Labor programs train workers for wind turbine energy projects

From an Article & Web Site of OffshoreWindAlliance.org, August 3, 2022

Annapolis, MD – Ørsted, the U.S. leader in offshore wind and developer of Skipjack Wind in Maryland, today commended the U.S. Department of Commerce and State of Maryland for a $22.9 million federal investment in the state’s offshore wind workforce training and pledged to work closely with State leaders to prepare Maryland residents for its offshore wind workforce. The State of Maryland, through the Maryland Department of Labor, will utilize the funds to create Maryland Works for Wind, a regional consortium to establish the state as a key hub for offshore wind training, fabrication, and employment.

Ørsted will invest nearly $735 million in Maryland and create thousands of local jobs during Skipjack Wind’s development and operation. As part of this effort, Ørsted is committing $10 million to STEM education and workforce development programs in Maryland. These programs will convene Maryland colleges, universities, community colleges, school systems, registered apprenticeship programs, pre-apprenticeship programs and community organizations to ensure the industry’s immense opportunities are available equitably and sustainably.

“Ørsted is proud to be making significant commitments to develop supply chain, manufacturing, and operations capabilities across Maryland as we develop Skipjack Wind,” said David Hardy, CEO of Ørsted Offshore North America. “The Maryland Works for Wind initiative positions the state to build a pipeline of skilled talent to support Skipjack Wind’s development and other projects in the U.S. and globally. Ørsted is excited to work with the Maryland Department of Labor and its partners to ensure all Marylanders have access to the skills needed to secure good-paying jobs in offshore wind.”

Building on Ørsted’s landmark agreement with the North American Building Trades Union, and the Baltimore – D.C. Metro Building and Construction Trades Council, Ørsted is committed to working in partnership with organized labor to build Skipjack Wind’s onshore and offshore construction, and ensure those who are building this clean energy infrastructure are paid decent wages, work in a safe environment, and have a voice on the job.

Ørsted’s labor agreements have set the bar for working conditions and equity in the offshore wind industry, and will inject new dollars in middle-class wages into the American economy, create apprenticeship and career opportunities for communities most impacted by environmental injustice, and ensure projects will be built with the safest and best-trained workers in America. The Maryland Works for Wind initiative will be critical in helping to reach these goals.

Ørsted is also partnering with Tradepoint Atlantic to build Maryland’s first offshore wind staging center. Ørsted invested $13.2 million in port infrastructure upgrades for handling offshore wind components such as nacelles, blades, and towers, and will develop 50 additional acres for the laydown, storage, and assembly of components. Ørsted will also enable the development of a subsea array cable and turbine tower manufacturing facilities in Maryland to serve offshore wind projects in the U.S. and globally, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in local investment and creating hundreds of local jobs.

On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Ørsted entered into a $70 million supply agreement to establish Maryland’s first offshore wind steel fabrication center at Crystal Steel Fabricators and will construct Maryland’s first zero-emissions operations and maintenance facility in west Ocean City.

About Skipjack Wind

Skipjack Wind is a 966-megawatt offshore wind project under development off the Maryland-Delaware coast. The project will create nearly 1,400 jobs in the Delmarva region, power approximately 300,000 homes in the region with clean energy, and enable more than $500 million in economic investment. Learn more at www.skipjackwind.com.

About Ørsted Offshore North America

The Ørsted vision is a world that runs entirely on green energy. Four years in a row, Ørsted earned recognition as the world’s most sustainable energy company by Corporate Knights, including for 2022. The company is a global clean energy leader and has the largest portfolio of offshore wind energy in the world.

In the United States, Ørsted operates the Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first offshore wind farm, and constructed the two-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project – the first turbines to be installed in federal waters. Ørsted has approximately 5,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy in development in five states and across seven projects. Ørsted Offshore’s North American business is jointly headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island and employs approximately 250 people. To learn more visit us.orsted.com or follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (@OrstedUS).

