News and Events

 News and Events
DOE Loan Guarantee to Support World's Largest Wind Project
DOE announced on October 8 a conditional commitment to provide a partial guarantee for a $1.3 billion loan in support of the world's largest wind farm. The loan will finance Caithness Energy LLC's Shepherds Flat wind project, an 845-megawatt wind-powered electrical generating facility in eastern Oregon. Sponsored by Caithness and General Electric (GE) Energy Financial Services, the project consists of 338 of GE's 2.5xl turbines supplied, which are being deployed for the first time deployed in North America. once completed, the project will sell 100% of the power generated to Southern California Edison through 20-year fixed-price power purchase agreements. The facility will precludethe emission of 1,215,991 tons of carbon dioxide per year, an amount equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 212,141 passenger vehicles. According to Caithness, the project will directly create 400 construction jobs, followed by 35 permanent jobs on site.
The Shepherds Flat project is the largest project to date to receive an offer of a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP), a DOE program supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Under FIPP financing, DOE guarantees up to 80% of a loan provided to a renewable energy project by qualified financial institutions. See the DOE press release and the DOE Loan Guarantee Program Web site.
Interior Department Signs First U.S. Offshore Wind Energy Lease
 
Offshore turbines like these located near Sweden could appear in U.S. waters to produce renewable power.
Credit: Seimens

The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) and Cape Wind Associates signed the nation's first lease for commercial wind energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) on October 6. The leased area covers 25 square miles on Horseshoe Shoals in Nantucket Sound, off the coast of Massachusetts. Cape Wind is planning to build 130 wind turbines in the leased area to generate up to 468 megawatts (MW) of wind power, with an average anticipated output of 182 MW. The 28-year lease will cost the company $88,278 in annual rent prior to production, and a 2%-7% operating fee during production. The Cape Wind energy project would be the first wind farm on the OCS, and could generate enough power to meet 75% of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket Island combined. See the DOI press release and the Cape Wind page on the Web site of DOI's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM).
The lease signing came a day before DOE released a report from its National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) that comprehensively analyzes the key factors impacting the deployment of offshore wind power in the United States. The report, "Large-Scale Offshore Wind Power in the United States: Assessment of Opportunities and Barriers," analyzes the technology challenges, economics, permitting procedures, and potential risks and benefits of offshore wind power deployment in U.S. waters. NREL finds that harnessing even a fraction of the potential offshore wind resource could create thousands of jobs and help revitalize the U.S. manufacturing sector, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, diversify U.S. energy supplies, and provide cost-competitive electricity to key coastal regions. The report also concludes that while significant challenges remain, effective research, policies, and market commitment will enable offshore wind to play a significant role in the country's energy future. To help address those challenges, DOE and DOI have launched several interagency efforts that focus on siting and permitting, standards and technical collaboration, resource assessment and design conditions, and environmental monitoring and mitigation. See the DOE press release, the report's executive summary and the full report, and the interagency initiatives. And for more information on DOE's efforts, see the Offshore Wind Technology page on DOE's Wind and Water Power Program Web site.
NREL's report on offshore wind power opportunities and barriers draws in part on a recent NREL report that assesses the electricity generating potential of offshore wind resources in the United States. According to the "Assessment of Offshore Wind Energy Resources in the United States," 4,150 gigawatts of potential wind power capacity from offshore wind resources are available in the United States. The estimate does not describe actual planned offshore wind development, and the report does not consider that some offshore areas may be excluded from energy development on the basis of environmental, human use, or technical considerations. According to DOE's Energy Information Administration, in 2008 the nation's total electric generating capacity from all sources was 1,010 gigawatts. See the NREL press release and the report.
Meanwhile, other offshore wind projects continue to go forward. Garden State Offshore Energy (GSOE) announced on October 4 that it is moving forward with plans to install state-of-the-art mobile, floating wind resource assessment equipment to assess conditions at its proposed offshore wind farm site, located 20 miles off the New Jersey coast. Farther up the Atlantic Coast, BOEM and the State of Maine have formed an offshore renewable energy task force to facilitate communication among BOEM and local, state, tribal, and other federal stakeholders concerning offshore leasing and development. Similar task forces have been established in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland, and are in process for New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. In addition, the nation's first freshwater offshore wind plant is also moving ahead, as the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) announced on September 14 that it has selected a team of three companies to develop an offshore wind farm on Lake Erie. The initial pilot project will be a five-turbine, 20-MW wind farm, located 5-10 miles off the shore of Cleveland, Ohio. Construction on the initial phase is tentatively scheduled to begin in late 2012. See the press releases from GSOE, the BOEM , and LEEDCo.
Interior Department Approves First Solar Power Tower on U.S. Public Lands
 
The Ivanpah solar project will rely on solar power tower technology, which employs a field of flat mirrors to concentrate the sunlight on a receiver, mounted at the top of a central tower .
Credit: BrightSource Energy

