Wind

Tom Konrad CFA I published my rebuttal to John Petersen's recent article "Gone With The Wind – Debunking Geographic Diversity" on November 1st last year.  It was titled Alternative Energy: The Paradigm is the Problem.  That article had two parts.  The first part focused on electric vehicles, and argued that the problem with the electric car was not electric propulsion, but the car paradigm.  I concluded that electric propulsion makes considerably more sense for electric bikes, trains, and buses.  John clearly understood that section, because he published an article just last week "Lux Research Confirms that...

This article has been cross-posted on The Oil Drum. Last month, I brought you some nice maps showing when and where good wind resources are found in the US.  Now I've found something better: a visual comparison of electrical load with wind farm production, published by the Western Area Power Administration in 2006.  The study compared electricity production from five wind farms in Northern Colorado, Southwestern Nebraska, and Central Wyoming in 2004, 2005, and the start of 2006, compared with electricity consumption in the same area over the same time period. Comparison of Wind Production to...

Distributed Energy Systems Corp (DESC) has been awarded a contract to install and commission three additional NorthWind 100® wind turbines for Anchorage-based Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC). The contract brings the total number of turbines AVEC has purchased from Northern Power to 10, representing what is believed to be the largest investment in wind turbines made in Alaska in a single year. The Northern Power Products division will also supply and install wind turbine Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems for the villages of Toksook Bay and Kasigluk. These systems will leverage Northern Power's SmartView® software, which...

FPL Group Inc (FPL) wind farms continue to help meet the growing need for pollution-free electricity in Pennsylvania while providing new economic opportunities for local communities and the state. FPL Energy's five Pennsylvania wind farms, with a capacity of 129 megawatts, are capable of generating electricity for nearly 37,000 homes. In 2004, the wind farms offset generation emissions totaling about 192,000 tons of carbon dioxide; nearly 1,400 tons of sulfur dioxide and more than 300 tons of nitrogen oxide.

Better technology is allowing some wind farm operators to get more out of their existing wind farms by completely repowering the farm - replacing old technology with new - or by conducting performance upgrades on their turbines. Jennifer Runyon There is an old piece of wisdom that states: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But some wind farm operators, especially in Germany and North America, are finding that advice difficult to heed. That's because technology improvements in turbines coupled with software analytics are revealing that signing up for a performance upgrade could allow them...

Tom Konrad CFA The Windstar Wind Farm. Photo credit: Western Wind Energy On July 10, shares of Western Wind Energy (TSX:WND, OTC:WNDEF)plummeted because of a $12.2 million shortfall in the 1603 cash grant from the US Treasury for the company’s Windstar wind farm compared to the application.  In order to reassure skittish investors, the company held a conference call on Monday, July 16. On the tenth, I thought that investors should write off the 1603 cash grant shortfall, despite the fact that the company intended to send a delegation...

FPL Group Inc (FPL) announced it will build, own and operate a new wind farm in Texas, the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, to be located in Taylor County, Texas. The 220.5-megawatt Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center will be comprised of 147 1.5-megawatt wind turbines spread over a 22,500 acre site approximately 15 miles southwest of Abilene. Initial site work on the project is underway with full-scale construction expected to begin in the next few weeks and be completed no later than December 2005.

By Tim Conneally The pool of public solar yieldcos keeps growing. Just before the Christmas holiday, Sol-Wind Renewable Power LP filed for a $100 million initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This will be the eighth Yieldco to debut since 2013, and the stock will trade on the NYSE under the symbol SLWD. But there's something different about this one. Sol-Wind is a yieldco that utilizes a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) structure, so it will be taxed differently from the other Yieldcos. Generally speaking, a Yieldco is similar to MLPs by nature, but the taxation...

Northern Power Systems, a subsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp (DESC) has been awarded an approximately $800,000 contract for eight hybrid TelePower(TM) remote power systems. The 48VDC systems will supply power for a critical U.S. military application in Alaska. Each of the eight Northern TelePower systems will generate power through a combination of renewable sources consisting of a photovoltaic (PV) array with a single wind turbine and a pair of Thermo Electric generators to be used when the renewable sources are not adequate. The systems are designed to reliably operate year round in the harsh Alaskan environment, particularly...

German utility E.On AG launched a 29.1 billion euro ($34.72 billion) all-cash bid for ENDESA (ELE) on Tuesday, topping a previous offer from Gas Natural by more than 30 percent and threatening to disrupt carefully laid plans for Spanish power-market consolidation. Endesa said in a statement that the E.On offer was "clearly" the better of the two, but added that it still did not adequately reflect Endesa's true value. Shares of Endesa were up 15% in yesterday's trading.

Hydrogenics Corp (HYGS) announced that they have been awarded a contract for over EUR 500,000 to deliver a hydrogen station to Gas Natural SDG, a Spanish-based energy services multinational with approximately ten million customers in Spain, Latin America, Italy and France (www.gasnatural.com). Gas Natural will use a Hydrogenics' HySTAT(TM)-A Hydrogen Station at the Sotavento Galicia wind farm to produce up to 60 Nm3/hr of hydrogen. The hydrogen will be used to fuel an internal combustion engine generator, which in turn will supply electricity to the electric grid.

Tom Konrad CFA Offshore Wind Farm photo via Bigstock Wind tower stocks having opposite day, or rather opposite week. When US-based wind power companies won a preliminary injunction to impose countervailing duties  in a trade dispute against China, their stocks fell.  They have continued to fall for the four trading days since the announcement.   In fact, as the chart and table below show, wind tower stocks Trinity Industries (NYSE:TRN) and Broadwind (NASD:BWEN, red) have fallen more than the wind industry stocks as a whole (NYSE:FAN, green) and Siemens AG (NYSE:SI), the German energy...

Charles Morand The relationship - or lack thereof - between oil prices and the performance of alt energy stocks has been a long-time interest of mine. I discussed it last in late March when I looked at correlations between the daily returns of alt energy and fossil energy ETFs. At the time, I found that only a weak relationship existed between the two and that if someone wanted to make a thematic investment play on Peak Oil, alt energy ETFs were not an ideal way to do so.  Seeing as the popular press and countless "experts"...

Tom Konrad CFA Yesterday, I tendered my shares of Western Wind Energy (TSX-V:WND, OTC:WNDEF) to Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners' (TSX:BEP.UN, OTC: BRPFF) extended offer for Western Wind at C$2.60 a share.  This is despite the fact that I think (and was even quoted in a Western Wind press release) saying Western Wind is worth more than C$2.60. Two things have changed.  After conversations with other investors, Western Wind CEO Jeff Ciachurski, and a representative of Brookfield, as well as reading some evidence of extremely bad governance in Western Wind's Q3 2012 filing, I no...