Finland catching-up in wind turbines

Finland lags behind the rest of the Nordics in terms of energy use from wind turbines. The country hopes to construct 200 new wind turbines by the end of this year, which would bring the country's total to over 700. Denmark already boasts more than 4,000 onshore and offshore turbines – while Sweden has more than 3,000.

Finland's Wind Power Association says there were 552 wind turbines in the country at the end of 2016. Estimates put the number of new generators scheduled to be built in 2017 at between 150 and 200.

This means Finland will soon boast a wind turbine fleet of over 700 turbines, with a combined capacity of approximately 2,000 to 2,200 MW, but even then, the country will still lag behind other Nordic countries in wind energy production.

Anni Mikkonen, executive director of the association says that even though Finland was one of the largest investors in wind power in Europe last year, Germany increased its capacity ten-fold during the same period.

The Swedish wind power firm OX2 has been building four wind turbines in western Kokkola, on the shoreline of the Bothnia Bay. They should be complete by the end of October. It usually takes another two weeks or so to hook the new turbines up to Finland's grid. 

One new turbine per week - if it's not windy

Project leader Pasi Tammivaara says that it takes about one week to erect a single turbine, if the winds cooperate. Building work has to be called off every time the winds get too strong, for safety reasons.

"The wind limits when we are building the steel tower is 10 metres per second. When we install the blades, this falls to 8.5 m/s. It is normal to have wind delays in this work, because most wind farms are located in areas with windy conditions," he says.

Work at the site ranges from periods of frantic activity to standstills due to windy conditions. If weather conditions permit, assembly work continues for up to 10 hours at a time.

Still contributing less than 5% energy

Once finished, the new wind farm in Kokkola will have a 14.4 MW capacity, with a projected annual production rate of 556 Wh. The finished hub height, the distance from the platform to the rotor (not including the turbine blades) is 134 metres.

Before the erection of the tower, extensive excavation on the site is necessary to shore up the foundation and build service roads, for example.

Kokkola's groundwater situation has made this site in particular more of a challenge, in that the surrounding terrain needed to be protected before the work could begin. It also required that the foundation for the soaring structure be partially enclosed above ground, as it couldn't be completely buried underground to protect the water supply.

Last year wind power accounted for 3.6 percent of Finland's total energy consumption.

Source: Yle News - Finland

Financial Innovation Set to Cut the Cost of Offshore Wind

FTI Consulting Releases First FTI Intelligence Report

LONDON, May 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN), the global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organisations protect and enhance their enterprise value, today announced the release of an FTI Intelligence report, the first of a series of data-driven publications evaluating competitive markets, policy, finance, technology and business models across the energy spectrum.

The report, Innovative Financing of Offshore Wind, focuses on renewable energy and explores the significant potential for cutting the cost of energy from offshore wind power by reducing financial fees and interest charges, which represent an astonishing 28 percent of project life cycle expenditures. The report is authored by members of the FTI-CL Energy practice, a cross-practice team of energy experts from both FTI Consulting and its subsidiary, Compass Lexecon.

A cost-of-equity sensitivity analysis by FTI-CL Energy professionals demonstrates how small changes in financing variables have a major impact on offshore wind energy costs to the consumer. The levelised cost of energy ("LCOE") is extremely sensitive to changes in debt margin. This analysis found that an increase of 100 basis points results in an average 3.4 percent increase in LCOE.

"Offshore wind energy economics are strongly governed by life cycle financial costs, and the potential to reduce these is considerable," explained Aris Karcanias, Managing Director at FTI Consulting and Leader of the Company's FTI-CL Energy practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "Although financial costs normally are not expressed in terms of their share of overall capital expenditures, identification of the size of the opportunity to reduce capital expenditures shows the importance of financial innovation in providing cheaper electricity from offshore wind."

The report also found that the entry of new investors and lenders to the renewable energy sector with innovative ideas for structuring both equity and debt is applying beneficial pressure to financial margins. "Respectable returns without exposure to risk" was a strong message from European wind industry and financial sector chief executive officers interviewed for this report.

"Corporate and institutional investors looking for low risk, long-term and predictable yield investments are signing on pension, insurance and sovereign wealth funds, to name a few," said Athanasia Arapogianni, Consultant and member of the Company's FTI-CL Energy practice. "Innovative financing and an increase in the number of players in offshore wind finance are creating more competition among lenders, which will lead to lower charges, fees and risk premiums on interest rates."

