QUICK NEWS, May 27: ENTIRE ELEC UTIL BIZ DOWNGRADED BY SUN; WIND’S NEW PLAINS-TO-SOUTH LINE SEEKS BUY-IN; TED TURNER AND SOUTHERN CO BUY MORE SOLAR

ENTIRE ELEC UTIL BIZ DOWNGRADED BY SUN Barclays Downgrades Electric Utility Bonds, Sees Viable Solar Competition

Michael Aneiro, May 23, 2014 (Barron’s)

Barclays Bank’s bond rating service has downgraded the entire U.S. electric utility sector bond market rating against the U.S. Corporate Bond Index due to the challenge from ratepayers’ increasing opportunities to cut grid electricity consumption with solar and battery storage…Barclays recommended investors move out of utilities’ bonds wherever solar-plus-storage is becoming cost competitive, including in Hawaii now, California by 2017, New York and Arizona by 2018, and “many other states soon after…” because solar-plus-storage could “reconfigure the organization and regulation of the electric power business” in the next ten years…Electric utility bonds are nearly 7.5% of Barclays’ U.S. Corporate Index by market value but the U.S. utility industry is facing real competition in the cost-effective delivery of electricity for first time in its hundred-plus year history and the industry and regulators are ignoring the risks of “a comprehensive re-imagining of the role utilities play,” Barclays wrote. click here for more

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WIND’S NEW PLAINS-TO-SOUTH LINE SEEKS BUY-IN Clean Line seeks customers for Oklahoma-Arkansas-Tennessee power line

Scott DiSavino and Chris Reese, May 22, 2014 (Reuters)

“Clean Line Energy Partners…[has] started the official process of looking for customers for the capacity of its proposed $2 billion Clean Line power transmission project from Oklahoma to Arkansas and Tennessee…[The] Plains and Eastern Clean Line LLC subsidiary commenced an open solicitation process for capacity…The project is a 700-mile (1,127-km) overhead 600-kilovolt high voltage direct current transmission line capable of delivering about 3,500 megawatts of power…Clean Line is developing the project to move electricity from the wind power rich Oklahoma Panhandle region to Tennessee and Arkansas where demand for renewable power resources is growing…[The project is expected to be fully permitted in the middle of 2015…[for] by early 2016…[and] service by the end of 2018.” click here for more

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TED TURNER AND SOUTHERN CO BUY MORE SOLAR Southern and Turner to Buy Macho Springs From First Solar

Christopher Martin, May 23, 2014 (Bloomberg News)

Turner Renewable Energy and Southern Company added an eighth solar power plant to their jointly owned solar portfolio with the purchase of the 50 megawatt Macho Springs in New Mexico from First Solar…This Macho Springs deal brings the nameplate capacity of the Turner-Southern portfolio to 290 megawatts…The project’s offtaker is El Paso Electric through a twenty year power purchase agreement at $0.579 per kilowatt-hour, significantly below the $0.842 for power from a typical combined-cycle natural gas plant…Macho Springs developer First Solar is the world’s biggest solar power plant builder and the second biggest module manufacturer in the world…Macho Springs is expected to go online by the end of May. click here for more

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