Siemens buys into A2SEA

Energy conglomerate Siemens has acquired 49% stake in A2SEA, a unit of Danish energy company Dong Energy, for €115 million.

Dong Energy will continue to be the main shareholder in A2SEA, a supplier of installation services for the construction of offshore wind farms. The company has a work force of about 200.

The subscription amount to be paid by Siemens for the new shares in A2SEA is to be paid in two parts in 2010 and 2011. The closing of the agreement is expected in the fourth quarter this year.

Wolfgang Dehen, CEO of the Siemens Energy Sector, said that together with Siemens, A2SEA can build optimised vessels for the installation of offshore wind turbines. The optimisation of ships and processes will result in higher efficiency, shorter installation times and enhanced customer value, Dehen said.

The companies highlighted that the potential for offshore wind in Europe is estimated at around 100 GW - equal to two thirds of the power plant capacity currently installed in Germany. At present, only approximately 2% of that potential is being utilised.

Dehen added that outside of Europe, the company sees opportunities in China and the U.S. for offshore wind power. For China, Siemens referred to the shallow water potential near the consumption centres on the coast. In the U.S., Siemens has already entered the market, having been selected for the Cape Wind project.

New certification guidelines for turbines and components

Certification body GL Renewables Certification, part of the GL Group, has published its latest edition of guidelines for onshore wind turbines and components that describe the procedures to obtain type and project certificates.

Type certification includes design assessment, implementation of the design requirements in production and erection, evaluation of quality management and prototype testing and project certification is carried out on the basis of type certification.

Project certification covers site design conditions, site-specific design assessment, and surveillance during production, transport and erection as well as witnessing of commissioning and periodic monitoring.

The body says that the most important part of the type certification is the assessment of the design documentation besides the implementation of the design requirements in production and erection.

“The manufacturers of wind turbines and components will be evaluated all the way in terms of their quality management, and prototype testing will be made to guarantee the product quality and to verify the performance of the safety and control systems of the turbines,” said the body in a statement.

NYC offshore wind project makes progress

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has shared that the NYPA Trustees have authorised the application for a lease from the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOE), formerly known as the Minerals Management Service, for lands beneath the Atlantic Ocean for development of the Long Island-New York City Offshore Wind project.

The Long Island–New York City Offshore Wind Collaborative (LI-NYC Wind Collaborative), which consists of NYPA, Consolidated Edison Company of New York (Con Edison), the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), the City of New York and other New York City and New York State governmental entities, is evaluating the development of between 350 MW and 700 MW of offshore wind by 2016. 

The application for a lease is a necessary measure to pursue the feasibility of the offshore wind project.

The wind project site includes an area of approximately 64,500 acres of underwater land and is approximately13 to 15 miles offshore of Long Island in the Atlantic Ocean’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), an area under the jurisdiction of BOE, a federal bureau within the United States Department of Interior.

The proposed lease would run for 25 years. An application fee of US$16,000, based on a price of US$0.25 per acre, is required upon submission of the lease application. Annual rent during project development and construction will be negotiated with BOE and is expected to be approximately US$3 per acre resulting in an approximate annual rent of US$200,000.   Once a project is operational, BOE will receive a portion of the revenue generated from energy sales as the payment for the lease.

BOE requires the lease be held in the name of one entity.  NYPA, LIPA and Con Ed have determined that NYPA, as a governmental entity, may be best suited to apply.

The LI-NYC Wind Collaborative is also undertaking technical and environmental studies to determine the feasibility of developing the project.

Dong secures second EIB loan

Danish energy group Dong Energy has signed a £250 million loan facility with the European Investment Bank (EIB) - the second of its kind in the last month - to finance the construction of the London Array wind farm.

Dong said that the loan could be drawn throughout the construction period. The financing is in line with the group’s strategy to diversify funding on various loan types and to fund projects out of the parent company.

The previous £250 million loan was guaranteed by the Danish Export Credit Agency (Eksport Kredit Fonden, EKF) on the basis of deliveries from Siemens Wind Power and Per Aarsleff.

The first phase of the London Array wind farm has a capacity of 630 MW and is expected to begin operation in 2012.

Dong has a 50% stake in the project, Germany’s E.ON has 3 % and Abu Dhabi's Masdar 20%.

The company’s goal is to reach at least 3,000 MW of wind turbine capacity by 2020.

Tata Power builds out wind portfolio

Tata Power, India’s largest private generating utility and the country’s leading wind power generator with an installed capacity of 200 MW, is in the process of acquiring 20.95 MW operating wind assets in Maharashtra from Niskalp Energy. 

The company will also shortly place an order for 150 MW wind capacity to be set up in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and to be commissioned during the course of this year and next year.

Tata Power has also commissioned the 2 MW-class wind turbines designed by Kenersys Gmbh of Germany and manufactured and installed by Kenersys India, a venture of Kalyani Group.

The Kenersys turbines were commissioned in September 2009 and have been operating successfully. After the first phase of 10 MW based on the 2 MW Kenersys turbine at the wind farm at Amberi and Visapur in Satara district in Maharashtra, a second phase of 88 MW is on the anvil.

