The portfolio, known collectively as ‘HyFuels,’ includes two wind and two solar projects and an adjacent green ammonia development project, all located on the Texas Gulf Coast. The area has rapidly increasing power demand and is known to be a major producer of ammonia.

The wind and solar projects are in mid-to-late development stage, while the green ammonia project is in early development. The first phase of HyFuels is expected to reach Full Notice to Proceed (NTP) in 2025 and Commercial Operations in 2026, Nova said.

BNB Renewable Energy is a developer with wind and solar projects across the U.S. and Mexico, including for a range of industrial clients. Nova has entered into a long-term development services agreement with BNB, which originated the development in late-2020.

Nova now has a project pipeline exceeding 5 GW in eight states and multiple power markets.

Dominion made the request to the Virginia State Corporation Commission on Oct. 4 which includes six projects (337 MW) that would be owned or acquired by the utility and 13 power purchase agreements (435 MW) with independently owned projects.

Construction of the projects will support more than 1,600 jobs and generate more than $570 million in economic benefits across Virginia, Dominion said. Additional details about the utility-owned projects are below:

In addition to SCC approval, the utility-owned projects require local and state permits before construction may begin. If approved, construction is expected to be complete between 2024 and 2026.

The cost of the projects is estimated to add approximately $1.54 to the average residential customer’s monthly bill. Dominion Energy Virginia’s rates are currently 16% below the national average and 32% below the East Coast average, the utility added.

Commercial operation will start from 2029 after which Mitsubishi Power will provide support according to the long-term service agreement also signed.

This project, totaling 1,950 MW, is a joint venture between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. MHI will supply gas turbines, steam turbines, heat recovery steam generators and flue gas desulfurization systems and Mitsubishi Electric will provide the generators and electrical products.

The M701JAC gas turbines will generate the bulk of the power.

According to MHI, the gas turbines will be capable of hydrogen co-firing and the plant will be designed so that it can be converted to 100% hydrogen firing with minimal rebuilding.

This project will help to alleviate the power supply shortages during Japan’s high-load periods.

The Chiba-Sodegaura Power Co. was established in 2015 by Idemitsu Kosan Co., Kyushu Electric Power Company Inc., and Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd. The company’s initial remit was to promote the development of coal-fired power plants, as well as biomass and mixed combustion power in the region.

According to the International Energy Agency, natural gas in Japan’s total energy mix has increased significantly over the past decade, due to growing demand from the electricity generation sector.

Natural gas has also become more popular since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, which resulted in the closure of all nuclear plans. Japan’s domestic production of gas is still very limited, bringing the dependence on imports to over 90%, states the IEA.

Originally published by Power Engineering International.

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) was awarded an approximately $65 million contract to provide engineering services and advanced technology for the Lostock Sustainable Energy Plant (LSEP), a waste-to-energy plant located at Lostock Gralam near Manchester, UK.

B&W will provide its GMAB flue gas treatment technologies, SPIG air-cooled condensers, Diamond Power boiler cleaning equipment and engineering in both B&W’s Denmark and U.S. offices.

The site of the Lostock plant was previously home to a since decommissioned coal-fired power plant.

It will utilize residual waste to generate 60+ MW of energy for residents and businesses. The plant is expected to be one of the largest operational waste-to-energy plants in the UK, processing around 600,000 metric tons of waste per year.

The Lostock waste-to-energy plant is scheduled to begin commercial operation in late-2025.

MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced the design of a heat engine with no moving parts that can convert heat to electricity with a greater than 40% efficiency. Researchers say the solution outperforms traditional steam turbines and could someday enable a fully decarbonized power grid.

On average, steam turbines reliably convert about 35% of a heat source into electricity, with about 60% representing the highest efficiency of any heat engine to date. However, the system’s moving parts are not able to withstand temperatures higher than about 3600 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s why scientists have studied heat engines with no moving parts, that could potentially work efficiently at higher temperatures.

The MIT and NREL heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell, similar to a solar panel’s photovoltaic cells. The TPV cell passively captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat source and converts them into electricity. The partners’ design can generate electricity from a heat source between roughly 3,400 to 4,300 degrees Fahrenheit.