NOTE: Our Earth is in trouble since the “climate change” problems which became a “climate crisis” are now a “climate emergency”

From the Announcement, White House, U. S. Government, Washington, DC, July 20, 2022

President Biden now emphasizes that climate change is a clear and present danger to the United States. Since Congress is not acting on this emergency, President Biden will. In the coming weeks, President Biden will announce additional executive actions to combat this emergency.

President Biden announced his latest set of executive actions to turn the climate crisis into an opportunity, by creating good-paying jobs in clean energy and lowering costs for families. His actions will protect communities from climate impacts already here, including extreme heat conditions impacting more than 100 million Americans this week, and expand offshore wind opportunities and jobs in the United States.

The President announced at a former coal-fired power plant in Brayton Point, Massachusetts that will host a cable manufacturing facility to support the flourishing offshore wind industry – representing how the President’s leadership is accelerating the nation’s transition away from the pollution, environmental injustice, and volatile price swings of the past toward good-paying jobs and energy security for the future.

President Biden’s new executive actions will:

1. Protect Communities from Extreme Heat and Dangerous Climate Impacts: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is announcing $2.3 billion in funding for its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program for Fiscal Year 2022— the largest BRIC investment in history, boosted by the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This funding will help communities increase resilience to heat waves, drought, wildfires, flood, hurricanes, and other hazards by preparing before disaster strikes. BRIC is among hundreds of federal programs that the Biden-Harris Administration is transforming to support the Justice40 Initiative and prioritize delivering benefits to disadvantaged communities.

2. Lower Cooling Costs for Communities Suffering from Extreme Heat: Today, the Department of Health and Human Services is issuing guidance that for the first time expands how the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) can promote the delivery of efficient air conditioning equipment, community cooling centers, and more. In April, the Biden-Harris Administration released $385 million through LIHEAP to help families with their household energy costs, including summer cooling—part of a record $8 billion that the Administration has provided, boosted by the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

3. Expand Offshore Wind Opportunities and Jobs: The Department of the Interior is proposing the first Wind Energy Areas in the Gulf of Mexico, a historic step toward expanding offshore wind opportunities to another region of the United States. These areas cover 700,000 acres and have the potential to power over three million homes. President Biden is also directing the Secretary of the Interior to advance wind energy development in the waters off the mid- and southern Atlantic Coast and Florida’s Gulf Coast —alleviating uncertainty cast by the prior Administration. These actions follow the President’s launch of a new Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership that brought together Governors to deliver more clean, affordable energy and new jobs.

Off Grid Energy will be distributed more widely over time ...

From the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, July 1, 2020

Spending on renewable power is set to overtake oil and gas drilling for the first time next year as clean energy affords a $16 trillion investment opportunity through 2030, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Renewables including biofuels will account for about a quarter of all energy spending next year, up from about 15% in 2014, Goldman analysts including Michele Della Vigna said in a June 16 note. This is in part driven by diverging costs of capital, as borrowing rates have risen to as high as 20% for hydrocarbon projects compared with as little as 3% for clean energy.

For more information, you can purchase the IDTechEx report on Distributed Generation: Off-Grid Zero-Emission kW-MW 2020-2040.

Clean energy could drive $1-$2 trillion a year in infrastructure investment and create 15-20 million jobs globally. Meanwhile the high cost of capital for fossil fuel developments is leading to underinvestment, which could lead to higher oil and gas prices that in turn spur a faster energy transition.

“Renewable power will become the largest area of spending in the energy industry in 2021, on our estimates, surpassing upstream oil and gas for the first time in history,” Goldman said in the note.

The divergence in borrowing costs for high- and low-carbon developments implies a carbon emissions price of about $40 to $80 a ton, Goldman said. In the real world, however, only about 16% of global emissions are priced, and the average value is about $3 a ton.

That’s creating a bifurcated investment model, with money flowing into mature technologies including wind, solar and biofuels while less-developed efforts such as like carbon capture and clean hydrogen could suffer without higher emissions prices, Goldman said.