While the wind power generated in Gujarat and Karnataka is sold under a long term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the State DISCOM’s i.e. BESCOM in Karnataka and GUVNL in Gujarat, the wind power generated in Maharashtra is sold to Tata Power’s Distribution business unit in Mumbai.

REpower reaches 1GW of wind power in France

Wind turbine company REpower Systems has reached 1 GW of installed wind power capacity in France, where it has installed around 500 wind turbines since 2002.

The company says that its wind turbines correspond to 20% of France’s existing wind energy capacity.

Besides the sale, installation and maintenance of onshore turbines, REpower also intends to be active in the area of offshore wind energy in future especially at a time when France has announced the start of the round of tenders for autumn 2010.

GC China Turbine to supply Tianhe wind farm

Chinese turbine and twin blade manufacturer GC China Turbine Corp has signed a wind power equipment contract for the China Guodian Inner Mongolia Xilinguolemeng Tianhe Wind Farm for its 49.3MW Phase 1 stage with the Tianhe Wind Power Development.

This contract agreement is valued at US$33.8 million.

The contracted 50 wind turbine units are to be completely delivered before September of this year with all 50 units completed and connected to the local grid and commenced power generation by the end of this year

GC China holds a license to manufacture a technology that was developed through a 10 year European research project costing over US$75 million. GC China’s launch product is a 1MW utility scale turbine with designs for a 2.5MW and 3.0MW utility scale turbine in development.

ENTSO-E finalises pilot Ten-Year Network Development Plan

The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity’s (ENTSO-E) pilot Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) is now finalised.

The pilot TYNDP acknowledges: “Large grid investments must be undertaken at a quicker pace than during the last years so as to achieve the contemplated EU 2020 targets.”

For its part, ENTSO-E promises to take into account the Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs) that Member States will submit to the European Commission this year. As a result, the report currently only envisages that 25.5% of the power demand in the EU will be supplied by RES in 2020 – considerably less than the 34% of electricity that the European Commission thinks will be provided by RES by 2020.

However, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), it only reflects the current plans of the TSOs and not the targets of the EU and its member states.

“It is vital to take the NREAPs into account in the TYNDP, and EWEA welcomes ENTSO-E’s commitment to do so as soon as possible,” said Justin Wilkes, policy director of EWEA. “This will result in a more realistic plan and a genuinely European vision for grid infrastructure.”

The pilot TYNDP pinpoints seven main investment clusters for a total cost of €23 billion to €28 billion across Europe. A significant slice of that investment is foreseen for the North Sea (€12 - €14b) and Baltic Sea (€11 - €13b).

“It’s now crucial that the NREAPs are incorporated and that the plan allows the EU to meet its climate and renewable energy targets,” said Wilkes.

The publication of the TYNDP marks the end of a significant effort by ENTSO-E, with support from the European Commission, The European Regulators' Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG), and many key stakeholders, to fulfill one of its major tasks according to European legislation. But it also signals the beginning of even more intense work leading to the second release of the plan in two years.

The first official TYNDP is required by EU energy legislation to come out in 2012.

According to ENTSO-E, in order to meet the next release deadline of June 2012 work has already commenced as of July 2010. The work elaborates on regional investment plans, focusing on three key aspects:

• Updating present bottom-up scenarios and developing shared, long-run, top-down, scenarios, involving ACER, stakeholders, policy and decision-makers;
• Developing common ENTSO-E pan-European market modelling, reflecting as close as possible the forces which drive the commercial flow of electricity and its translation into physical power flows;
• Further developing an ENTSO-E wide common framework for regional network studies, based on pan-European scenarios and an integrated mid- and long-term network model.

Policies could spur new jobs in the US

Wind energy provides one of the most promising sources of new manufacturing jobs in the US, according to a report released by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the national trade association of America’s wind industry, BlueGreen Alliance and the United Steelworkers, the largest industrial union in North America.

Employment in manufacturing for the wind industry has grown rapidly, from 2,500 jobs in 2004 to 18,500 in 2009. In 2009, the U.S. wind industry installed over 10GW of new generating power and accounted for nearly 2% of American electricity. There are 14,000 additional manufacturing jobs in the pipeline for wind, but these and further jobs will only come online with policies dedicated to re-generating the manufacturing sector.

Additional jobs could be created with favourable policies. There has been a call for passing long-term policies that create a stable market for the domestic wind energy supply chain.

Senator Sherrod Brown said: “This ‘manufacturing blueprint’ is a critical step toward ensuring that we don’t replace our dependence on foreign oil with a dependence on Chinese-made wind turbines.”

References have made to policies like a 25% Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), and an extended Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit.

Along with the RES, specific policies aimed at building the wind manufacturing sector include extending and strengthening the Recovery Act’s convertible tax credit program (1603), fully funding the Green Jobs Act, building a transmission grid infrastructure to meet the demand for clean energy and utilising loan guarantee programs for commercial manufacturing of clean energy.

The BlueGreen Alliance is a national partnership of labour unions and environmental organisations working to expand the number and quality of jobs in the clean energy economy.