusetts-based First Wind, formerly known as UPC
Wind.
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July 17, 2008
Texas legislators
and environmentalists urged this week that the state PUC allow the building of
transmission lines that will transport the maximum amount of wind power from
rural West Texas that's feasible to help power
homes and businesses in the rest of the state.
Supporters say the most ambitious plan, dubbed the "renewable
energy superhighway," would spur the construction of more wind energy
projects, create jobs, reduce energy costs and reduce pollution.
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July 16, 2008
GreenHunter Energy Inc's wind subsidiary bought a project to develop
up to 600 MWs of wind power in southeastern Wyoming from Wind Revolutions LLC. GreenHunter Energy, of Grapevine, Texas, invests in
renewable and alternative energy projects. This development project, referred
to as "Wheatland Wind," will be located on about 20,000 acres of
federal Bureau of Land Management land near the town of Wheatland,
Wyoming.
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July 15, 2008
Puget Sound Energy (PSE) announced yesterday
that its Hopkins Ridge and Wild Horse wind facilities have both reached a
milestone, with each facility now having produced more than 1 million megawatt
hours (MWh) of electricity since entering service in 2005 and 2006
respectively. PSE is the largest utility
generator of renewable energy in the Northwest, with its two wind facilities
producing enough electricity, on average, to meet the equivalent of the needs
of approximately 100,000 homes.
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July 14, 2008
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
released images last week showing offshore wind energy potential around the
world. Gathered from a decade of
satellite data, the wind maps can be used by offshore wind energy developers to
measure which sites have the best resource.
The chief technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Paul
Dimotakis, said that offshore wind turbines can produce electricity cheaper
than solar energy can.
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July 11, 2008
General Electric will
invest a total of $100 million in 3 wind farms under construction in New York. The
investment by GE Energy Financial Services brings the total commitment in
renewable energy to more than $4 billion.
GE, the biggest supplier of wind turbines in the U.S., is expanding investments to
take advantage of federal tax credits and state renewable energy portfolio
minimum requirements for green energy.
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July 11, 2008
Texas billionaire oil tycoon
T. Boone Pickens is calling for a massive switch to natural gas as a
transportation fuel and a boost in wind power in a plan aimed at reducing U.S.
foreign oil dependence by a more than a third.
He calls it the Pickens Plan, which includes exploiting domestic natural
gas supplies in new areas like East Texas and Appalachia, could replace 38
percent of U.S.
oil imports, he said.
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July 8, 2008
The Maine Land Use Regulation Commission is
expected to approve this week the final development plan for a proposed
44-turbine wind power project near the Canadian border in western Maine. The LURC in January granted Transcanada's
application to rezone 2,367 acres for its project atop Kibby Mountain.
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July 7, 2008
The first large-scale wind turbine
on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation has been installed near KILI radio at
Porcupine, South Dakota.
The turbine is expected to provide about 92,000 kilowatt hours of power each
year, which KILI officials hope will cut the station's annual electric bill by
about $12,000. Any power that is not used by the station will be sold back to
the local electric utility.
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July 2, 2008
Pacific Gas
& Electric plans to buy wind power from a project under construction in Oregon. Arlington Wind
Power Project LLC, a subsidiary of Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy LLC, has
agreed to deliver 240 GW hours of wind energy annually to PG&E, enough for
27,000 homes. The project is expected to start producing power in the first
quarter. The Rattlesnake Road Wind Power Project is located in Gilliam County, Ore. PG&E will need
authorization from the state PUC before it can start buying power from the project.
The utility filed the contract with the PUC on Tuesday.
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July 2, 2008
Invesco PowerShares Capital Management LLC, a leading provider
of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), announced that its global wind energy
portfolio begins trading today on the Nasdaq Stock Market. "Wind power is among the largest emerging
clean energy sources on the planet, and our goal with PWND is to give investors
a more innovative and precise way to access this important sector through the
inherent structural benefits of an ETF," said Bruce Bond, president and
CEO of Invesco PowerShares.
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June 27, 2008
Duke Energy has acquired Catamount Energy Corp. from
Diamond Castle Holdings. The deal is valued
at $240 million. Catamount Energy, based
in Vermont,
was formed in 1992. Since 2001, the
company has developed wind projects in the United
States and the United Kingdom. Catamount has 300 MWs
of renewable energy in operation, including the Sweetwater project in Texas, one of the
largest wind-powered facilities in the world.
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June 25, 2008
Chicago has amended its building code to allow rooftop wind turbines. San Francisco’s mayor
recently formed a “Residential Wind Power Work Group,” which will research the
feasibility of urban wind power installations and make recommendations on
changes to local building and zoning codes. The Denver City Council has enacted
an ordinance that would significantly ease restrictions on commercial wind
generators but would also give homeowners a break on property line setbacks
from the current 20 feet to 10 feet.
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June 23, 2008
Western Wind Energy Corp (TSX-V: WND) closed an oversubscribed private
placement of $15 million. Western Wind is the only pure wind power
generator listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and appetite for alternative
power sources put the company in an enviable position to capitalize on current
sentiment towards the sector. Western
Wind owns more than 4,000 acres of fee simple land and leases more than 22,000
acres in California and Arizona. Most of the Western Wind land has
been zoned and permitted for wind development.
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June 18, 2008
Iberdrola encountered a roadblock in New York to its planned $4.6 billion buyout
of Energy East Corp. A state
administrative law judge has recommended that New York regulators stop the effort to buy Energy East, saying it doesn't satisfy the public interest requirement of
state utilities law. The New York PSC staff opposes the deal. Iberdrola needs approval from the NY PSC.
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June 17, 2008
First Trust Advisors L.P. is launching the First Trust ISE Global Wind
Energy Index Fund. The industry’s first wind energy exchange-traded fund (ETF)
is anticipated to begin trading on June 18th on the NYSE Arca under the ticker
symbol (NYSE Arca:FAN). First Trust will
be the investment advisor for the ETF. “First
Trust is pleased to introduce an ETF product that focuses entirely on wind
energy,” said Robert Carey, CIO of First Trust.
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June 12,
2008
Two large
wind-energy developers are eyeing Clark
County's Larch
Mountain for dozens of 400-foot wind
turbines, showing the industry's interest in the populated urban areas of Vancouver and | |
North America News 
