HOME  |  WHAT'S ON  |  LINKS  |  PRODUCT  |  CONTACT US  |  SUBSCRIBE

The world's first hybrid wind-current power generation system will be installed off the coast of Japan later this year. The Savonius Keel & Wind Turbine Darrieus (SKWID) power generation system being developed by Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Company (MODEC) is a floating system that shares a vertical floating axis. MODEC says the concept will generate double or more power from the same sea surface area as a conventional wind turbine. According to Japan's NHK News, the wind turbine will be 47 meters above sea level and the tidal turbine will have a diameter of 15 meters. The two sections will be connected by a power generator, the Japanese news agency reports. NHK News sources say that the turbine will be tested in the fall. Once operational, the turbine could generate enough energy to power about 300 households, the news agency reports.

Water and Power after solar farm Posted by Bloomberg On: 15-05-2013 Topic: General

Los Angeles's power utility, which serves about 1.5m customers, will seek bids from developers for 250MW of solar power to comply with a California requirement to get 25% of its energy from renewable sources by the end of 2016. The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power plans to issue a request for proposals in June, Anh Wood, who manages three of the utility's solar development programs, said. The four biggest planned installations, totaling 200MW of capacity, will be built on parcels at the utility's Beacon project in Kern County, California, purchased in December for $31.5m. The previous owner NextEra Energy Inc. had proposed in 2008 developing a 250MW solar-thermal power plant on the site, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The utility now plans to build a 50MW segment and to use photovoltaic panels, while developers that plan to build the remaining four segments must bid for 25-year power sales contracts at no more than 8.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, she said. "We'll get good pricing from the sheer fact that this property already comes with all the environmental work that's already done," Wood said. "A lot of the liability that comes from project development is already taken care of." Bids for the larger sites will be bundled with proposals to build 50MW of rooftop systems on buildings in the Los Angeles area, as the final component of the utility's 150MW feed-in tariff program, Wood said. The price for those 20-year contracts will be capped at 14 cents a kilowatt-hour, and it's possible one company could get all the deals, she said. "Even though we have four contracts that we can sign, potentially there could be one winner." — Andrew Herndon

Renewable energy companies from the mainland and Hong Kong need to repay $3.5bln of debt this year, prompting global investors to fret that another issuer will follow Suntech Power into default. Solar, wind, hydro and nuclear companies also have the equivalent of $5.3bln of notes due next year. The 2014 yuan bonds of LDK Solar, which failed to fully repay $23.8m of convertible notes last month, slid to a seven-month low of 34 yuan ($HK43) per 100 yuan face value this week, pushing the yield to 220%. The debt pile includes $766.5m of dollar-denominated convertible bonds in solar companies whose shares have slumped 88% from their 2007 high, making the equity option unattractive for investors. Suntech, once the world's biggest solar panel maker, defaulted on a $541m equity-linked bond in March, while LDK Solar must settle a $240m loan unless it spins off a subsidiary by June 3, filings show. "For the solar companies, it's a function of too much debt and poor market dynamics leading to an inability to refinance," Bryan Collins, a fixed-income portfolio manager at Fidelity Worldwide Investment, said.

The Australian Solar Council has called on MPs to reject proposed funding cuts to the independent Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Established under legislation as an independent Commonwealth authority, was hit by last night's Budget with $370m in funding deferred for three years to 2021-22. "The move to substantially defer ARENA's funding is a direct attack on its independence, and threatens investor confidence in this critical program", John Grimes, chief executive of the Australian Solar Council said. "ARENA is playing a central role in building a solar nation, funding solar research and development, as well as big solar power plants. We cannot afford to defer our clean energy future."

The Solar Association of New Zealand thinks proposals to centralise electricity sales could make it harder to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Labour and Green parties are proposing, if elected, to create a state agency to buy electricity from power generators at a set price and pass on savings to consumers. Solar Association chief executive Adrian Kerr says if householders were exposed to the same electricity spot market as businesses, price signals would tell them to cut useage when prices ~ and carbon emissions ~ are high. The price of electricity to households is generally fixed for a year, but the association thinks consumers should be exposed to the same electricity spot market as businesses. It says when electricity prices are high it generally involves power generation that has high greenhouse gas emissions, and getting a single price would disguise the greenhouse gas component of the electricity that people use at any one time.

All queued up for Aussie wind farm sale . . . for more information subscribe above to EW personal edition which includes:

Stories . . .

☯ Greens try to expand gas control.

Dawn Shaughnessy (pictured) has recently been appointed group leader for the newly created Experimental Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group, in the Chemical Sciences Division at LLNL. Dawn is also the Responsible Scientist for radiochemical debris collection at the National Ignition Facility. In addition, she is the project leader of the LLNL heavy element program, which announced discovery of element 117. Dawn’s general research interests include actinide and heavy element chemistry, chemical automation, nuclear forensics methods and radiochemical diagnostics. She has been a staff chemist at LLNL for 10 years. Most recently she was awarded the DOE Office of Science Outstanding Mentor Award (2010), the Gordon Battelle Prize for Scientific Discovery for the discovery of element 117 (2010), and was inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame for Scientific Discovery (2012). Dawn received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, and her Ph.D from the same institution with a focus on nuclear chemistry.