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) approved on October 7 the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the first large-scale solar energy project on U.S. public lands to use "power tower" technology. Proposed by BrightSource Energy, the project could produce up to 370 megawatts of clean energy, enough to power 111,000 to 277,500 American homes. Located in San Bernardino County, California, the project is expected to generate approximately 1,100 new jobs. The DOI decision authorizes Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to offer BrightSource a right-of-way grant to use the public lands for 30 years if all rents and other conditions are met. The site is in Southern California's Mojave Desert, near the Nevada border.
The Ivanpah project uses innovative technology that, when completed, will include three solar thermal power plants. The technology employs mirror fields to focus solar energy on power tower receivers near the center of each array. Steam from solar boilers in the towers drive a turbine that generates electricity for the transmission grid. Construction of all three project phases is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013. To lessen its environmental impact, BLM reduced the size of the project by more than 15%, from 4,073 acres to 3,471 acres; it also reduced the number of heliostats (solar mirrors) from 214,000 to 173,500.
Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, renewable energy developers whose projects begin construction by the end of 2010 can apply for payments of up to 30 percent of the eligible costs of the project. Also under the Recovery Act, DOE awarded BrightSource $1.37 billion in conditional loan guarantees for this project. See the DOI press release and an fact sheet on Ivanpah.
DOE Names 2010 Federal Energy and Water Management Award Winners
DOE announced on October 7 that 31 individuals, teams, and organizations across the federal government received Federal Energy and Water Management Awards for their sustainable strategies to improve energy, water, and vehicle fleet efficiency. The awardees saved taxpayers almost $42 million in energy and water costs in Fiscal Year 2009 and kept the equivalent of about 190,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. These efforts are also helping to move cutting-edge clean energy technologies into the marketplace, create new U.S. jobs, and strengthen national security.
The 2010 Federal Energy and Water Management Awards winners were selected from nominations submitted by 17 federal agencies. Included among the award winners are employees from the U.S. Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy; DOE and the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; the General Services Administration; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. For example, the U.S. Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow in Barstow, California, was lauded for installing its first large-scale wind turbine, a 1.5-megawatt device that generated 3,600 megawatt-hours of electrical energy in FY 2009. The turbine provides about 11.6% of the base's electricity needs. And the Navy Region Southwest earned an award for being at the forefront of the Navy's energy program. It replaced 21 billion Btu of fossil fuel consumption with a combination of solar, wind, and geothermal energy, generating 4,300 megawatt-hours of renewable energy.
Together, this year's award winners saved 38 billion Btu through the installation of renewable energy systems, including solar thermal and photovoltaic systems, wind turbines, and methane gas generated by landfills. They also saved 1.7 trillion Btu by upgrading heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment, and by installing high-efficiency lighting and energy management control systems. Winners also built certified green buildings with state-of-the-art technologies; implemented energy savings performance contracts, in which federal agencies partner with energy service companies to promote energy cost savings; and partnered in utility energy services contracts, in which utilities arrange financing to cover the capital costs of projects, which are then repaid over the terms of the contracts from cost savings generated by the energy efficiency measures. See the DOE press release and the Web site for the 2010 Federal Energy and Water Management Awards.
DOE Awards Third Grant for U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center
DOE announced on October 7 that its Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will receive $12.5 million over the next five years to lead a consortium on energy-efficient building technologies under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC). The DOE funding will be matched by the consortium partners to provide at least $25 million in total U.S. funding, and Chinese counterparts will contribute an additional $25 million. In the United States, buildings account for nearly 40% of all energy consumption and carbon emissions, while China is the location for nearly half the new floor space built in the world every year. LBNL leads a consortium that includes DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the University of California-Davis; the National Resources Defense Council; the National Association of State Energy Officials; the Association of State Energy Research and Technology Transfer Institutions; the Energy Foundation; Pegasus Capital Advisors; ICF International, Inc.; The Dow Chemical Company; Honeywell International, Inc.; General Electric Corporation; Saint-Gobain; Bentley Systems, Inc.; and ClimateMaster.
President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao formally announced the establishment of the CERC during President Obama's trip to Beijing last November. Two additional consortia were announced last month: one led by the University of Michigan to advance technologies for clean vehicles and one led by West Virginia University to focus on the next generation of clean coal technologies, including carbon capture and storage. Total funding for the CERC, including private and public investments in both countries, will be at least $150 million. See the DOE press release.
Energy Connections
EIA: U.S. Energy Consumption Up 2.7% for First Half of 2010
U.S. energy consumption increased by 2.7% for the first two quarters of 2010, relative to the first two quarters of 2009, according to DOE's Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA's "Monthly Energy Review," issued on September 30, finds that U.S. energy consumption totaled 48.8 quadrillion Btu (quads) for the first half of 2010, compared to 47.5 quads for the first half of 2009. But because U.S. energy use dipped sharply in 2009, the nation's energy use is still 3.9% less than the levels set in the first half of 2008. The first-half growth in energy use closely tracks the first-half growth in U.S. economic activity. Figures released by the U.S. Department of Commerce on September 30 show that the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first and second quarter of 2010 increased by 2.4% and 3.0%, respectively, compared to the same quarter in 2009, for a half-year average growth of 2.7%. See Table 1.1 in the "Energy Overview" section of the "Monthly Energy Review" and Table 8 in the press release from the Commerce Departments' Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Renewable energy consumption has also continued to increase, with consumption in the first half of 2010 up 4.7% relative to the first half of 2009. According to the EIA report, the United States consumed 4.091 quads of renewable energy in the first half of the year, which means that renewable energy supplied about 8.4% of the nation's energy needs. With some areas of the country facing droughts, year-to-year hydropower production was down by 8% for the first half of 2010, while the consumption of wind power was up by 21.4% and biomass energy from wood and wood-derived fuels was up by 4.9%. Year-to-year ethanol consumption was up by 23.4% for the first half of the year, while biodiesel recovered from last year's slump, increasing 18.9% relative to the first half of 2009 and 4.7% relative to the first half of 2008. See the "Renewable Energy" section of the EIA's "Monthly Energy Review."