QUICK NEWS, November 8: FEDS TO FUND OCEAN WIND STUDY; PRESIDENT OBAMA BACKS U.S. SUN; WIND WITH STORAGE IN W. VIRGINIA

FEDS TO FUND OCEAN WIND STUDY
U.S. Department of Energy to fund major Offshore Wind Grid Interconnection study; ABB, AWS Truepower, Duke Energy, NREL, University of Pittsburgh create provisional partnership to perform studies to identify sites for high offshore wind energy potential and grid interconnection along all U.S. coastal regions.
November 7, 2011 (ABB)

"The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)…[will provide] funding for a team of leading energy organizations to perform a broad study that will assess the most promising sites for high offshore wind production along all of the U.S. coastal regions. The ABB-led team will investigate important technical and economic questions about the integration of offshore wind energy through a range of transmission technologies.

"This DOE study – the 'National Offshore Wind Energy Grid Interconnection Study' – will be led by experts from five influential energy, manufacturing, consulting, utility and research organizations: ABB, AWS Truepower, Duke Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the University of Pittsburgh."

The study will detail the process of connecting these 2 maps. (click to enlarge)

"This team will determine the expected staging of offshore wind development in each of the coastal regions, develop expected wind generation production profiles, assess the applicability of integration study methods to offshore wind production, assess a variety of offshore wind collection and delivery technologies, and consider regulatory issues that may influence the selection of technologies or the implementation of systems.

"Additionally, the study will provide the technical and economic viability data necessary to produce a roadmap to the DOE’s ‘20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030’ wind goals for the U.S. This Offshore Wind initiative will help guide the national effort to achieve a 54 gigawatts (GW) of deployed offshore wind generating capacity by 2030…"


PRESIDENT OBAMA BACKS U.S. SUN
President Obama Weighs In On Chinese Solar Trade Petition
3 November 2011 (Solar Industry)

"In a recent interview, President Barack Obama remarked on the trade case recently filed against China by SolarWorld and its partners in the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM)…[and] appeared to support the anti-dumping complaint and countervailing-duty petition…"



President Obama: "I have been more aggressive than previous administrations in enforcing our trade laws…We have filed actions against them when we see these kinds of dumping activities, and we're going to look very carefully at this stuff and potentially bring actions if we find that the basic rules of the road have been violated."


WIND WITH STORAGE IN W. VIRGINIA
Wind Energy, Storage Combined In Coal Country
Lauren Craig, November 6, 2011 (Earth Techling)

"West Virginia is Coal Country, but wind energy is making inroads…with cutting-edge energy-storage capabilities…AES has announced the completion and full-scale commercial operation of its Laurel Mountain wind power plant.

"…The 98-megawatt (MW) plant consists of 61 GE 1.6-MW wind turbine generators situated along a 13-mile stretch of Laurel Mountain…[W]hat makes this project unique is its 32 MW of battery-based energy storage – the largest advanced energy storage project of its kind."

The Laurel Mountain project (from vawind.org – click to enlarge)

"The battery bank will allow the wind farm to smooth fluctuations in power generation, and help maintain the reliability of the power grid. The plant will supply more than 260,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy and operating reserve capacity each year to the PJM Interconnection, the largest power market in the world.

"…Va.- based AES operates more than 1,900 MW of wind capacity in the United States, China and Europe. The company has 72 MW of grid-scale storage resources in operation and construction, and more than 500 MW of advanced energy storage projects in development. The Laurel Mountain storage facility is more than double the size of any of its previous projects, including an 8-MW battery system in the New York Independent System Operator market and a 12-MW frequency regulation and spinning reserve solution at AES Gener’s Los Andes substation in Chile…"