Chase Energy Canada Limited » bhesson

Columbia River Treaty Review; SDG&E Approved for 100MW Solar

bhesson — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:57:33 +0000

The Columbia River Treaty doesn’t come up much in casual conversation. Even at this week’s Legislative Council on River Guidance in Missoula, the 45-year-old agreement was an eye-opener for the representatives of Montana, Oregon, Idaho and Washington. It governs the fate of 8.5 million acre-feet of stored water in Canada, which can produce around 450 megawatts of electricity before it reaches the U.S. border and goes through more reservoirs and dams. The council members were merely in Missoula to learn about future water issues, and had no power to take action on the treaty. But Matt Rea of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stressed that their state governments needed to be thinking about their stakes in international water questions sooner rather than later. The treaty runs through at least 2024.

California state regulators have approved a proposal allowing SanDiego Gas & Electric to build its own solar farms here and buy power from others who build them – up to 100MW. SDG&E would spend up to $100 million putting 26 megawatts photovoltaic cells on land and buildings it owns in San Diego and purchase three times as much power from local solar farms. To control costs to customers, the PUC is capping how much SDG&E can spend on the projects it builds, and it’s requiring the company request bids for the power it buys and choose the cheapest ones. The focus on this program is on facilities of 1 to 5 megawatts to be done in the county, and which won’t require new power lines like the controversial Sunrise Powerlink.

New US Coal Gen Plants Sets Record; Duke To Close 7 Coal Plants

bhesson — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:56:09 +0000

According to statistics from the Energy Information Administration, for several decades, there were few new coal-fired plants being built, Owing mainly to environmental opposition and the resulting legal and regulatory challenges, natural gas units and, more recently, wind turbines were being built instead. But that trend may be changing somewhat. In 2009, both the National Energy Technology Laboratory and the EIA report new coal-fired plants came on line. According to NETL, 3,218 megawatts of coal-fired power plants came on-line in 2009, the most in one year since 1991. Further, NETL reports that 22 units are in the construction pipeline, while EIA reports that 5 new coal-fired units came on line in just the first 6 months of this year.

Duke Energy said Wednesday it might close seven coal-fired units at its Carolinas power plants within five years as environmental regulations intensify. Federal regulators are expected to stiffen limits on pollutants that form smog, acid rain and haze, Duke said in an annual planning document filed with the N.C. Utilities Commission. New rules for toxic mercury emissions and coal ash are also expected. Shutting down old units can be cheaper for utilities than refitting them with new pollution controls. Duke said it may retire by 2015 all coal-fired units for which it’s not economical to install sulfur-dioxide controls called scrubbers.

Nexen Long Lake Off and on; Sundance#1 Back Online After Several Attempts

bhesson — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:33:05 +0000

Nexen Long Lake went offline at 18:30 and came back online at 23:27 yesterday; Sundance#1 came back online at 01:18 this morning.

Siemens Canada Milton Avenue facility in Hamilton where Siemens manufactures gas turbines, was to close in April next year but the company has now agreed to extend its life through July. There’s also the promise of two months’ extra employment for a few workers kept on to close the factory down. Siemens announced in August it is looking for a place to open the new factory after winning a massive order from Samsung. The turbine blades are for machines that will generate 600 megawatts of wind energy for the Ontario market and is part of a package in which Samsung has agreed to develop 2,000 megawatts of wind power over the next six years.

Pristine Power Inc, a small Canadian green energy developer, sees its biggest growth opportunity in bioenergy in the timber-rich province of British Columbia. Despite being battered in the past over plans to generate electricity from waste wood, Pristine believes it has learned from its mistakes and now has the knowledge, technology and fuel-supply arrangements it needs to thrive. Pristine, a seven-year-old Calgary, Alberta-based company, already operates a waste heat facility and a natural gas power plant, and is also developing wind energy assets in Ontario. Pristine is one of 14 groups with project applications in British Columbia’s call for power supplied from biomass. BC Hydro, the provincial power utility is expected to name preferred bidders in mid-January 2011. The company won a 65 MW biomass contract in northern British Columbia in 2003, but not long after 12 nearby lumber mills shut down due to a price slump, cutting off Pristine’s fuel supply and halting the project.