Bloomberg says investments in renewables of $2.6 trillion this past decade

Solar panels are easy to install and supplement our electricity supply

From Appalachian Voices, outreach@appvoices.org, May 30, 2020

Dear Friends and Concerned Citizens:

A special interest group with ties to monopoly utilities filed a petition with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to try to end a fundamental policy that allows solar and wind owners to earn fair credit for the surplus electricity they produce. The deadline to stop this attack is in just a few weeks.

The Southern Environmental Law Center is representing Appalachian Voices at the FERC to help fight against this petition. But we need your input to tell the story of the negative impacts that would occur if FERC puts an end to net metering.

Millions of families and businesses have invested tens of billions of their own dollars in clean energy. As FERC makes decisions about the future of clean energy, it needs to hear from families and businesses in Appalachia and beyond about the negative impacts ending the net metering policy would have.

Clean Energy Survey > Appalachian Voices

Fill out our quick survey to help us protect clean energy!

For a clean energy future,

Chelsea Barnes,
New Economy Program Manager

The goal is “zero carbon emissions” by 2050 ...

From an Essay by Ivy Main, Virginia Mercury, May 14, 2020

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Dominion Energy Virginia filed its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan on May 1. Instead of charting the electric utility’s pathway to zero carbon emissions, it announced its intent to hang on to all its gas plants, and even add to the number. In doing so, it revealed a company so thoroughly wedded to fracked gas that it would rather flout Virginia law and risk its own future than do the hard work of transforming itself.

The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) may be new, but Dominion can hardly claim to be surprised by the commonwealth’s move away from fossil fuels. Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order last September set a statewide target of zero carbon emissions from the electric sector by 2050. “Challenge accepted,” said a Dominion spokesman at the time, and in February of this year the company claimed it was embracing a 2050 net-zero-carbon goal company-wide. A month later, passage of the Clean Economy Act moved the deadline up to 2045 for Dominion, keeping it at 2050 for utilities that lack Dominion’s head start of 30 percent nuclear power.

Dominion’s IRP, however, does not accept the challenge to get off fossil fuels. It rejects the challenge, directing a giant middle finger at the governor and the General Assembly. Dominion’s “preferred” plan keeps the utility’s existing fracked gas generating plants — currently 40 percent of its electric generation — operating through 2045. The IRP acknowledges this violates the law, so it argues against the law.

The IRP posits that if Dominion stops burning gas in Virginia, it will instead simply buy electricity from out of state, some of which will be generated by gas, and this will cost more money without reducing carbon emissions at the regional level. Better, then, to keep burning gas in Virginia.

It gets worse. The IRP actually proposes increasing the number of gas combustion turbines in Dominion’s fleet. The VCEA imposes a two-year moratorium on new fossil fuel plants, so Dominion’s timetable has these gas peaker plants coming online in 2023 and 2024. The justification is vague; the IRP cites “probable” reliability problems related to adding a lot of solar, but it offers no analysis to back this up, much less any discussion of non-gas alternatives.

Dominion’s flat-out refusal to abandon gas by 2045 poisons the rest of the document. The IRP is supposed to show a utility’s plans over a 15-year period, in this case up to 2035. And for those years, the IRP includes the elements of the VCEA that make money for Dominion: the build-out of solar, offshore wind and energy storage projects. It also includes money-saving retirements of outmoded coal, oil and biomass plants, as the VCEA requires. Heck, it even includes plans to close a coal plant the VCEA would allow to stay open in spite of its poor economic outlook (the Clover plant, half-owned by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative.)

But the IRP proposes no energy efficiency measures beyond those mandated by the VCEA between now and 2025. Dominion hates energy efficiency; it reduces demand, which is bad for business. So the company has made no effort to think deeply about how energy efficiency and other demand-side measures can support a zero-carbon grid — or, for that matter, how customer-owned solar can be made a part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

This isn’t surprising: a plan that contemplates keeping gas plants around indefinitely looks very different, even in the first 15 years, from a plan that closes them all within 10 years after that.

