Wind energy- California’s quiet achiever

Wind, the ‘workhorse’ of renewable energy Oakland Press, July 26, 2013 By Dana Hull The San Jose Mercury News When it comes to renewable energy, Californians hear a lot about solar power. Massive solar power plants are under construction in the desert and will soon be online. Solar panels adorn the roofs of a growing number of homes and commercial buildings. PG&E alone has 90,000 solar customers. Gov. Jerry Brown recently spoke at Intersolar, the solar trade show that met in San Francisco this month, and the state’s solar industry lobby is increasingly influential.

Wind, on the other hand, has a much quieter presence in the Golden State. But it’s not a small one: large wind farms in the Altamont Pass between Livermore and Tracy, Tehachapi near Bakersfield and the San Gorgonio Pass near Palm Springs make California one of the strongest wind markets in the nation. Wind energy projects totaling roughly 5,549 megawatts of capacity are operating in California today, providing enough electricity to power roughly 2 million California households, according to the California Wind Energy Association. Among the reasons wind is often overlooked is that wind technology is relatively mature, so there aren’t many wind-energy startups attracting investments from Silicon Valley venture capital firms. But while wind doesn’t draw a lot of attention, advocates celebrate it as the “workhorse” of renewable power.

“There are currently 60,000 megawatts of wind capacity installed in the United States, compared to 10,000 megawatts of solar,” said Peter Kelley of the American Wind Energy Association. “There are 45,000 wind turbines installed; one in four of them is in Texas.”…….

Private investors also are showing an interest in wind power, which has come down in cost thanks to American manufacturing advances and taller, larger turbines that help with economies of scale. Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy, based in Des Moines, Iowa, plans to spend $1.9 billion to install hundreds of wind turbines in Iowa by the end of 2015. Billionaire Philip Anschutz, whose vast fortune largely comes from oil, railroads, sports and entertainment, plans to build the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project on an Anschutz-owned ranch in south central Wyoming. With 1,000 turbines, it would be the largest wind farm in the United States; permitting is underway and construction is expected to begin in 2014. Sparsely-populated Wyoming exports most of the electricity that it produces, and Anschutz’s Power Company of Wyoming hopes to export its wind power to energy-hungry markets in the Southwest, including California. ……….http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2013/07/26/news/nation_and_world/2e5ecbd8-6310-4630-ac6a-faa78a657980.txt

July 27, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable

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