Further to last Friday’s post re: hybrid coal-biomass plants, today private equity firm Energy Investors Funds (EIF) and developer NTE Energy announced a joint venture to develop, build and operate large hybrid renewable and natural-gas fired power plants in the United States. The announcement called hybrid plants a way to generate “sustainable sources of clean electricity at a lower cost.”

The joint venture intends to build gas-fired plants that also use solar, biomass and other renewable technologies. While the companies didn’t reveal any specific projects in development, they did promise announcements of new projects in Florida, South Carolina and Alabama to come in “the near future.”

By targeting the renewable-challenged Southeast, the joint venture might be positioning the company to help such utilities as Florida Power & Light, Progress Energy and Southern Company to meet pending federal renewable energy standards without taking the politically unpopular steps of sending ratepayer dollars out of state to buy renewable power or renewable energy credits.-Michael T. Burr