A company that really accepted the challenge of creating a zero-carbon energy supply would not just get creative in its own planning; it would look beyond generating and supplying electricity, at the larger universe of solutions. It would advocate for buildings constructed to need much less energy, including for heating and cooling, to lessen the seasonal peaks in energy demand.

It would want the state to embrace strong efficiency standards. It would press its corporate and institutional customers to upgrade their facilities and operations to save energy, especially at times of peak demand. It would partner with communities to create microgrids. It would invest in innovation.

In short, it would ask “How can we achieve our fossil-free goal?” instead of asking “How can we keep burning gas?”

It’s not hard to understand why Dominion clings to gas; its parent company is fighting desperately to keep the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project alive in the face of spiraling costs (now up to $8 billion), an increasingly uphill battle at the State Corporation Commission to stick utility ratepayers with the costs of a redundant gas supply contract and a dearth of other customers anywhere along the route.

What is really hard to understand, though, is why Dominion chose to be quite so transparent in its disdain for the VCEA. Senator Jennifer McClellan and Delegate Rip Sullivan, both Democrats, who introduced the law and negotiated its terms with Dominion lobbyists and other stakeholders through many long days and nights, reacted to the IRP with entirely predictable outrage. In a statement they responded:

“The VCEA requires Virginia utilities to step up to the plate and be active leaders in carbon reduction. Dominion Energy’s IRP is tantamount to quitting the game before the first pitch is thrown. The law sets clear benchmarks for Virginia to reach 100 percent clean energy by 2045, not for utilities to plan to import carbon-polluting energy from West Virginia or Kentucky.”

Senator McClellan, it might be pointed out, could be on her way to becoming Virginia’s next governor. Most companies would hesitate to offend a leader of her stature, as well as such a prominent Democratic leader as Delegate Sullivan.

But that’s Dominion for you. It will rise to any challenge, as long as the challenge doesn’t require anything the company didn’t already want to do.

>>> NOTE: Ivy Main is a lawyer and a longtime volunteer with the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter. A former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employee, she is currently the Sierra Club’s renewable energy chairperson. Her opinions are her own in this essay.

ITC for solar energy being dramatically reduced

From an Article by Ari Natter, Bloomberg News, February 5, 2020

The Trump administration is withholding nearly a billion dollars for a clean energy program it has unsuccessfully tried to cut, congressional Democrats said Wednesday, raising the specter of political interference.

The unspent funds now amount to $823 million in the Energy Department’s office that provides grants and other financial assistance for alternative energy, electric vehicles and energy efficiency, according to Democrats on the House Science Committee, which is holding a joint subcommittee hearing on the topic.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which has a $2.85 billion budget, was targeted for 80% cuts in the last White House budget request — only to see Congress increase its funding instead. The office has also recently canceled funding of proposed projects and left scores of staffing positions unfilled, said Illinois Democrat Bill Foster.

“When Congress passes a budget, we expect that budget to be followed,” said Foster, chairman of the panel’s Investigations and Oversight subcommittee. “It’s unclear to many of us there has been a completely good-faith effort.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement that the delayed-funding was yet another example of “ideologically driven efforts that thwart action to combat climate” change. The Trump administration has moved to ease Obama-era rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and power plants, while also pulling the country out of the Paris climate accord.

“The agency is flouting congressional intent,” said Arjun Krishnaswami, an analyst with the environmental group’s climate and clean energy program.

Republicans on the committee said so-called carry-over funding within the office was normal. “It’s business as usual,” said Representative Ralph Norman, of South Carolina.

And Daniel Simmons, assistant secretary for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said the agency fully intends to spend its appropriated funding “consistent with both congressional guidance and administration priorities.” The office is in the process of hiring more staff, Simmons said.