The report further discovers that offshore wind now rates as an infrastructure asset favourably comparable with airports and highways, qualifying it as a safe harbour for investment and unlocking money markets previously closed to the sector.

"New classes of investors and lenders now are competing for involvement in offshore wind farms during construction and even pre-construction — once considered risky compared with investments in an operational facility," said Mr. Karcanias. "The latest innovation under discussion is bond finance. Investors are well-acquainted with bonds as a financing instrument and are using them to transform offshore wind projects into easy-to-comprehend investment opportunities, which, in turn, will assist in attracting capital to the sector."

In addition to the influx of capital for offshore wind investments, utilities and other equity investors are exercising exit divestment strategies and are selling their interests in completed projects to release capital back into more offshore wind construction.

"Replacement of equity with debt is creating a secondary market in refinancing offshore wind projects," continued Mr. Karcanias. "A clear pattern is emerging of how offshore wind construction will be financed in the future. Capital recycling and the lower capital expenditure levels achieved through learning curve experience are benefits expected to contribute to decreasing annual capital requirements for construction."

The report includes an analysis of this trend and reveals that 46 percent of the required investment by 2020 will be met by recycled capital. Global capacity today is about seven Gigga Watts ("GW") and the report projects capacity reaching 52GW in 2020, driven by notable growth in northern Europe, and 112GW by 2025, as markets in Asia and America continue to grow.

To purchase the FTI Intelligence Innovative Financing of Offshore Wind report in its entirety, visit the FTI Intelligence website at www.fti-intelligence.com or contact Aris Karcanias at aris.karcanias@fticonsulting.com.

Russia sues EU over ‘Third Energy Package’

Russia has filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the EU's so-called 'Third Energy Package,' according to media reports.

“This procedure is provided for in the rules of the Organization,” a source said, adding that “Russia sent a note to the EU Mission at the WTO and notified the WTO Secretariat thereof,” Itar-Tass news agency reported.

A second news agency, Interfax, stated that a “source close to WTO” spoke of “the start [of a] court examination.” The agency said it obtained confirmation from the director of the Ministry of Economic Development’s department of trade negotiations, Maksim Medvedkov.

Signed in 2007, the Third Energy Package outlines a set of rules regulating the European gas and electricity market. The European Commission insists the Third Energy Package was aimed at increasing competition on the energy market, allowing other players to join the sector and liberalizing energy prices.

One of the core elements prohibits a single company from both owning and operating a gas pipeline and contains rules on third party access to the natural oil transportation grid.

“These and other elements of the Third Energy Package, in the opinion of Russia, contradict the obligations of the EU in WTO on basic principles of non-discrimination and market access...the Third Energy Package creates serious obstacles to ensure a stable supply of Russian gas to the EU, including a threat to the construction of new transport infrastructure, for example, in the framework of the ‘South Stream,'” Medvedkov told Interfax.

Moscow broke ground on the South Stream project after securing agreements with intergovernmental agreements with all countries which the pipeline would pass through: Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia.

The Third Energy regulation mandates 50 percent of the pipeline can be operated by Russia's Gazprom, but the other 50 percent must be operated by a third party, a condition Russian energy ministers do not accept, as Gazprom is the only company that has the right to export gas via pipeline.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously stated that the "Third Energy Package" and other documents “should not be backdated to the contracts that were signed before the decision on the Third Energy Package came into force.”

Medvedkov has stressed that Russia has unsuccessfully tried to solve “emerging problems” on a bilateral level.

Now, under WTO rules, Russia and the EU have 60 days to hold joint consultations. If no solution is found during this time, Moscow can demand the right to initiate the creation of a group of independent arbitrators to look into the case.

However, Medvedkov has not ruled out the possibility of Russia and the EU reaching an agreement during consultations.

“We do not aim to have legal proceedings with Brussels for the sake of the judicial process, we want to ensure predictable conditions for export to the EU under WTO rules,” he said.

The Third Energy Package is a set of regulations for an internal gas and electricity market in the European Union. Its purpose is to further expand the gas and electricity markets in the European Union. The package was proposed by the European Commission in September 2007 and adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in July 2009. It entered into force on September 3, 2009.

