San Francisco-based Cleantech America started construction on Aug. 24 on what will be California’s largest solar photovoltaic farm, in Mendota. Quanta Service Inc., Houston, will provide engineering, procurement and construction services for the 5-MW solar farm that will cover about 50 acres. A spokesman for Cleantech, which is owned by New Zealand’s largest renewable electricity generator, Meridan Energy, would not reveal a cost for the project, only saying that it is a multimillion dollar project. The project is the first using solar photovoltaic technology to be approved under the state’s renewable portfolio standard. The farm is expected to be operational
A day after receiving a Presidential Permit, contractors for Enbridge Energy Partners LP, Houston, began work on the U.S. portion of a 992-mile pipeline. The Alberta Clipper will move 450,000 bbl per day from Canada’s oil sands in Alberta to Superior, Wis., with a planned capacity of up to 800,000 bpd. Photo: Enbridge Energy Partners LP Work is beginning in U.S. portion. More than 3,000 U.S. workers will be employed on the 326 miles of 36-in. pipeline, five tanks, three pumping stations and a companion 188-mile-long, 20-in. pipeline to carry diluents to Canada, says Jim Crawford, director of engineering and
An ambitious 2,500-kilometer-long “power highway” that will stretch across the breadth of Brazil has taken an important step forward with the awarding of a major subcontract to provide equipment and initial construction of the power line. Photo: C.J. Schexnayder / ENR Madeira River site is ideal for run-of-river hydro project. In late July, Zurich-based ABB snagged the $540-million contract to build a 600-kV portion of a power line that will connect two massive hydroelectric projects under construction on the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon Basin to the urban center of São Paulo. The job was awarded to two ABB
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s board on Aug. 20 will vote on a proposal to convert the utility’s six wet-storage facilities for coal ash to dry storage. TVA’s Coal Combustion Products group, working in alliance with Stantec and URS Washington Group, drew up the proposal after last December’s catastrophic collapse of a wet-coal-ash storage facility at the utility’s Kingston Fossil Plant. Conversion will require changes in ash-handling equipment and creating storage facilities in configurations that will be decided after board approval, says Barbara Martocci, TVA spokeswoman. She would not give budget figures until after board approval. United Conveyor Corp., Waukegan, Ill.,
On the road to the “nuclear renaissance,” Canada’s nuclear-power industry hit a speed bump. Declining electricity demand has scotched plans to add as much as 7,200 MW of greenfield nuclear powerplants in Ontario. But even as it withdrew applications for eight new reactors at two sites, the country’s largest independent generator pledged to complete refurbishment of two laid-up units on its flagship site and to continue developing new nuclear powerplants in Saskatchewan and Alberta. If built, the plants in those provinces would be western Canada’s first nuclear plants. Photo: Babcock & Wilcox Canada Ltd. Babcock & Wilcox Canada is supplying
The U.S. potentially could reduce non-transportation energy consumption by 23% by 2020 and greenhouse gases by 1.1 gigatons annually, but this goal is achievable only if significant barriers are addressed and overcome, says a new report from McKinsey & Co. These barriers include $520 billion in needed up-front investment and a fragmented network of buildings, devices, building codes and other requirements. The potential for reducing energy consumption in the U.S. is huge, but coordinated national and regional strategies are needed to unlock the existing potential, says the New York City-based management consulting firm in its July 29 report. “Energy efficiency
Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., released an information model-based product for electrical substation design. Bentley Substation V8i integrates two- and three-dimensional tools and can shift from schematic line drawings to 3-D object views on the fly. Reports and bills-of-materials can be generated from the data as required. It draws on a database of more than 2 million electrical parts. Three-D modeling helps optimize site layout, integrates with Bentley’s Project Wise system and is priced at $15,000 a seat.
Work is to begin in mid-August on a $3.4-billion, 1,000-mile crude-oil pipeline from northern Canada to Superior, Wis., says Canadian owner Enbridge Inc., Edmonton, Alberta. Enbridge is burying a 36-in. pipe that will carry 450,000 barrels of crude oil daily, with a 326-mile U.S. route running from North Dakota to Wisconsin. The project will run parallel to another 20-in. pipeline that was constructed in 2009. The project was awarded to U.S. Pipeline, Houston, and Precision Pipeline of Wisconsin.
A clean-coal project abandoned by the Dept. of Energy last year is coming back to life with DOE’s Record of Decision and a cooperative agreement signed with the FutureGen Alliance. The ROD and agreement will allow the alliance to proceed with preliminary design, refine the cost estimate and develop a funding plan. DOE launched FutureGen in 2003 as a public-private partnership to engineer, construct and operate a near-zero-emissions, 275-MW powerplant fueled by coal at an estimated cost of $1 billion.
The U.S. Energy Dept. will award $57 million in economic-stimulus funding to support local, university and private smart-grid projects. About $47 million will supplement eight existing smart-grid demonstration projects now planned across the U.S., according to DOE. The remainder is going to local governments to fund modification of emergency- preparedness plans that will consider smart-grid technologies and renewable resources in transmission infrastructure. The awards are part of billions of dollars available for smart-grid projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. DOE also announced on July 20 it has chosen Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, as the location of a smart-grid
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