QUICK NEWS, December 16: COLORADO GIVES XCEL ‘GO’ FOR BIG NEW ENERGY BUILD; FEDS GIVE VIRGINIA A NEW ‘GO’ FOR OFFSHORE WIND; JAPAN’S HITACHI BRINGS RENEWABLES STORAGE

COLORADO GIVES XCEL ‘GO’ FOR BIG NEW ENERGY BUILD Xcel to boost its wind, solar power supply in Colorado

Cathy Proctor, December 10. 2013 (Denver Business Journal)

"State regulators have granted Xcel Energy Inc.’s request to boost the amount of wind and solar power on its Colorado system by 25 percent, or 620 megawatts…[adding to its 250 megawatts of solar and 2,177 megawatts of wind]… The new power supplies will meet Xcel’s customers’ demands for electricity through at least 2018…Of the new power supplies, 450 megawatts will come from wind farms and an additional 170 from large-scale solar power plants… When the plan was proposed [in September], David Eves, the CEO of Xcel’s subsidiary, Public Service Company of Colorado, said the solar projects…were cost-competitive with natural gas-generated power. It was the first time Xcel had seen solar projects ‘make the cut’ in direct price competition with natural gas…” click here for more

Update: Boulder voters continued to support the community solar effort and defeated Xcel in the last election. The movement’s leaders dislike Xcel’s most recent New Energy plan because it relies largely on centralized solar instead of distributed rooftop solar.

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FEDS GIVE VIRGINIA A NEW ‘GO’ FOR OFFSHORE WIND Milestone Cleared for Second Wind Energy Research Lease Offshore Virginia; BOEM finds no competitive interest in proposed wind energy research area

2013 December 6, (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)

"…[T]he Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)...[found] there is no competitive interest in the area where…[the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME)] proposes to conduct activities [aimed at building offshore wind]…This would be the second wind energy research lease offshore Virginia…DMME proposes to design, develop, and demonstrate a grid-connected, 12-megawatt (MW) offshore wind test facility on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) off the coast of Virginia. The data obtained under this lease will be made publicly available and inform the future production of renewable energy within Virginia’s Wind Energy Area (WEA)…” click here for more

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JAPAN’S HITACHI BRINGS RENEWABLES STORAGE Hitachi unveils storage for wind, solar energy

Brian Wingfield, December 3, 2013 (Bloomberg via SF Chronicle)

“Hitachi unveiled an energy-storage system that the company said will support wind and solar power and allow users to sell electricity into deregulated markets such as California…The units can be installed on high-voltage power lines, and will be able to capture excess energy produced by wind and solar sources so it can be sold back into the network when the demand for power exceeds the supply. The systems, which include telecommunications and lithium-ion battery technologies developed by Tokyo's Hitachi, will also minimize volatility on the power grid…Hitachi will begin testing the product in North America in the first three months of 2014, with a goal of selling it by the end of 2015…Hitachi estimates that the size of the U.S. market for devices that help stabilize the grid will be 20 gigawatts by 2020…The potential market size for its energy-storage system is 7.5 gigawatts…” click here for more

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