Wind-power disconnect: Transmission problems, turbine demand threaten growth of wind-generated power
All the wind turbines in the world won’t reduce the need for fossil fuels if transmission lines don’t connect the power those turbines create to the energy grid.
In fact, transmission difficulties – along with high demand for wind turbines – are generating concern that Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy that it might not be able to meet a 2007 request to use at least 500 megawatts of power generated by community-based wind farms.
Xcel’s concern about the rapidly transforming state of the competitive wind energy industry was expressed in a filing last month to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC).
“Overall, we are optimistic regarding the process …” wrote Judy Poferl, managing director of government & regulatory affairs for Xcel. “Nonetheless, challenges regarding transmission interconnection and turbine availability remain, and will require continued efforts to address.”
Poferl’s comments were contained in a nine-page update on Xcel’s 2007 request for proposals (RFP); Community-Based Energy Development (C-BED) project solicitation; and progress increasing the utility’s percentage of renewable energy.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed legislation in 2007 requiring most state utilities to generate 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. That same law required Xcel to produce 30 percent of its energy from renewable resources, including 500 megawatts of that from community-based wind farms by 2010.
Although currently on target to meet that threshold, the utility’s MPUC filing contained a variety of concerns: transmission capacity, neighboring states increasing renewable energy requirements; and contract terminations with five community wind projects totaling 85.2 megawatts – enough juice to power 155,000 homes.
Projects out of the loop include three projects totaling 60 megawatts that fell victim to transmission study delays or wind turbine availability; an 18.9-megawatt Goodhue County project that could not obtain the desired turbines; and a 6.3-megawatt Pope County project that missed its Dec. 31, 2007 contract deadline.
Transmission troubles are part a “very difficult and complicated solution” to plug C-BED wind farms, which generally are grassroots versions utility-scale wind farms, into the power grid.
Larger “utility scale” wind farms increasingly are being developed by utilities, including Xcel, and a host of wind energy developers seeking to profit from the increasingly dark image of coal-fired power plants.
“Part of what we have here is the type of issue that comes when a major industrial sector goes through a paradigm shift to make it more viable,” said George Crocker, a veteran power line activist who now is executive director of the North American Water Office (NAWO), a Lake Elmo-based non-profit watchdog group.
“There’s no doubt that it’s a very difficult and complicated situation,” said Crocker, whose NAWO organization is an outgrowth of groups protesting 1980s high-transmission power lines in Minnesota and North Dakota.
Crocker said that before installing high-voltage transmission lines, utilities should build a network of lower voltage generators to stabilize the power supply to home and handle generation from C-BED wind farms.
“The way we’re doing it now is we’re arbitrarily plunking these (high-voltage transmission lines) down, and not figuring out the smart way to do this,” he said.
But transmission is just one of several wind-energy gusts buffeting the C-BED plans of Xcel, which received more than 3,000 megawatts of proposed C-BED projects from 11 developers in Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota after it issued its RFP.
Recently, neighboring states have considered strengthening their renewable energy goals in moves that could pressure Xcel Energy to boost the total amount of renewable energy in those states, as well as the 30 percent it is attempting to generate to meet Minnesota law.
South Dakota, for example, recently enacted legislation establishing a 10 percent voluntary renewable energy standard for utilities. Meanwhile, Xcel could be further pressured by Wisconsin’s expected renewable standard to 20 percent of energy generated.
Xcel’s submission to the MPUC also revealed anxiety about the extension of the Production Tax Credit, or PTC, which gives renewable energy developers a two cent-per kilowatt hour tax credit for the first 10 years of a project.
Uncertainty about extension of the PTC, which can pare development costs by 30 percent, contributes to delays in contracting with C-BED projects, which are preceded by cost studies.
Asked whether Xcel can meet the 30 percent renewable provision in the 2007 law, Crocker replied, “I’m pretty confident that they’ll be able to do it. But I wonder whether that will be the ceiling rather than the floor.”
By BobGeiger
Staff Writer
5 September 2008
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