Sundance#1 on and off line; Northland Completes North Battleford Financing

bhesson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:30:44 +0000

Sundance#1 came online at 20:00 but fell back offline at 21:07 yesterday.

Northland Power Income Fund announced that it has completed financing for its wholly-owned 260 megawatt North Battleford Energy Center project in Saskatchewan. The financing was provided by an international syndicate of 15 banks led by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the Bank of Montreal, and Union Bank. Northland has also negotiated a swap to fix the term loan rate over the entire 20 year duration of the project’s Power Purchase Agreement with SaskPower. Construction of the 260 megawatt, natural gas-fired baseload facility began in May 2010. Commercial operations are expected to begin in the summer of 2013. The facility is being built under an engineer, procure and construct contract by Kansas City based Kiewit Power Partners, and will use a GE 7FA gas turbine operating in combined-cycle mode.

A new government document on community wind farms could mislead municipalities such as Fredericton into spending tens of millions of dollars on a project that could end up losing money. The Department of Energy recently published a paper called New Brunswick Community Wind Projects – Getting to the Tipping Point, which includes a mock business plan based on NB Power paying 10 cents a kilowatt/hour plus an inflation factor for wind-generated electricity. The province wants to buy 75 megawatts of electricity from community-owned renewable energy projects eventually. But that business plan assumes a small wind farm would operate 34.8 per cent of the time but realistically it should be viewed as 30% which could have a drastic effect on such a project’s cash flow.

Keephills#1 and Battle River#5 Online; PGE Tries to shut 585MW Coal Generator

bhesson — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:31:33 +0000

Sheerness#1 went offline at 15:39 Friday and back online ay 18:42 Friday; Battle River#5 was on and off several times finally staying online at 05:58 Saturday; Keephills#1 online at 16:08 Saturday.

The Market Surveillance Administrator, Alberta’s electricity market watchdog, has levied a $655,000 penalty against a NorthPoint Energy – a Saskatchewan trading company, the largest fine laid by the MSA since deregulation a decade ago. The hefty charge was the sum of 332 fines against NorthPoint Energy, the trading arm of Saskatchewan Crown utility SaskPower, for breaking a rule around scheduling power sales across provincial boundaries. It comes 11 years after the administrator investigated similar rule bending between the now defunct and notorious Enron Corp. and PowerEx, the trading arm of B.C. Power. No electricity price spikes resulted from the 300-odd trades that happened between 2008 and 2009, or harm happened to the integrated power system – NorthPoint paid the fine immediately and instituted a number of changes as a result of the investigation. NothPoint misinterpreted the rule, rather than intentionally set about trying to undermine the system for financial gain.

Portland General Electric Inc. says state environmental regulators may be about to squander an historic opportunity to negotiate the early closure of Oregon’s only coal-fired power plant. The utility says it’s making a last-ditch effort next week, submitting a revised proposal to shut its 585MW Boardman plant in 2020. But if regulators reject it, as they did an earlier PGE proposal, the company says it intends to move forward with an existing plan to invest more than $500 million in new pollution controls at the plant and keep it running until at least 2040.

Battle River#5 offline

bhesson — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:28:03 +0000

Battle River#5 went offline at 16:45 yesterday…Several large proposed solar photovoltaic power plants in Central California are undergoing review by county agencies. Each would be much larger than the biggest existing photovoltaic power plants in the United States, but would be smaller than some proposed desert solar projects that would rely on an unrelated concentrating solar thermal technology. The release of San Luis Obispo County’s environmental report on SunPower Corp.’s proposed California Valley Solar Ranch opened a 45-day comment period on the recommendations. The project is one of the largest utility-scale solar proposals now undergoing a U.S. county approval process…The carbon dioxide emissions rate of NextEra Energy has fallen by a third over the past decade as a result of significant investments in low- and no-carbon power generation. From 2000 through 2009, NextEra Energy’s CO2 emissions rate declined from 985 pounds/MWh to 657 pounds/MWh. NextEra Energy has been one of the most profitable companies in the industry. In fact, the company had the highest total shareholder return of any U.S. electric power company over the five years ending Sept. 30, 2009, and outperformed the sector as a whole by 119 percentage points over the 10 years ending Dec. 31, 2009.