In late 2013, Russia filed a lawsuit against the EU over energy adjustments.

Source: RT.com

Wind energy is a “massive new paradigm of employment”

Wind energy can create hundreds of jobs as part of a new climate change-aware world, said Eddie O’Connor, founder and CEO of Mainstream Renewables. O’Connor described this point in time as a “massive opportunity to go entirely renewable.”

He was referring to today’s threat of rising sea levels which could swamp many of the world’s major cities – a consequence of climate change in turn fuelled by carbon emissions. The fact remains that we are emitting the equivalent of “four Hiroshima bombs into the atmosphere every second of every minute of every day,” he said at EWEA 2014 in Barcelona.

And, if we ignore the threat of climate change, “how do we actually get the money to pay for the consequences?” he asked. If we don’t pay attention to climate change, we might not have a species, he warned.

By 2050, 90% of the EU’s electricity can be powered by renewables, O’Connor said. Meanwhile, for Paolo Frankl, head of renewable energy division at the International Energy Agency (IEA), a level of 58% renewables by 2030, rising to 70% by 2050 is attainable.

But to reach these levels “we need a robust CO2 price, a price that has a meaning”, greater flexibility in electricity markets and more interconnections, Frankl said. We need to work out how to fit in new power generation and phase out the old – “this is a massive power transformation,” he said.

Alexandre Affre, director of industrial affairs at Business Europe, backed the call for a stronger carbon pricing as part of the European Emissions Trading System. He also said a greenhouse gas reduction target for 2030 is needed, and said that Europe must continue to build renewables. However, he questioned whether or not Europe has been “too quick” and has “gone too far” with its renewables build-out, chiding the continent’s “excessive subsidies” and questionable priority grid access for renewables, he said.

Turning to another issue high-up on the energy agenda – costs – Frankl underlined that the high price of fossil fuels is the driver behind today’s high energy prices. “The high prices of fossil fuels is the problem number one in the last five years in Europe,” he said. Rounding-up cost the issue, O’Connor asked: “What can be cheaper than an energy system based on 95% free fuel?”

Vestas receives largest order ever in Finland for 99MW

Last 7th of March TuuliWatti Oy has placed a 99MW order with Vestas for two projects in Finland using V126-3.3 MW turbines and the new Large Diameter Steel Tower technology. The order consists of two projects utilising V126-3.3 MW turbines and featuring Vestas Large Diameter Steel Towers (LDST), which allows for taller hub heights and therefore greater annual energy production at low wind speeds.

The order comprises the 73 MW Kalajoki project, which will be the first large-scale wind power plant in Finland. Delivery of the turbines will begin in the fourth quarter of 2014 and the project is expected to be completed in Q3 2015.

Delivery of the 26 MW Siikainen project will begin in Q3 2014 and is expected to be completed in Q1 2015. Both projects include a Vestas Online Business SCADA system and a five-year Active Management Output (AOM) 5000 service agreement with options for two additional extensions of five years.

The two projects feature the V126-3.3 MW, which can produce up to 20% more power compared to the V112-3.0 MW on a site with average wind speeds of 6.5 m/s. The towers for the projects will be the recently launched Large Diameter Steel Towers, (LDST), a Vestas-patented concept that features a special wider diameter lower section of the tower, resulting in increased strength without adding extra steel. Therefore Vestas can provide higher towers to customers to optimise power generation at
low wind speed sites for the V117-3.3 MW and V126-3.3 MW.

Wind and Investment in 2013? Not so much :(

Unfortunately, 2013 wasn’t all good news. Wind energy hit the doldrums in 2012, with revenue falling precipitously to $58.5 billion from $73.8 billion in 2012, and just 35.5GW new capacity installations worldwide – a far cry from a record 44.7GW the previous year.

The wind market would have been even worse if not for China, which installed 16.1GW in 2013 (a whopping 45.4% of all global new capacity) and extended its status as the world’s leader with 91.4GW cumulative installed capacity – 30GW ahead of the US and nearly 60GW ahead of Germany. For context, the US market added just 1GW last year as Production Tax Credit uncertainty created industry headwinds. Clean Edge forecasts fuller sails in the future, with modest growth leading to $93.8 billion in market revenue by 2023.