“One of the advantages of solid-state energy converters are that they can operate at higher temperatures with lower maintenance costs because they have no moving parts,” said Asegun Henry, with MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “They just sit there and reliably generate electricity.”

The researchers plan to incorporate the TPV cell into a grid-scale thermal battery system. The system would absorb excess energy from the sun and store that energy in heavily insulated banks of hot graphite. When the energy is needed, such as on overcast days, TPV cells would convert the heat into electricity, and dispatch the energy to a power grid.

The new TPV cell represents what the researchers called a successful demonstration in separate, small-scale experiments. They are now working to integrate the parts to demonstrate a fully operational system. From there, they eventually hope to scale up the system to replace plants powered by fossil fuels and allow a decarbonized power grid supplied solely by renewable energy.

TPV cells can be made from semiconducting materials with a particular bandgap — the gap between a material’s valence band and its conduction band. If a photon with a high enough energy is absorbed by the material, it can kick an electron across the bandgap. The electron can then conduct, and thereby generate electricity, all doing so without moving parts or motors.

Until this point, MIT researchers said most TPV cells have reached efficiencies of around 20%, with the record at around 32%. That performance largely is a because they have been made of relatively low-bandgap materials that convert lower-temperature, low-energy photons, and therefore convert energy less efficiently.

The new TPV cell is fabricated from three main regions: a high-bandgap alloy, which sits over a slightly lower-bandgap alloy, underneath which is a mirror-like “layer of gold.” The first layer captures a heat source’s highest-energy photons and converts them into electricity, while lower-energy photons that pass through the first layer are captured by the second and converted to add to the generated voltage.

Any photons that pass through this second layer are then reflected by the mirror, back to the heat source, rather than being absorbed as wasted heat.

The team tested the cell’s efficiency by placing it over a heat flux sensor — a device that directly measures the heat absorbed from the cell. They exposed the cell to a high-temperature lamp and concentrated the light onto the cell. They then varied the bulb’s intensity, or temperature, and observed how the amount of power the cell produced compared with the heat it absorbed — changed with temperature. Over a range of 1,900 to 2,400 degrees Celsius, the new TPV cell maintained an efficiency of around 40%.

The cell in the experiments is about a square centimeter. For a grid-scale thermal battery system, researchers envisioned the TPV cells would have to scale up to about 10,000 square and would operate in climate-controlled warehouses to draw power from huge banks of stored solar energy. MIT's Asegun Henry pointed out that an infrastructure exists for making large-scale photovoltaic cells, which could also be adapted to manufacture TPVs.

Invenergy and GE Renewable Energy have completed the Traverse Energy Center, the largest of three wind projects in Oklahoma collectively known as the North Central Energy Facilities.

The 998 MW Traverse project is considered the largest wind farm constructed in a single phase in North America. It joins the already operational 199 MW Sundance Wind Energy Center and the 287 MW Maverick Wind Energy Center as the last of three projects developed by Invenergy for American Electric Power (AEP).

Traverse is providing power to customers in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. As part of a recent one-on-one interview with Clarion Energy, AEP President and CEO Nick Akins talked about the latest addition:

Traverse is now operational and powered by 356 of GE’s 2 MW turbines. GE’s platform is a three-blade, upwind, horizontal axis wind turbine with a rotor diameter of either 116, 127 or 132 meters, operates at a variable speed and uses a doubly fed induction generator with a partial power converter system.

The North Central Energy Facilities collectively are powered by 531 GE turbines.

Invenergy will provide operations and maintenance, balance of plant, energy management and asset management services under a ten-year agreement. The company said it now manages close to 13 GW of sustainable energy projects globally.

AEP has a goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and an interim goal of cutting emissions 80% from 2000 levels by 2030. Integral to AEP’s goal is adding approximately 16,000 MW of wind and solar by the end of the decade.

The company also proposed feasibility studies to look at other clean generation technologies, including carbon capture, energy storage and small modular nuclear reactors. The company said that since 2004, it has invested around $14 billion in renewable energy projects across Iowa. 

