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Archive for February, 2011

Vestas, a world-leading wind energy company, had a “rough” 2011, but is expecting 2011 to be very good, according to Vestas’ 2010 annual report. Orders rose 182% last year the company, from 3,072 MW in 2009 to 8,673 MW in 2010, meaning that it has a significant pipeline of projects planned for 2011.

Financially, the 2010 orders totaled €8.6 billion ($11.7 billion), €5.4 billion ($7.3 billion) more than the orders from the previous year.

Vestas saw record-high “deliveries” of wind turbines in the fourth quarter of last year totally 2,557 MW, which brought 2010 to 5,842 MW, 1,078 MW higher than the 4,764 MW it delivered in 2009.

So,.. why was 2010 a “rough” year?

I’ll let Vestas tell you: “2010 was a tough year, because two people employed by our business partners were killed in industrial injuries; we had to make a profit warning and lay off some three thousand colleagues; a change in our accounting policies caused uncertainty; the outlook for 2011 was a disappointment, and the share price was down by almost 50 per cent in the warmest year recorded for more than a hundred years.” Not a fun year….

What to Expect in 2011?

Vestas is projecting revenue of about €7 billion ($9.5 billion) in 2011 and a survey of about 30 analysts is predicting a similar amount: €6.76 billion ($9.2 billion). Nothing to laugh at, I’d say.

“There will be no bonus payout for 2010,” Vestas reported. “The Group bonus targets for 2011 include an EBIT margin of 8.4 per cent (35 per cent weighting), a free cash flow of EUR 200m (30 per cent), a customer loyalty index of 72 (20 per cent) and revenue of EUR 7bn (15 per cent).”

Overall, Vestas looks like it’s got its ducks in order and will stay on top of the wind energy industry for awhile longer, at least.

Related Stories:

1. Vestas to Unveil Design of 6-MW Offshore Wind Turbine Next Month
2. iPhone Wind Energy App from Vestas
3. Wind Energy Giant Vestas Sees a Future in Romania

Photo Credit: johnnyalive

So many green jobs are being created by switching energy sources from fossil based to clean energy, but here’s one you might not have thought of. Keeping clean energy clean.The Germans, who are years ahead of us in solar adoption, have already cornered that market!

The German company Schletter GmbH has developed a novel cleaning system for PV module rooftop installations. By positioning himself at the ridge line and letting gravity assist him, a solar maintenance worker can suspend this double rotating brush device down the array to clean it. The whole thing weighs only 15 kg, including the water feed.

Their PVSpin is designed to be operated safely by one person and it uses twin rotating brush heads fed with water through a central nozzle. It can also work on the typical flat roof commercial building, because the two cleaning brushes – rotating in opposite directions – are only driven by water pressure.

Hard dirt formation is removed by the rotation of the brushes and the filtered water. The guidance along the module frames makes cleaning operations more convenient.

The idea is that to operate at optimum efficiency, a solar array needs to be free of dust and dirt buildup. But it is not necessary to be too obsessive about this, actually. Normally a rain shower every few months will take care of it.

Even in dusty California, for example, my own solar array (on a PPA from SunRun) has been working fine for five months now with no cleaning, as I can see from its output online – and my now tiny $4 electric bills! Of course, we have had a rainy winter, so it is cleaner than I would expect in usual California winters.

It is not a huge problem. The way you’ll know that your solar needs cleaning is if you can see dust and dirt build up on the outside of your windows – that can really take a while. But if you want only the best care and maintenance, the German company will have these on the market in April.

Susan Kraemer@Twitter

By the time President Obama announced the Better Buildings Initiative last week, forward-looking players in the energy efficiency game were already a few steps ahead. One example is New York City, which has partnered up with Columbia University to create the NYC Urban Technology Innovative Center. Its mission is to create new green jobs and business opportunities in the city, by developing and commercializing new energy efficiency technologies.

Better, Greener Buildings

Compared to the futuristic stuff that’s going on with solar power, emerging materials and biofuels (just to name a few), buildings don’t seem all that exciting. Guess again – buildings are a major factor in greenhouse gas emissions, and commercial buildings gobbled up 20 percent of the energy in the U.S. economy last year. The President’s initiative is designed to encourage the private sector to upgrade inefficient older buildings through new tax incentives and financing opportunities for small business. There is also a green job-training component, and a “Race to Green” incentive for local governments to streamline their permitting processes.

The Better Buildings Challenge

Where Columbia and New York jumped the gun is in the initiative’s “Better Buildings Challenge,” in which the President is calling upon business and academic leaders to – well, to lead by example. Companies and universities that save energy and meet certain goals will be eligible for goodies such as public recognition and technical assistance. That’s where the Urban Technologies Innovation Center comes in. It will be managed by Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, and its focus will be on connecting manufacturers and building owners with new research and technologies. As pithily stated by the center’s executive director, Jack McGourty, “New technology means new businesses and jobs.”