He pointed to $126 million in funding for solar technologies announced by the Energy Department just as the hearing began Wednesday. ”This has been a very good faith effort,” Simmons testified.“We are trying to be good stewards of tax payer dollars.”

Planning underway by Clean Energy States Alliance, May 9, 2019

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which grew under Obama, has financed research into technologies ranging from electric vehicles to energy projects powered by ocean waves. It has been credited with financing research to help make the cost of wind power competitive with coal-fired electricity, and cutting the costs of LED lighting.

WV repealed a renewable energy portfolio standard in 2015

Letter by Joey James and Evan Hansen, Charleston Gazette, March 18, 2018

For many years, private and government forecasts have predicted sharp declines in Central Appalachian coal production in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee. These declines have occurred, largely as predicted, and our region has suffered.

Even after Donald Trump’s election, headlines tell stories of miners losing their jobs, mines closing, companies filing for bankruptcy and decreases in severance tax revenues — which have significant impacts on local economies and the wellbeing of Central Appalachia’s people.

Meanwhile, in what seems like an entirely different world, investment across the country in renewable energy is at an all-time high. While our coal-fired power plants are closing, new plants fueled by natural gas, wind farms and solar arrays are being built in large numbers. In recent years, global investments in renewables were more than double those for new coal and natural gas generation.

There is no silver bullet to solve Central Appalachia’s economic woes, and modernizing our region’s generation portfolio is only part of the solution. However, when taken together, three state-sponsored incentives have been proven to attract significant investments, and at this point, that is what we need — significant investments.

If Central Appalachia wishes to promote growth in the renewable energy industry, the following policies should receive support:
• Renewable portfolio standards.
• Renewable portfolio standards require
• electricity producers to integrate a certain amount of renewable energy. Most states have an RPS, and in 2016, the 29 states with an RPS and Washington, D.C., accounted for nearly 75 percent of our nation’s GDP. States without an RPS contributed just over 16 percent. The rest have enacted voluntary goals rather than standards. No Central Appalachian states have enacted mandatory standards, and only Virginia has enacted a goal.
• Net metering.
• For electric customers that generate their own electricity, net metering allows for the flow of electricity both to and from the customer — typically through a bi-directional meter. When generation exceeds use, electricity from the customer flows back to the grid, offsetting electricity consumed at other times. All Central Appalachian states, with the exception of Tennessee, have enacted legislation that enables net metering.
• Property-assessed clean energy financing.
• Property-assessed clean energy financing allows commercial property owners to borrow money for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and repay the amount borrowed through an assessment added to their tax bill. Kentucky and Virginia have passed PACE-enabling legislation. West Virginia and Tennessee should follow suit.

Worldwide, private sector champions of the 21st century economy are making vigorous commitments to sustainability and renewable energy. Google, for example, powers 100 percent of its operations, including many data centers, with renewable energy through power-purchase agreements.

Amazon, another quintessential 21st century business, is committed to achieving 100 percent renewable energy across its global infrastructure and is currently constructing wind and solar farms in Ohio, Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina. When completed, these installations will deliver more than 1.6 million megawatt-hours of renewable energy into the electric grids that power Amazon Web Services’ cloud data centers.

Attracting investments, jobs and tax revenues from these types of companies will require new policies like the three presented above, and legislatures, state agencies and local governments should act now. New energy jobs are being created across the country — why not here?

NOTE — Joey James and Evan Hansen assist communities across Appalachia on issues related to sustainable economic development. They work for Downstream Strategies and are based out of Morgantown.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations for achievement by 2030 (next 12 years). … The SDGs cover a broad range of social and economic development issues. These include poverty, hunger, health, education, climate change, gender equality, water, sanitation, energy, environment and social justice.

Energy Subsidies: Fossil Fuels vs Renewable Energy (Clean Technia)

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemist & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

Subsidies, where the government provides funds to advance the interests of some industry, are the best thing the petroleum and coal industries have going for them. They are, in fact, payments to increase profits, the motivation for business. The fossil fuel industry gets $20 billion a year. Sounds like a lot of motivation!

