Florida's FPL to add 10,000 MW of wind by 2012, and two Texas-sized wind farms are coming to the Lone Star State.
Companies down in the American south seem to know which way the wind is blowing.
Florida's FPL Energy said today that it plans to add 8,000 to 10,000 megawatts of new wind projects to its portfolio by 2012.
Over in Texas, Shell WindEnergy and Luminant just announced a joint development agreement for a 3,000 MW wind project on the Texas Panhandle.
And yet another recently announced single wind farm project planned for the Panhandle would generate up to 4,000 MW.
"Wind is not the only solution, but it's certainly part of the solution, and that's part of what you're seeing with wind power," said Steven Stengel, spokesman for FPL Energy.
FPL Energy, part of the FPL Group (NYSE: FPL), already has a pipeline of wind projects representing more than 14,000 MW in various stages of development and more than one million acres of land under its control across the U.S.
FPL, which serves more than 4.3 million utility customers in Florida and has approximately 13,300 megawatts of generation capacity in 24 states, gets about 30% of that power from wind.
"Clearly the wind strategy that we announced today will be a significant driver of the overall growth of FPL Energy through that 2012 timeline," Stengel told Cleantech.com.
The company raised its 2008 forecast on the expected strength of the new wind capacity, to a range of $3.70 to $3.90 per share from a range of $3.60 to $3.80.
FPL announced the expanded wind development goals today, as part of its second quarter earnings report.
This year, the company has more than 1,000 MW of new wind projects under construction, all of which are expected to reach commercial operation by the end of the year.
The cost of the new wind generation has yet to be determined.
FPL plans to add 1,500 MW to 2,000 MW per year of new wind projects from 2009 to 2012.
The Shell and Luminant project, announced on Friday, would be built in Briscoe County, southeast of Amarillo.
And low wind might not be an issue for this ambitious venture, with both companies saying they plan to explore the use of compressed air storage.
Luminant's Tom Kleckner said other companies have such storage systems in operation on a small scale in Alabama and Iowa.
Boston startup General Compression is working on that type of system, where excess power could be used to pump air underground for later use (see General Compression aims to double wind farm profits).
General Compression spokeswoman Jenny Viscarolasaga told Cleantech.com the company is not involved in the Shell/Luminant project.
The state's current capacity is 3,352 MW, which ranks Texas No. 1 in the nation, ahead of California.
Shell and Luminant have yet to determine the cost of the project, but the Brisco County wind farm is expected to have more than 1,000 turbines when complete, according to Kleckner.
Shell WindEnergy, a division of Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-B), and Luminant, a TXU subsidiary (NYSE: TXU), plan to work together on other renewable energy projects in Texas.
The daddy of them all could be Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens' 4,000-MW wind farm, announced last month.
If completed, it is to be the world's single largest, with as many as 2,000 turbines on nearly 200,000 acres in four counties.
The project would have the capacity to generate 2,000 to 4,000 megawatts and would cost as much as $6 billion, including transmission lines to carry the power to the state's main power grid.
Picken's Mesa Power is among several companies that have put in bids to the state's Public Utility Commission to build transmission lines to connect the growing number of wind farms in West Texas to the major urban areas.
Texas has more than 30 wind farms operating or under construction.
FPL Energy's 735.5-megawatt Horse Hollow project is currently the world's largest.
FPL has submitted a proposal to invest $635 million to $655 million in a high-voltage transmission line.
The record at Horse Hollow is safe for now, as construction on the Pickens' project isn't set to begin until 2010, and would take several years to finish.
FPL isn't likely to sit on its laurels, with Stengel saying that the company's "pipeline will get bigger," and that the company will be acquiring additional acres of land.
"As you've seen in many states there's been a reluctance to build coal powered plants, and the power needs to come from somewhere," he said.
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Wind sucks
Texas is SouthWEST, not South. The South doesn't
have much in the way of wind, but is subsidizing
customers of other states via wind subsidies. Now
the South is pushing for equal subsidies for nuclear power, which costs 1/4th as much as crappy, unreliable wind power. And by the way, claiming 6,000 MW from 2,000 turbines is a giant lie. Those turbines won't average over 33% load capacity and will produce not 6,000 megawats, but 2,000 megawatts, mostly when it's not needed. Boone
Pickens is in this for the same reason as FPL, to garner giant profits from excessive federal subsidies. FPL makes billions, pays almost no taxes.
Government Subsidies
That's a good question, how much of this "green" development is subsidy driven vs. real economics of the technology? If its the former, then its all a house of cards that will blow away in the "wind" as soon as the subsidies stop!
Wind vs. Nuclear Power
Sorry, Bike, but Texas is in the South. You're just subdividing the Southeast and Southwest. It's all below the Mason-Dixon Line. The article mentioned the capacity of the wind farms, not the expected output, but in one regard, your arguments are valid: subsidies distort the energy marketplace. Now if we can just eliminate the oil, coal and nuclear industry subsidies, including their environmental costs, we'll all see the real cost of energy. Your objective analysis of the "crappy, unreliable wind power" is an inspiration to Luddites everywhere.
True lies, true costs of nuclear plants.
Nuclear reactor true costs:
Chernobyl (1986-2007):
1. More than €600 million pledged by 28 donor governments with $507 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to encase the nuclear reactor as the present concrete shell has deteriorated
2. Two killed in the initial explosion, 28 of radiation sickness, 1 of cardiac arrest within 3 months,
3.9,300 people dying from radiation cancers (UN health agency; Greenpeace says more)
4. 200,000 evacuated, some of Europe's most fertile farmland ruined by radioactive fallout
US (2007)
1. Radioactive polonium-210 in 25 Fallon (Nevada)-area drinking water wells
2. Dumping of milk from dairy cows since their system concentrates the polonium 210 in the milk
3. 17 children in the Fallon area suspected of contracting leukemia (since 1997) with three deaths. Odds were 232 million to one that the disease was contracted by means other than groundwater contamination.
It appears that burial of radioactive wastes in the Nevada is not going to work out in the long run. Nuclear energy was touted to be a source of "free" energy in the 1950's. Unfortunately, the side effects were not known then. Yes, ignorance was bliss.
Let us not be caught in believing that the way out of our energy concerns today is the building of more nuclear plants. The contamination of our wells is only a hint of what lies ahead unless we find a safer way to dispose of the thousands of tons of nuclear wastes already generated and seeking a 1,000 year home.
Let the nuclear industry be honest with itself when it stands up to ask the government for guaranteed loans in the tens of billions for new nuclear plants. Equal sums may also be needed to repair, maintain, restore or to bury the numerous facilities already approaching the end of their life cycles.
What will the nuclear industry say about changing contaminated water back into good water? Is this another case for Ervin Brockowitch? Can the nuclear industry be sued for producing and permitting radioactive contaminates to enter our water tables? Can the government be held liable for the spread of leukemia that has already resulted? Is this discovery just the tip of the detrimental iceberg that is sure to spring from its buried bonds in the next few centuries and hangs above us as the blade of a guillotine
Are we so blind as to be permanently ensnared in this nuclear web of maddness? I hope not!
adrianakau@aol.com
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