More and More Green Jobs

The Better Buildings Initiative has the potential to be a green jobs powerhouse — just check out the big bucks that went into energy efficiency upgrades for the Empire State Building.  These jobs benefit the job-holder of course, and they also result in benefits for people and businesses by lowering utility bills and improving productivity. As the White House points out, in part the new initiative builds on the success of Recovery Act programs that also created beneficial green jobs. That’s nice that the White House is so optimistic, but it would sure help things along if all those legislators who made such a great big deal about job creation during the 2010 election campaign would stop messing around with women and start working on some legislation that actually helps people get jobs.

Image: Empire State Building by aka Kath on flickr.com

How ironic! The effects of climate change might turn out to create a windfall for some of the very same fossil energy companies that are essentially also causing climate change. US coal companies have seen record profits, higher exports and soaring prices as Australian coal companies have had their production curtailed by the floods that inundated an area the size of Texas, which included some key coal mining regions. (Australia’s Catastrophic Floods Shut Down Coal Exports)

“Are we pushing the price? You’re damn straight we are,” said Bob Pusateri, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based Consol Energy Inc., which operates 18 mines across six U.S. states told Bloomberg News. “If there is a short-term phenomenon because of weather-related issues, the coal companies are going to take advantage of it.”

About 15 million to 20 million tons of coal may be lost from Australia because of the flooding. The loss is exacerbated by more of what the coal industry calls “inclement weather” in other coal exporters.  South Africa faces the worst flooding in decades, and Columbia has the heaviest rains in history, and Indonesia has the same record warming seas that have exacerbated the same La Nina, causing record flooding and cyclones, like Australia. (Climate Change: Worst Cyclone in History Follows Queensland Floods)

Coal stocks rose on the news. Alpha gained 26 percent in the past year to $55.34 a share. Walter soared 66 percent to $127.09. International Coal more than doubled to $9.57.

Although US domestic coal use is dropping about 0.8 percent this year, by contrast, demand is rising 3.6 percent this year in China for steelmaking coal shipped by sea, as China’s own coal mines run short.

So coal companies benefit from the sort of chaotic climate disruption that ever since the First IPPC Summary in 1990 climate scientists have predicted with ever increasing certainty as the likely effects of loading more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, for the last 20 years now. That is while Australian government costs rise to cope with the floods. (First Continent to Raise a Tax to Cover the Costs of Climate Change)

But even more ironically, Australia’s floods will also have the effect of helping President Obama’s goal of boosting US exports.

Coal is hardly the green 21st century technology export the President had in mind, no doubt. The only consolation may be that at least in China, these US coal exports will be burned more cleanly in new power plants that are cleaner and more up to date than the old croakers our poor plutocracy has kept grandfathering-in to evade EPA rules through the last 40 years.

(Australian Government 2004 summary of scientific papers on regional climate change)

Susan Kraemer@Twitter

Energy giant E.on got planning permission for a massive 230-MW offshore wind farm, the Humber Gateway wind farm, last week in the UK. This project will involve 77 wind turbines off the coast of Yorkshire in northeast England and is expected to be up and running in 2014. When completed, this project should provide energy for up to 170,000 homes. It will be E.on’s 5th offshore wind farm.

A tender process for the wind farm is expected to start later in the year.

The project is “further recognition of our expertise in the sector generally and in offshore wind in particular” according to Michael Lewis, managing director for E.ON’s European renewables business.

Of course, the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary was happy with the announcement and the UK’s continued leadership in offshore wind energy.

“Offshore wind not only provides clean, green, secure energy, the investment that comes with it is great for the UK economy too,” Chris Huhne said. “A new wind farm off the Humberside coast will be a further jobs and investment boost for the region, hot on the heels of Siemens’ announcement of plans to develop the Port of Hull.”

The UK is also facing some offshore wind energy challenges and concerns, however.

“[S]ome within the sector are concerned about the way in which the government’s proposed electricity market reforms will result in a move away from the current subsidy regime under the Renewable Obligation scheme,” James Murray of Business Green reports.

“Meanwhile, manufacturers have expressed concerns that a potential two year gap between the current round of projects and the proposed Round 3 developments could lead to a hiatus in orders for many of the firms within the supply chain.”

We’ll see. But, for now, this is yet another positive announcement regarding offshore wind energy in the UK, which seems to have such news every other week or so these days.

Photo Credit: Wessex Archaeology