That figure comes from Dirty Energy Dominance: Dependant on Denial. The global warming we are experiencing is being subsidized by our government. The result of a second study published by the Stokholm Environmental Institute in a peer reviewed journal includes this in the abstract:

“This study finds that, at recent oil prices of USD 50 per barrel, tax preferences and other subsidies push nearly half of new, yet-to-be-developed oil investments into profitability, potentially increasing U.S. oil production by 17 billion barrels over the next few decades.

“This oil, equivalent to 6 billion [long tons] of CO2, could make up as much as 20% of U.S. oil production through 2050 under a carbon budget aimed at limiting warming to 2 °C. Our findings show that removal of tax incentives and other fossil fuel support policies could both fulfil G20 commitments and yield climate benefits.

The abstract is available here.

It’s a really good investment for the companies, too. A few hundred million dollars in lobbying and candidate support, and the return is $20 billion. That’s a many-fold return.

It is clear that the big pipelines are not about helping Americans (most of us, that is). Adequate shipping capacity is in place to meet present demand. On the one hand, they are intended to allow more gas to be used for electrical generation when cleaner and cheaper renewables are just around the corner, and to provide liquid natural gas for export. The former not only screws up the atmosphere, but the economy, too. Oil and gas extraction are a mature industry, capital intensive and high return to capital.

For each dollar spent, solar and wind energy projects create twice as many jobs as coal or natural gas, economists at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, calculated in 2009. That includes more jobs in manufacturing and construction, and more jobs at an average hourly wage of $24.50.

On the other hand, the intention is shown by the fact roughly 60 percent of the new L.N.G. export capacity worldwide is being built in the United States, which only began exporting large supplies last year, giving Washington a new tool for its foreign policy toolbox and raising the country to the top tier of exporters, which includes Qatar, Australia and Russia.

What the U. S. oil and gas industry plans is to crowd Russia especially, but also Qatar and Australia oil and gas companies. Russia has vast supplies of conventional gas that can be shipped through pipelines as gas. They are doing it now through the Nordstrom pipelines which go from Russia to Germany through two parallel 48 inch pipes with 1.5 inch walls and working at about twice the pressure in the proposed ACP and MVP pipelines.

American gas companies intend to frack their gas, which involves manufactured chemicals, involves all that trucking of water and chemicals, and takes new pipelines to carry it to the ocean, where it will be liquefied, then transported on special ships with pressurized containers, and finally converted back to gas at the destination. Huge costs to produce and carry. How can they compete with Russian gas just pumped out of the ground and sent to the customers through pipelines? Subsidies! And pipelines paid for by U. S. gas customers!

The energy return on energy invested, commonly called EROI is lower, too. Manufacturing the chemicals for fracking, the extra pipe needed by the whole scheme off fracking for export and carting all the materials too and from the actual drilling site pushed the EROI ratio lower. At some point it becomes uneconomical.

A recent study, “Long-Term Estimates of the Eneregy-Return-on-Energy-Invested of Coal, Oil, and Gas Global Productions” points out that when the historic EROI’s are calculated, it shows since the early 20th century we are using more energy to produce each fuel.

The aggregate of all fossil fuels maxed in the 1960’s and has declined since. Other studies show that the decline in fossil fuels has played a part in the world slowdown of economic growth and national debt to gross domestic product ratios.

It’s time for society to change to another form of energy.

Let's Promote Clean Green Energy

Wind energy for America in Rational and Recommended

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

Wind energy is growing rapidly in many parts of America. It is the least incentivized form of energy, less than 3% of all federal energy incentives, but it is growing by leaps and bounds. A new turbine was put up every 2.4 hours during the first quarter of 2017, and 5.5 % of all electrical energy in 2016 was produced by wind. The attraction is that it has a low, stable cost. No fuel cost to go up and down, in fact no fuel cost at all! Landowners are paid for leasing rights, though. Once established, only maintenance, amortization of original cost and lease of land cost. Steady growth is expected through 2020.