Clean energy investment’s ledger ran into the red again last year, with total 2013 clean energy investments dropping to $254 billion, down from $286.2 billion in 2012 and a peak of $317.9 billion in 2011. Even China experienced less investment, with a 3.8% funding decline, the first year-to-year drop in more than a decade. Europe and the US fared even worse, with 41% and 8.4% plunges, respectively.

But even though overall investments continued their downward trend, Clean Edge sees a few bright spots. Clean energy funding jumped 55% in Japan to $35.4 billion, while some of the world’s biggest corporations made major investments, and the performance of clean tech companies in publicly traded markets outpaced other industries.

Read full article at http://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/27/2013-renewable-energys-best-times-worst-times/#ztxR5RuHEhzjusCK.99

Trends on clean energies for 2014

Trends for 2014

In the 2014 Clean Energy Trends Report, Clean Edge showcases five trends to watch for the coming year. For the first time, this year the authors looked at green building and electric and hybrid vehicles. Since 2000, these sectors have experienced compound annual growth rates of 68.9 percent and 38 percent respectively, according to Clean Edge.

The first trend to keep an eye on is in the utility sector.  Clean Edge believes that in 2014 we will start to see “enlightened utilities begin to embrace distributed generation assets.” As rooftop solar continues its steady march towards adoption, utilities will continue to grapple with how to maintain healthy businesses in the face of declining electricity sales. “Some forward-looking utilities, if not fully embracing a distributed energy future, are making investments, forming partnerships, and acknowledging that the threat of DG might also be a business opportunity,” the report states.  Clean Edge points to some examples of this that took place in 2013, such as Edison International’s purchase of SoCore Energy, a Chicago-based rooftop solar developer that does work in the commercial space. It also uses Duke Energy’s investment in Clean Power Finance as another example of utilities starting to think about profiting from distributed PV. 

This type of movement in the utility sector is taking place in Europe and Asia, too, said Clean Edge. German utility RWE is leading this transition by overhauling its entire business model while in Japan, a country that installed 7 GW of PV in 2013, consumers are seeking technological solutions to their energy woes in a post-Fukushima world. “The country already has some 30,000 homeowners who use fuel cells like Panasonic’s Ene-Farm to generate power on site,” said Clean Edge.

Energy storage is also mentioned as something to keep an eye on and the report said that consumer-sited battery technology is comparable to where PV was in the early 2000s with some early adopters already onboard.

This disruption in the utility sector will have a huge impact on regulators, said Clean Edge. The report quotes former FERC chairman Jon Wellinghoff saying that regulators will need to change from being rate setters for monopoly markets to become rule setters for competitive markets.

Cities Spearheading Change

Interestingly, the 2014 Clean Energy Trends report explains that cities are now starting to take leadership roles in the transition to a low-carbon economy as a way to buffer themselves against the devastating effects of disasters caused, at least in part, by climate change.  New York, Seattle, Copenhagen, Sydney and others are showcased in the report as setting initiatives that seek to lower carbon emissions within their city limits. 

Many of those low-carbon initiatives center around the building sector, and Clean Edge predicts a rise in net-zero energy buildings in the coming years.  The report points to several high-profile net-zero energy buildings that have been erected over the past two years and said that these buildings are raising awareness and helping to prove the net-zero concept. 

Although skeptics may contend that examples of net zero buildings are isolated, that will change dramatically in coming years. The European Union has mandated that all new public buildings must achieve “nearly zero” energy status by the end of 2018, and that all other new buildings achieve the same status by the end of 2020.

The marriage of clean tech and the Internet is creating a growing “cleanweb” sector and this is another trend to watch according to Clean Edge.  The cleanweb is essentially the use of big data and the Internet to manage resources more efficiently or deploy renewable energy.  Everything from ridesharing to financing large-scale renewable energy projects is part of the clean web. Venture Capitalists are paying close attention to this sector as well as we pointed out in our 2014 Renewable Energy Finance Outlook.

Finally the report shows the growing interest in vertical farming. Clean Edge authors believe that as the world population grows vertical farming will become more and more mainstream.  This is the last of its five trends.

The full 24-page Clean Energy Trends 2014 report can be downloaded for free at the Clean Edge website.

Read full article here:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/03/renewable-energy-trends-illuminated-in-clean-edges-market-report?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=4557407