By Michael T. Burr

UPDATE: Friday, May 7, 2010:

Cape Wind just signed a 15-year contract under which National Grid will purchase 50 percent of the wind farm’s output — including electricity and renewable energy certificates “and other potential market attributes.” National Grid agreed to pay a tariff that starts at 20.7 cents a kilowatt hour and escalates at 3.5 percent each year, assuming federal tax incentives remain in place.

If the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities approves the contract, National Grid expects it will add $1.59 to customers’ monthly bills. The deal is expected to satisfy the utility’s state-mandated requirement to procure 3 percent of its total electricity supplies from renewable sources.

Whether the DPU will approve the deal remains to be seen. The Rhode Island PUC recently balked at the price tag of a similar deal that would’ve had National Grid buying power from a different offshore wind project for 20 years starting at 24.4 cents per kWh.-MTB

ORIGINAL APRIL 21 POST:

This message from National Grid just hit my inbox:

>>

Please find enclosed a statement from Tom King, president, National Grid, on today’s historic decision by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Salazar on the Cape Wind project and the status of National Grid’s negotiations with Cape Wind on a power purchase agreement:

“We congratulate Cape Wind on the approval of its project.

Secretary Salazar’s decision marks an historic step forward for energy policy in the United States, our region and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. State and federal renewable goals can only be met with an open-minded attitude to energy alternatives. This bold step by the Obama administration sends a signal that the United States is serious about securing its energy future and is willing to take action to make that happen.  We also applaud the vision of the Patrick administration in recognizing the critical importance of this project to the state, the northeast and the nation.

National Grid is a long-time advocate for the development of renewable energy sources as a means to mitigate climate change, increase domestic energy supplies, and benefit customers and communities by providing a cleaner, more secure energy future.  That is why we have been working to negotiate a power purchase agreement with Cape Wind.  Our negotiations are going very well and we are optimistic that we will have more to say about our progress in the near future.”

>>

Posted: April 28th, 2010 under energy policy, green energy, renewable energy credits, renewables.
Comments: none

By Michael T. Burr

If you were following @FortnightlyMag on Twitter last week, you saw a stream of tweets in real time from Accenture’s International Utility & Energy Conference in Tyson’s Corner, Va. Below is an edited selection of those tweets, most of which are paraphrased quotations from the speakers indicated.

Gen. Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State (April 20, 2010)

-Energy is the second most powerful force. The free exchange of ideas is the first. 1:27 PM

-Openness and democracy is the greatest weapon America has. 1:14 PM 

-China won’t become America’s enemy because they’re doing too well by being our partner. 1:25 PM 

-In my judgment and that of Kleiner Perkins, cars in America are moving to electricity. It’s a solution that makes sense. 1:03 PM 

-Fuel cells have a unique military application. #bloomenergy 1:55 PM 

-Fuel cells are a breakthrough. Think of them like cell phones. #bloomenergy 1:54 PM

-We need to be careful not to focus so much on terrorism that we forget what we can accomplish. Keep moving forward. 1:40 PM

Ray Kurzweil, inventor and futurist (April 19, 2010)

-People tend to disregard new technologies in the early years of logarithmic growth. 8:50 AM

-Exponential growth in IT is transforming every industry. Every industry will be an IT industry. 8:07 AM

-Nanotechnology is inherently an information technology, subject to exponential growth. 9:20 AM

-Solar and storage are the energy technologies that depend on nanotechnology, and they follow the law of accelerating returns. 10:40 AM

-The cost per watt of photovoltaic cells is a function of nanotech progress. 9:20 AM

-Solar energy production doubles every two years. In five years solar will reach the cost-per-watt crossover point and will be cost-competitive with the alternatives. 8:15 AM

Electricity storage is a bit behind solar. It’ll be eight to nine years before storage is cost effective. In 10-20 years, it’s a whole different landscape. 11:24 AM

-Decentralized power networks are inherently more stable than centralized networks. 8:35 AM

-We’re destroying jobs at the bottom of the skill ladder and replacing them with eight times as many at the top. 8:48 AM

Jonathan Silver, DOE loan program executive director (April 20, 2010)

-Government loans should finance technologies that private financing doesn’t support. When private financing comes in, DOE should get out. 7:55 AM

-The worst thing for private financing isn’t a bad set of rules; it’s uncertainty about the rules. 7:58 AM

-Clean tech investing is the driver of the VC industry today. 8:01 AM

-[On Fortnightly’s question RE: FutureGen status and plans:] Expect progress. Next question? 8:15 AM

Andy Karsner, former DOE Under-Secretary (April 20, 2010)

-Durable price signals are the most effective remedy for ‘capital constipation.’ 9:28 AM

-DOE has lost its focus on R&D toward scalable techs and is displacing private capital. 8:49 AM

-Congress has two approaches to policymaking — do nothing or overreact. 8:33 AM

-Congress is more likely to legislate energy policy in reaction to a crisis than it is to legislate with thoughtful deliberation. 8:35 AM

-”No policy” is a lot cheaper than “bad policy.” 8:46 AM

-The official US position on oil price policy is we don’t know and it’s out of our control. 9:12 AM

Andy Serri, Ameren (April 20, 2010)

-In Washington, the loudest party, the last to speak, rules the day. Subject matter experts aren’t in the room. 8:54 AM

Hugh McDermott, Better Place (April 19, 2010)

-As long as EV batteries carry a price premium, we will take that out of the equation w/ leasing. 3:27 PM

Mark Case, Baltimore Gas & Electric (April 19, 2010)

-BG&E’s “no losers” rebate program nets the same peak reduction as critical peak pricing and gives 100% of customers immediate benefit. 2:47 PM

-Peak rebate program will save customers $1,500 each over the 15 year meter lifespan. 2:44 PM

Chris Colbert, UniStar (April 19, 2010)

-We haven’t started construction yet and Calvert Cliffs is already big: $600 million just for permitting & licensing. 1:02 PM

-You have to convince yourself you’re not building just one reactor, but three or four. 1:35 PM

-We’re not just building a project; we’re building up the whole nuclear industry again, including the NRC. 1:30 PM

Gautham Chandra, Washington Gas Light (4/19/2010)

-We try to position ourselves to be the lowest cost platform to bring the best technology solutions to market. 10:49 AM

-The regulatory tide is moving gradually toward DG and distributed control of the grid. 11:27 AM

A.R. Mullinax, Duke Energy CIO (4/19/2010)

-We’re hedging our bets, investing in all the emerging solutions. 10:45 AM

-Once you break the electricity storage barrier, everything changes. 11:18 AM

Arthur Hanna, Accenture (4/19/2010)

-About 51% of US consumers say they don’t trust energy companies to make correct decisions to address US energy challenges. 9:33 AM

-… Yet 2/3 say the industry is responsible to solve energy problems. 9:35 AM

-The energy industry has a responsibility to take charge of educating consumers. If they don’t trust us, they’ll trust someone else. 9:48 AM

Geoffrey Colvin, Fortune magazine (4/19/2010)

-The most successful companies are very good at creating new solutions for customers’ new problems. 10:22 AM

Posted: April 26th, 2010 under Current News, R&D, Uncategorized, climate change, dynamic pricing, finance, geoengineering, green energy, investment banks, natural gas, renewable energy credits, renewables, smart grid.
Comments: none

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

Posted: April 5th, 2010 under biomass, energy policy, finance, green energy, investment banks, natural gas, renewable energy credits, renewables.
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