ANOTHER BIG UTILITY BUYS WIND ENERGY

Big Utilities are moving into wind and other New Energies so fast now that the stories are losing their news value. (See XCEL ENERGY MOVES TO NEW ENERGY)

Pretty soon, NewEnergyNews is going to have to change its name to JustEnergyNews.

Duke Energy Continues Commitment to Wind Energy with Contract to Purchase 150 Megawatts of Wind Turbines
December 12, 2007 (ThomasNet)

WHO
Duke Energy (Jim Rogers, CEO), Duke Energy Generation Services (DEGS) (President Wouter van Kempen and senior vice president for wind energy development David Marks)

A GE Energy 1.5 megawatt turbine, rapidly becoming the workhorse of American energy. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
DEGS, subsidiary of Duke, is expanding its wind energy capacity with a big turbine buy from GE Energy. This follows DEGS’ acquisition of Tierra Energy and its 1000+ megawatts of wind assets.

WHEN
- The GE Energy turbines are expected to be put into service in 2009 and 2010.
- 3 Tierra Energy projects representing another 240 megawatts of wind energy are expected to be put into operation in 2008 and 2009.

WHERE
- The GE Energy turbines will be placed at sites still “under review” in western and southwestern states.
- Tierra Energy is based in Austin, Texas. The 3 projects coming online are in Texas and Wyoming.
- Duke Energy is based in Charlotte, N.C., and is traded on the NY stock exchange.

WHY
- The 100 1.5 megawatt turbine purchase represents 150 megawatts of electricity capacity.
- DEGS develops, owns and operates electricity generation for municipalities, utilities, industrial facilities and other big energy consumers. It specializes in developing New Energy and environmentally sound energy from natural gas, coal, waste coal, wood and renewables.
- Duke Energy is one of the biggest utilities in the US. It has 4 million+ customers and 36,000+ megawatts of electricity capacity in the Midwest and the Carolinas. It also supplies natural gas in Ohio and Kentucky. As well as 4,000+ megawatts of electricity capacity in Latin America.

And for utilities, megabucks. And for society, megaclean energy. (click to enlarge

QUOTES
- van Kempen, DEGS: "Growing our wind power portfolio underscores our commitment to reduce carbon emissions across the United States…"
- David Marks, DEGS: “Our agreement with General Electric increases our investment in the wind business and further expands Duke Energy's renewable energy fleet…"