If approved, the new capacity–known as Wind PRIME–would enable the utility to cover 111% of its customers’ annual energy needs with renewable energy and sustain 100% coverage into the 2030s.

MidAmerican estimates that the Wind PRIME project could create more than 1,100 full-time jobs during the construction phase and another 125 full-time positions for ongoing operations and maintenance.

MidAmerican currently generates energy using 60% wind, 23% coal, 12% natural gas and 5% nuclear and other resources. It said that it added 61 MW of solar capacity in 2021 and plans to add another 80 MW this year.

In a filing with state utility regulators, the company asked that the cost cap for Wind PRIME be set at $1.89 million per megawatt (including Allowance for Funds Used During Construction–AFUDC) for wind-powered facilities and $1.854 million per MW (including AFUDC) for solar-powered generation. It asked that its rate base reflect actual costs if capital costs are lower than projected capital costs. The utility said it would seek regulatory approval if actual capital costs exceed the cost cap.

The utility also asked for an 11.25% allowed return on the common equity portion of Wind PRIME. It asked for an AFUDC rate that recognizes a return on common equity rate of 10.0% for construction work in progress. 

The utility asked regulators to issue a decision on its proposal by October 31. MidAmerican said that timing would allow it to secure federal tax credits for the project.

In early 2021, leaders in Des Moines, Iowa’s most populous city, passed a resolution calling for a transition to 100% carbon-free electricity community-wide by 2035. Officials explored several strategies, including solar panels on city buildings and an expanded energy benchmarking program for buildings.

MidAmerican officials told the City Council at the time that shifting to 100% renewable energy with storage would more than triple average residential electric bills from $74 to $264. Des Moines’ franchise agreement with MidAmerican expires this year, and its clean energy goals could be addressed by the utility’s planned investment in large-scale wind. Missing from MidAmerican’s Wind PRIME proposal are specific commitment to small-scale distributed solar and energy storage resources.

In 2014, Minneapolis used the expiration of its franchise agreement with Xcel Energy to press the utility on clean energy goals. 

The project will be sited in Timrå and Sundsvall municipalities and is set to be installed by 2023.

The project will help Eolus and Hydro REIN to expand their business in the European energy market as well as help both Sweden and the bloc to accelerate the energy transition.

Sweden installed over 12 GW of wind capacity by the end of 2021 on its way to achieving over 17 GW by 2024 as the country seeks to decarbonize its energy supply, according to the Swedish Wind Energy Association.

In addition to supplying the turbines, Siemens Gamesa will also provide maintenance services for a period of 25 years.

Eolus will own a 51% stake in the project while Hydro REIN will own a 49% share.

Hydro REIN will manage the balancing and handling of the electricity produced.

The development follows Eolus and Hydro REIN acquiring some nine wind energy projects that are still in their early stage of development in Sweden in December 2020.

Once completed, the projects will add 672 GW of wind capacity to the country’s energy mix, helping to diversify energy generation for decarbonization and security, according to a statement. The projects are expected to be commissioned as from 2027 through 2032.

Olivier Girardot, head of Hydro REIN, said: “Sweden is a global leader in decarbonization. We are very pleased to play a part in developing the Swedish wind power industry, together with Eolus and accelerate the Nordic energy transition.”

The contract with Siemens Gamesa takes deals signed with Eolus to just over 450 MW as the company seeks to speed up the energy transition across the Nordics.

Originally published in Power Engineering International.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Thursday that the administration’s goal for offshore wind and the projects being developed now represent a “gust of job growth throughout the country.”

Granholm visited a new offshore wind manufacturing hub in Providence to talk about the Biden administration’s plan to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and to promote the investments in the $1 trillion infrastructure deal.

“More offshore wind means more jobs for iron workers, line workers, engineers, electricians, plumbers, pipefitters,” she said. “Jobs in mining and manufacturing and management and operations and sales, not to mention of course the benefit to surrounding communities.”

At the Port of Providence, Orsted, a Danish energy company, and the utility Eversource are constructing a building for the fabrication and assembly of large, advanced components for turbine foundations. Orsted officials gave Granholm and Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee a tour. The group met union workers who are building the facility.

