Thursday, 13 May 2021
The Business Network for Offshore Wind has published its Offshore Wind Policy Brief: Advancements in Coordinated Transmission Approaches. The briefing provides updates to the Network’s 2020 Transmission White Paper and offers immediate and long-term recommendations for strategic actions that policymakers should take to ensure the U.S. deploys 30 GW of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030. Pixabay
The Network released this briefing just one day after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s issued the Record of Decision for Vineyard Wind, the first major offshore wind project in U.S. waters and a historic day for clean energy in America. Overall, the Biden administration is making significant progress on both offshore wind and broader grid expansion and modernization. The industry is seen as a keystone industry to transform the country’s energy grid but will require an immense transformation – both in the short and long-term – in order to ensure
Vesper Energy
This is the first solar plus battery storage contract entered into by DCE. The agreement will help DCE meet a primary goal of providing carbon-free energy to its customers in the City of Palm Springs while helping California fight climate change and meet the mandate that 100% of the state’s electricity come from carbon-free resources by 2045. DCE also recently signed three contracts for wind energy produced in Palm Springs.
The Deer Creek Solar + Storage project will generate nearly 190,000 MWh annually in its first year of operation, which is the equivalent of powering 15,500 homes with 100% carbon-free electricity. The battery storage component will allow for the solar power to be stored and discharged at the time the power is most needed by the grid, such as during the evening peak, providing much needed reliability and solar integration to the grid as well as significant financial value to DCE.
Thursday, 13 May 2021 New research from Oxford Brookes University has found that the vertical turbine design is far more efficient than traditional turbines in large scale wind farms, and when set in pairs the vertical turbines increase each other’s performance by up to 15%. Courtesy of Oxford Brookes University
A research team from the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (ECM) at Oxford Brookes led by Professor Iakovos Tzanakis conducted an in-depth study using more than 11,500 hours of computer simulation to show that wind farms can perform more efficiently by substituting the traditional propeller type Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs), for compact Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs).
Wednesday, 12 May 2021 Italian transmission system operator Terna. S.p.A (Terna) has ordered two static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) systems for grid stabilisation from Siemens Energy which will help the country meet new power grid challenges posed by the energy transition.
The two new STATCOM systems, part of Siemens Energy’s SVC PLUS series, will be built in Villanova (Abruzzo region) and Latina (Lazio region) and will contribute to interconnections between Italy and Montenegro and mainland Italy and Sardinia. They will be delivered as an innovative space-saving containerized solution, which also reduces project execution time and effort by avoiding building approval procedures. Earlier, Terna ordered two synchronous condenser plants that are now under construction in Fano and recently in Rosara (both Marche region).
Wednesday, 12 May 2021
Exus Management Partners (Exus) has been selected to lead on the repowering of Illinois’ Big Sky Wind Farm by Vitol following Vitol’s acquisition of the project from a BlackRock-managed fund earlier this year. Exus will play a central role in Vitol’s plan to invest more than $250 million to upgrade the project. Manoeuvring a gearbox into a wind turbine. Courtesy of NREL.
The repowering expected to increase Big Sky’s annual energy output by 60 percent by year-end 2022. The scheme will entail the installation of highly efficient Vestas wind turbines using the existing foundations and towers. The company will provide asset management services for the project and handle the permitting for its repowering, enabling Vitol to optimise returns and continue enhancing its participation in the green energy transition.