Wind Options for Utilities to Meet Renewable Energy Mandates is Hot Topic on
April 8 and April 9
The electric power providers face Federal and State mandates to obtain a
significant percentage of the power they provide from renewable resources and
reduce their carbon emissions within the next 5 to 10 years. Wind, a carbon free
source, can provide this renewable energy and more. The American Wind Energy
Association (AWEA) recently stated that onshore U.S. wind resources could
generate nearly 37,000,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) annually, more than nine times
current total U.S. electricity consumption. However, current wind power
installed capacity in the U.S. is 35 GW or less than 2 percent of total domestic
power consumption. Although nearly 10 GW of new wind power capacity was added in
2009, almost 300GW more will be needed in the next ten years in order to meet
the renewable mandates.
Before wind can become a significant source of renewable energy, there are many
issues that need to be resolved. Siting and permitting proposed new wind power
projects run into many of the same issues that coal-fired power plants have
faced for years from environmentalist and the public. These issues can range
from impacts on birds and endangered species to public perception of affects on
health and scenic beauty as well as new issues such as noise and the affect on
aviation and radar. Development of transmission lines to carry power from where
the wind blows to urban areas where it is needed is one of the biggest obstacles
to building a wind farm and faces the same environmental and public perception
issues as the farm itself.
Along with transmission is the issue of storing power for times when the wind is
not blowing or methods to efficiently distribute power from areas where the wind
is blowing to where it is not. The cost of developing wind power and related
transmission lines can also be an issue without government subsidies or utility
commissions willing to allow these costs to be passed on to rate payers. To meet
these challenges, wind equipment suppliers and wind farm developers have been
making rapid technological advances. Larger turbines have been developed that
provide improved efficiency leading to lower installed and operating costs, and
improved methods of meeting all of the other issues related to developing a wind
farm and integrating it into the power grid have also been developed.
The following speakers will address the issues of siting, financing, permitting,
designing, constructing and integrating a wind farm into a utility power grid,
the driving factors for wind power, how wind technology and equipment will
develop in the future and the impact of new developments on the cost of wind
power and describe their experience with wind power projects:
The following persons, all from URS Corporation will present on Thursday, April
8, 2010 at 10 a.m. CDT
Dilip Kharti, will present a general introduction to wind energy.
Jack Wilcox, Manager, URS Power Sector Business Line in the northeast will
discuss “Wind Energy Siting Issues in the Northeastern US”.
Richard Podolsky, will discuss “Avian/Bat Issues”.
Joe Kuebler, URS Wind Energy Practice Leader will discuss “Texas Wind Energy
Environmental Issues”.
Dennis Dudzik, Energy Program Manager for the Sacramento, California office will
discuss “Owner’s Engineer Issues”.
The following persons will present on Friday, April 9, 2010 at 10 a.m. CDT:
Gerald (Gerry) Sheblé, PhD, MBA, Executive Advisor and Senior Director US R&D at
Quanta Technology, LLC
Jeff Kopp, P.E., Development Engineer at Burns & McDonnell will describe the
issues associated with bringing large amounts of wind energy online and the
problems that can result. Current ways for addressing these issues and how to
move forward to enable the implementation of additional wind energy onto the
system will be discussed.
Len Januzik, U.S. Power Delivery Manager at AMEC.
To register for the “Hot Topic Hour” on April 8 and April 9, 2010 at 10 a.m. CDT
(Chicago time), click on: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/brochures/FGDnetoppbroch/Default1.htm.
Bob McIlvaine
President
847 784 0012 ext 112
rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com
www.mcilvainecompany.com