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Transmission Woes Loom as Utilities Prepare for Renewable Energy Mandates

A huge problem awaits electric utilities scrambling to tap more clean power: a dearth of transmission lines to move energy from remote wind farms and solar panels to customers in cities and suburbs. “You can build all the solar arrays or wind turbines in the world but if you don’t have the transmission lines it does you no good,” said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, which represents shareholder- owned utilities. The House passed a national renewable energy standard this month that promises to be a sticky issue for congressional negotiators trying to reconcile House and Senate energy bills this fall. Similar to the renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that more than 20 states have already passed, the House standard would require utilities to draw 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. But Riedinger and others say that meeting the House’s goal would require the construction of significantly more transmission lines and towers. There has been a serious under-investment in U.S. electricity transmission in the last two decades, he said, decreasing reliability and strength of the grid. Said Rob Gramlich, policy director for the American Wind Energy Association: “There is wide recognition in the wind industry that [transmission] […]

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Office Depot Achieves 10% CO2 Reduction

Retailer Office Depot (NYSE:ODP) announced it has reduced CO2 emissions company-wide by 10.1%. Between 2005 and 2006, the company reduced electricity consumption by about 65 million kilowatt hours and natural gas by 50,000 mmBTU, even as its business grew by 1.7 million square feet. “Office Depot’s environmental strategy is structured around a vision to increasingly buy green, be green and sell green,” says Yalmaz Siddiqui, Environmental Strategy Advisor for Office Depot. Here’s how they did it: – retrofitted the Company’s North American retail store chain with T5 energy-efficient lights; – Installed high-efficiency heating, ventilation and air conditioning units; – Added light-sensors in stores to automatically turn off lighting when bathrooms and break rooms are not occupied; and – Rolled out an Energy Management System upgrade to most stores, allowing for: Tracking energy use and trends from a central location; Setting temperatures for all stores; Identifying energy use anomalies (e.g. lights left on overnight, malfunctioning AC units, doors left open); and Central notification when anomalies occur, which allows management to fix any issues remotely or notify store managers immediately.

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NJ Governor Plans Offshore Wind

URL: http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1188102949142040.xml&coll=1 Website: http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1188102949142040.xml&coll=1     

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Run of River buys Western Biomass

Run of River Power Inc. (TSXV:ROR), a B.C. hydro power developer, has reached an agreement to buy privately owned Western Biomass Power Corp. in a $2.2 million share swap deal that could help finance development of new green sources of electricity in British Columbia. Run of River will issue nearly 3.8 million shares, worth 57 cents each in today’s stock trading on the TSX Venture Exchange. Western Biomass was formed to produce power and dispose of the large biomass inventory of dead trees created by the mountain pine beetle epidemic which has devastated vast areas of pine forest in the interior of British Columbia. The transaction is a related party deal since 24.2 per cent of Western Biomass is owned by Michael Sweatman, the CFO of Run of River, and Richard Hopp, a director of the company. Western Biomass plans to build wood-fired plants using pine beetle-killed trees as well as logging and mill wastes. The first of these projects is expected to be a joint venture plant in the traditional territories of the first nations which make up the Tsilhqot’in National Government west of Williams Lake, B.C. BC Hydro plans to expand its purchase of biomass generated power. “We […]

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Scheuten Solar Signs Agreement with Wattner

Wattner AG of Cologne, Germany, and Scheuten Solar of Venlo, Netherlands, have signed a master agreement for the financing and construction of solar power plants worth 90 Mio EUR. Both companies enter an extensive cooperation with this agreement. Scheuten Solar as solar panel manufacturer and general contractor is responsible for the turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) whereas Wattner renders the project financing. “With Scheuten Solar, we ensure a high quality for our projects and secure an important strategic partner with whom we also worked very well together in the past. Scheuten, for example, delivered the solar panels for our 1,7 MegaWatts (MW) ground installation near the city of Meerane.” explains Wattner Managing Director Ulrich Uhlenhut. “A novelty of the project is its location along the Autobahn A4 on a 1.2 km sound protection wall.” The agreement between Wattner and Scheuten Solar spans six years. “We can completely focus on our technological core competencies with Wattner as investor.” says Marinus Boogert, Marketing & Sales Director of Scheuten Solar. “This master agreement with a total volume of 30MW secures us steady flow of sales over a couple of years.” Arising from the cooperation is a projects pipeline in Spain and Italy […]

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