QUICK NEWS, August 23: CHINA WIND BUSY IN ILLINOIS; DEMAND BETTER THAN PARITY FOR SUN; LITTLE GUYS GET SMARTER FASTER; TEXAS SAVED BY WIND, SMART GRID

CHINA WIND BUSY IN ILLINOIS
Goldwind to complete Shady Oaks by end-2011
Ros Davidson, 12 August 2011 (Windpower Monthly)

"Goldwind USA expects to complete its 106.5MW Shady Oaks wind farm in Illinois by the end of December…[It] will be the first-ever large-scale wind project to be built in the US using Chinese wind turbines. It uses Goldwind’s 1.5MW direct-drive model.

"…[T]he project will go towards establishing an all-important US service record for Goldwind’s turbines…"

Goldwind 1.5s at work in China (click to enlarge)

"If Goldwind, along with partner Mainstream Renewables, completes the project by the end of the year it will meet the target set out when it acquired Shady Oaks in December 2010…At the time of the deal, Mainstream also said construction of the 75-turbine project would start in the second quarter…[T]his is still to happen. Goldwind said the building would ‘begin in mid-august’.

"Last year, Goldwind USA — with Mainstream — won a competitive bid to provide power from the project from 2012 to 2032 to the utility Commonwealth Edison…In January 2010 Goldwind completed [its first U.S. project,] a 4.5 MW pilot project in Pipestone, Minnesota…"


DEMAND BETTER THAN PARITY FOR SUN
The Race To Grid Parity: Which Countries Will Enjoy Cheap Solar First?
18 August 2011 (Solar Industry)

"Solar subsidies have been capped, cancelled and cut over the past several years, but solar installations have continued to rise…[BUT] as manufacturers approach near-term limits on cost reductions, German demand will begin to decline…[and] demand will shift to Asia and North America...[The] solar market will grow [from 15.8 GW in 2010 to 37.5 GW in 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 15.5 percent, one report found]…but revenues will stay flat as price declines outpace volume growth.

"…[S]olar demand will shift to a broader range of markets over the next five years, based on an analysis of the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and internal rate of return (IRR) across 156 countries, states and regions. Japan, China and India will emerge to drive significant volumes, and the U.S. will come forth as a heavyweight, given the government's support of tax equity through 2016 and a myriad of state-level programs…"

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"…Today, the most attractive residential markets are Australia (52% subsidized IRR), Greece (32%) and Ontario (27%), while the most attractive commercial markets are New Jersey (42%), Portugal (37%) and Hawaii (34%)…On the utility ground-mount side, Portugal (81%) tops the list, followed distantly by New Jersey (58%) and Cyprus (44%). By 2016, viable investment targets will increase dramatically, encompassing 45 residential markets, 88 commercial markets and 85 utility markets.

"Subsidies and grid parity are not necessary to generate positive demand...An anticipated future increase in the cost of retail and wholesale power is all that is necessary…[O]f 55 geographies demonstrating unsubsidized IRRs above 10% at the end of 2016, only 10 will have reached grid parity…"


LITTLE GUYS GET SMARTER FASTER
Surprising Deployment Developments
Peter Fox-Penner, August 2011 (IEEE Smart Grid)

"…It's probably generally assumed…that big investor-owned and public utilities would be first to adopt smart grid technologies. Surely, then, it’s a surprise to some that rural electric cooperatives and a few municipal utilities have turned out to be among the earliest smart meter adopters…

"In an industry where attention is often focused almost exclusively on investor-owned utilities and their flashy, large scale smart grid rollouts, one might think a smaller customer base and much smaller budgets would hold public power back. Instead, cooperatives are taking advantage of their smaller scale to deploy smart meters in a more personal and customer-focused manner emphasizing consumer education…"

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"Public power utilities are not only leading the way in adopting smart grid technologies, but are also rapidly becoming innovators. Cooperatives have taken steps to develop new modes of interoperability and 30 percent of them are now integrating their smart meter systems with other data systems, such as outage management systems and customer information systems…

"Cooperatives currently lead smart meter deployment with 25 percent penetration of their customers' homes—three times higher than the average across all utilities…Half of all cooperatives offer their customers advanced metering infrastructure or advanced metering reading; together they generate 25 percent of U.S. residential peak load reductions, even though they only account for 10 percent of electricity sales…"


TEXAS SAVED BY WIND, SMART GRID
Texas Heat Wave: More Demand Response Needed; Texas can do better than barely averting rolling blackouts.
Katherine Tweed, August 9, 2011 (Greentech Media)

"…Texas’ power grid set record level power use for three consecutive days [in early August]…The high demand topped off at 68,294 megawatts…The near-peak electricity use continued…with the grid operator ERCOT calling on demand response…despite slightly lower consumption. Wind contributed about 2,000 megawatts during some of the most crucial hours…

"ERCOT issued a level 2 alert for rolling blackouts, although they were ultimately avoided. The grid survived, but there is still a lot of room for improvement…ERCOT did not call on its demand response services on the record-setting day, but rather the following day when some generation units were offline. ERCOT used about 1,150 MW of responsive reserves…and another 440 MW of emergency interruptible load shed…"

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"The demand for energy sent prices sky high, topping out at $2,500 per megawatt-hour…more than 50 times the on-peak wholesale average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"With wind and demand response coming to the rescue, ERCOT and other regions are being buoyed during heat waves by technology and generation enabled by a smarter grid…[It’s] not a win for smart grid, but more like advancing through the early rounds…"