By that time, it will comprise 10% of all electrical generation.

By the mid-2020s, the cost of unsubsidized onshore wind will be low enough to compete with both existing and new fossil-fueled generation in many regions of the U.S., Alex Morgan of Bloomberg of New Energy Finance, has said.

Texas is the leader with 21,000 MW of wind power, Iowa is second with about a third of that. Approximately, $245 million a year goes to local landowners for leases.

Offshore wind energy is now beginning to come online, too. The first one completed is on Block Island, off the Rhode Island coast. Previously supplied by exclusively by diesel generators, while subject to near constant wind. The new offshore wind generation makes possible cheaper electricity for Block Island which has 1000 inhabitants in the off season, but has 10,000 when the tourists come out.

This article has a map showing a dozen more projects off the Atlantic Coast which have leased Federal water and five in addition to that are in the planning stage. The article also mentions that the U. S. East Coast is one of the richest sources for wind energy in the world. One must note with some glee that it could supply precisely the area served by the two big nasty pipelines affecting West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, namely, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).

Onshore wind is 6 cents per kWh, completive with natural gas, but offshore is about 13 cents per kWh. Larger scale, more advanced projects will bring the cost down, a projection supported by the European experience.

Locating wind farms in the U. S. Southeast has been a tough nut to crack. The Republican legislators have fought wind “tooth and nail” by using more permitting guidelines and tougher applications. When a large wind farm was proposed, the military supported it, local communities supported it, as well as renewable energy groups. One with 104 turbines is going into Pasqotac County, NC, which will provide enough for 61,000 homes.

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has approved plans for a ridge top project near Roanoke in the Appalachian mountains.

Two more technical points: Taller turbines are important, because they reach up to heights where wind flow is less gusty and faster. This is particularly important where there are hills.

Second, need for storage is often cited as a weakness for wind, as it is for solar. However, up to 36% of renewables could be used without storage, by using transmission lines to take renewable energy from one area to another. Lithium ion batteries are being developed of a size that will help with this problem, too. The reader interested in this may go here, and view Section 4.1 and Table 4.1.

The future of wind is promising from several standpoints: cost, no greenhouse gas produced, and production of far more, and better, jobs than burning fossil fuels.

The big hitch is getting around the entrenched older ways of thinking to get energy: influence in legislative bodies, rapid wealth production for investors, and simple inertia in the thinking processes of the public. These must be overcome for maximum use of this new technology and the benefits it will bring.

>>> Tom Bond is a lifelong resident of West Virginia with a PhD in chemistry and years of teaching chemistry at the high school and college level.

The 2016 investment less than 2015 of $348.5 billion dollars

Clean Energy Investment in 2016 Undershoots 2015 Record

From a Report of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, July 14, 2016

< View this press release in PDF >

Investment slowdowns in China and Japan, as well as further reduction in the cost of solar, mean 2016 investment will fall well short of 2015’s upwardly revised $348.5bn

London and New York, 14 July 2016 – Clean energy investment in the second quarter totaled $61.5bn, some 12% above the first-quarter 2016 figure but 32% below a very strong outturn of $90bn in the equivalent period of 2015.

Looking at the 2016 trend so far, and taking the Q1 and Q2 2016 figures together, global investment in the first half of this year was $116.4bn, some 23% lower than in the opening six months of 2015, according to the latest authoritative data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Europe’s figure for H1 2016 was up 4% at $33.5bn, and Brazil was up 36% at $3.7bn. But all the other regions were down – China by 34% to $33.7bn, India down 1% at $3.8bn, the rest of Asia Pacific down 47% at $12.1bn, Middle East and Africa down 46% at $4.2bn, the US down 5% at $23.1bn, and the Americas excluding the US and Brazil down 63% at $2.3bn.

Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said:  “It is now looking almost certain that the global investment total for this year will fail to match 2015’s runaway record. China’s financing of wind and solar projects was even higher last year than previously estimated, and the hangover this year caused by weak electricity demand and policy changes in that country will therefore be all the greater.”

Changes in the solar market are another of the main reasons for the lower trajectory for global investment so far this year. Photovoltaic panels and project construction have become cheaper in many countries, and there has also been a shift from small-scale projects (relatively expensive in terms of dollars per MW) to utility-scale projects, which are cheaper in capex terms.

Upward revision

While the figures for 2016 so far have been on the low side, BNEF also revealed today that global clean energy investment was even stronger last year than thought. Revised figures show that new investment in 2015 was $348.5bn, nearly $20bn above the previous estimate of $328.9bn published in January.

The revision reflects information on investment transactions not disclosed at the time. The two big changes to the 2015 total are an upward revision of $29bn to asset finance of utility-scale wind and solar projects – mainly in China and the US – and a downward revision of $10bn to spending on small distributed capacity, such as rooftop solar, particularly in Japan.

Abraham Louw, associate for energy economics at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “One shouldn’t look at these latest Q2 figures too negatively. Last year’s investment of $348.5bn was really quite groundbreaking – up 11% over 2014 and 30% over 2013.”

First Half (H1) 2016 details

The biggest category of investment in the first half of 2016 was, as usual, asset finance of renewable energy projects, at $92bn worldwide, down 19% on H1 2015. The biggest asset finance deals of the second quarter were in offshore wind in Europe, led by the $3.9bn final investment decision on the 588MW Beatrice project in UK waters by SDIC Power Holdings, SSE Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Other offshore wind arrays financed in Q2 included the 450MW Borkum Riffgrund and 385MW Arkona, both off Germany, and the 400MW Horns Rev 3 in Danish waters.

Big-ticket projects getting the go-ahead in other renewable power technologies included the 100MW Engie Kathu solar thermal plant in South Africa, worth an estimated $756m, the 400MW Enel Cimarron Bend onshore wind installation in the US, at $610m, and the 300MW AZTE Quaid-e-Azam PV plant in Pakistan, at an estimated $363m.

Small-scale solar projects attracted $19.5bn in the first half of 2016, down 32% on the same period of last year. Much of this was down to lower costs, but there was also a marked slowdown in the largest market for these systems, Japan, where deployment amounted to $4.6bn in H1, down 66% on the same period of 2015.

Public markets investment in specialist clean energy companies was $3.8bn in the first half of 2016, some 56% below that in the first six months of 2015, although there was a sharp pick-up between Q1 and Q2 this year. The top public market fundings of the second quarter were a $1.7bn secondary share issue by US electric car maker Tesla Motors, and two secondary issues by Chinese digital energy companies, Ningbo Sanxing Electric and Genimous Investment, worth $457m and $432m respectively.

Venture capital and private equity investment in clean energy firms totalled $2.8bn in the first half of the year, up 2% on H1 2015. The biggest VC/PE deals were $230m of expansion capital for India-based wind project developer Greenko Energy Holdings, and $120m of early-stage money for Chehejia, a Chinese electric vehicle maker.

See the chart for the quarterly investment trend. A fact pack showing the detailed trends is available for download on this link.

Note: The revised annual data show that overall clean energy investment in 2015 was a record $348.5bn, up 11% on 2014. The equivalent figures for other years are $61.8bn for 2004, $88bn in 2005, $128.2bn in 2006, $174.7bn in 2007, $205.2bn in 2008, $206.8bn in 2009, $276.1bn in 2010, $317.5bn in 2011, $290.7bn in 2012, $268.6bn in 2013 and $315bn in 2014.

The annual figures include all the categories of investment calculated quarterly (asset finance, reinvested equity, small-scale projects, venture capital and private equity, and public markets), but also two other categories – corporate and government research and development and digital energy asset finance.

CONTACT: Jen MacDonald, Bloomberg New Energy Finance

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