Ontario 3rd Largest Solar Market in NA

bhesson — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:07:21 +0000

Last year, Ontario was the third largest market for solar photovoltaic installations in North America pushing aside Florida with an installation total of 46 megawatts of solar PV production capacity and was only behind New Jersey, with 57 mw, and California with 212 mw, according to a report by the nonprofit Interstate Renewable Energy Council…Reservoirs in the Sierra Nevada foothills don’t just store water – they can store energy as well. Through a system called pumped hydro storage, water from one reservoir can be released into another downhill, turning turbines along the way and generating electricity when the state’s power grid needs it. Then, when the grid has ample energy, the water is pumped back uphill, to wait until it’s needed again. Six of these systems already exist in California. Now Pacific Gas and Electric wants to build at least one more, arguing that large-scale energy storage will help smooth out the addition of more solar and wind power to the grid. The project is likely to take six years or more to receive all the necessary government permits. The utility, based in San Francisco, asked California regulators on Friday for permission to spend almost $33.5 million to study and design a pumped hydro system in the Mokelumne River watershed in Amador County. Some of the money would also pay for exploring other possible sites, including one in the Kings River watershed in Fresno County. The Mokelumne River project would connect two existing reservoirs that PG&E already uses to generate hydroelectric power on a regular basis: the Lower Bear and Salt Springs reservoirs. Other possible variations would include using Upper Bear Reservoir or a new reservoir that would be built on nearby Cole Creek. Construction of the entire project would cost an estimated $2.5 billion, although the price could vary significantly depending on the final design.

Battle River#4 Offline; Sheerness#1 Online

bhesson — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:04:35 +0000

Battle River#4 offline at 19:46 yesterday and Sheerness#1 came back online at 03:18 this morning.

Sheerness#1 Offline; Sea Breeze Moves Ahead With North Vancouver Island Wind Farm

bhesson — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:40:04 +0000

Sheerness#1 went offline at 17:58 yesterday…Vancouver based Sea Breeze Power Corp. has signed an agreement to build its Knob Hill Wind Farm on northern Vancouver Island. The company has partnered with Toronto-based electricity generator International Power Canada Inc. to build the first phase of the project, which would generate up to 99MW. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but Sea Breeze did say International Power would become the majority owner of the project. Knob Hill is located 35 kilometres northwest of Port Hardy. BC Hydro granted the project a 20-year electricity purchase agreement in March. Sea Breeze received its provincial environmental assessment certificate in 2004, but had been toiling away on the project for nearly a decade. The company said Knob Hill received strong support from local communities on Vancouver Island and First Nations…The Electricity Distributors Association and its 81 local electricity distribution companies want to congratulate the Town of Goderich, Sioux Lookout, Tecumseh, the Town of Whitby and Halton Region for their commitment to energy conservation and being named winners of the province-wide Community Challenge Day on August 11th. The winners were announced recently at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario annual conference in Windsor.

Point Lepreau Nuke Delayed; Ontario Price on the Rise

bhesson — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:52:41 +0000

Mounting delays to the refurbishment of the Point Lepreau nuclear reactor have prompted a postponement of similar work at the Gentilly 2 station in Quebec. Hydro-Quebec announced Monday that it’s putting off the $1.9-billion project until 2012. It was to begin next year. The electricity giant said it made the decision so it can benefit from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s solutions to problems that have put the Point Lepreau work more than 21/2 years behind schedule. It’s a move that could bolster New Brunswick’s argument that the lessons learned from delays at Lepreau will help AECL’s efforts elsewhere. In the meantime, Gentilly 2 will continue to churn out 675 megawatts of electricity every hour. That means Quebec may be able to avoid additional costs of generating replacement power… Homeowners could be zapped with an extra $48 in annual hydro costs after Premier Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet quietly approved a break on electricity rates for huge industrial users. The move extends time-of-use pricing now in effect for homeowners — allowing them to use electricity cheaper at off-peak times, such as nights and weekends — to major firms like Ford, Vale Inco, and Imperial Oil. It will give big power-consuming sectors an incentive to conserve energy, cut their costs and, the government hopes, keep manufacturing, mining and refining jobs in Ontario…The Saskatchewan government reiterated its position Monday that it hasn’t closed the door to the nuclear energy option. While large reactors might not be the best fit, small-reactor technology could work well in Saskatchewan — the world’s second-largest producer of uranium.