McKee said he envisions Rhode Island as the “base camp” to support the offshore wind supply chain along the East Coast. Granholm said looking at the building reminded her of a proverb: “When the winds of change blow, some build walls, others build windmills.”

“And we know which side of that Rhode Island falls on,” she said.

Eversource President and CEO Joe Nolan said the Biden administration’s support of offshore wind is a “breath of fresh air” after the Trump administration. Both Nolan and Orsted Offshore North America CEO David Hardy said such support is critical while the U.S. industry is still in the fragile, early stages.

“The momentum is happening,” Nolan said. “We need it to continue.”

“It’s a young industry,” added Hardy. “We need help getting the first projects off the ground.”

Their manufacturing hub at the port is scheduled to be finished this spring to support two offshore wind projects, Revolution Wind and South Fork Wind.

Revolution Wind is a planned offshore wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, to provide power for Connecticut and Rhode Island. The federal government is currently reviewing the construction and operations plan.

The South Fork Wind project will be located off the coast of Rhode Island. Its transmission system will connect to the electric grid on Long Island, New York, making it the state’s first offshore wind farm and jumpstarting the offshore wind industry there.

The interior department announced last week that the administration approved the construction and operations for South Fork Wind, as part of a plan to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. It was the administration’s second approval of a commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project in the United States. The first commercial-scale project is off the coast of Massachusetts.

The first U.S. offshore wind farm began operating off Block Island, Rhode Island, in late 2016. But at five turbines, it’s not commercial-scale. Orsted acquired the developer, Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind, and now operates that wind farm.

Granholm also visited a manufacturer of electric vehicle chargers and a clean energy technology company in Connecticut Thursday. On Friday, she’s hosting a roundtable discussion in Boston about the transition to clean energy.

Granholm has been making stops around the country to talk about how investments in infrastructure incentivize companies like these to open and expand, driving the transition away from fossil fuels, creating jobs and helping people save money on energy. She is visiting areas that are proactive in reducing emissions and areas where more work needs to be done.

President Joe Biden signed his hard-fought $1 trillion infrastructure deal into law in November, declaring that the new infusion of cash for roads, bridges, ports and more is going to make life “change for the better” for the American people. It has $100 million for wind energy research and development, $2.5 billion for transmission lines, including transmission from offshore wind farms, and $20 million to ensure offshore wind is built sustainably, Granholm said.

The companion piece of legislation, the social and environment bill under consideration in the Senate, has $600 million for port infrastructure, as well as significant tax credits to incentivize offshore wind development and turbine manufacturing, she added.

Construction on the Ledyard Windpower site in Kossuth County will be Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions’ first renewable energy project in Iowa. The non-regulated commercial brand of Duke was formed with the combination of several previous units, including REC Solar, Duke Energy Renewables Wind and other subsidiaries.

Verizon Communications has contracted for 180 MW of the Ledyard wind power generation on a 15-year virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA). A virtual PPA means that the electricity generated will not go directly toward the customer company’s power use, but help fund investment in the renewable energy capacity.

“We’re excited to enter into the Iowa market, a state that has valuable wind resources and is ranked second in wind energy generation,” Chris Fallon, president of Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions, said in a statement. “Ledyard Windpower  will not only add cleaner energy and economic value to Kossuth County, but it will also contribute to Duke Energy’s goal of reaching 47,000 MW of renewable energy by 2050.”

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Work on Ledyard is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022. Once operational, it will increase Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions’ U.S. wind capacity to more than 3,100 MW.

The 12,000-acre site could provide enough power for the equivalent of 72,450 homes, according to Duke. The construction phase will create approximately 200 jobs during the peak of work, the release says.

Iowa is host to about 11,000 MW of installed wind energy capacity, according to reports. It ranks a distant second to Texas, but ahead of Oklahoma and Kansas.

North Carolina-based utility giant Duke Energy launched the Sustainable Solutions spinoff in April.  The move unified many of the company’s renewable energy efforts and offered services from financing to planning, construction and management of projects.

Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions was part of our August POWERGEN+ online series on the Future of Electricity

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