Released this week, the study finds wind generation could reduce wholesale prices by as much as 25 percent in the Midwest, cost-savings are then passed on to consumers, possibly saving as much as $200 per year on the average energy bill.

The research, completed by Synapse Energy Economics, confirms a similar finding from the Illinois Power Agency, which earlier this year announced that renewable energy sources have lowered wholesale power prices in Illinois by approximately $176 million in recent years.

According to a story from RenewablesBiz:

The study, titled “The Potential Rate Effects of Wind Energy and Transmission in the Midwest ISO (MISO) Region,” evaluated the electric power market in the upper Midwest including all or most of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and parts of Montana, Missouri, Kentucky, and Ohio. 

“The Midwest has a lot of wind but you do need transmission to tap into that market,” Fagan added. Currently, about 10 GW of wind are operating in the MISO system.
The benefits of putting more wind onto the grid more than outweigh the costs to build the transmission required, according to the report.

“You see a savings o $10 MWh price reduction effect, perhaps as high as $50 MWh especially in the out years when 50 GW of wind added,” Fagan said. Those savings would be passed along to consumers through lowering retail electricity prices by $65-$200 each year, according to the report.

The report says that wind continues to get cheaper, with improved technologies, while the projected cost of coal-fired power has begun to climb. The increasingly global coal market has given rise to higher coal prices with new EPA environmental controls contributing to the move away from coal. More than one-half of MISO generation is coal-fired.

Wind penetration was analyzed over different scenarios, anticipating different levels of coal retirements. MISO sees about 3 GW of retirements on tap in the short run, with as much as 12 GW over the longer term.

Wind and natural gas are poised to fill in that shortfall, with a massive investment in transmission capacity already under way.  On the existing transmission base, plus a set of projects that are known as the multi-value portfolio (MVP) projects, $5 bn will be spent in the Midwest over the ensuing five to seven years and already approved by FERC.

This will reinforce the grid and allow more power to flow from the western portion of the Midwest, tapping wind resources with power sent to eastern load centers in Minnesota and Illinois.

Under the current scenario analyzed by Synapse, adding MVP projects through 2020 is an increment of $1.60 per MWh for customers. That’s less than two-tenths of a cent per kWh.
In a breakdown of consumer costs, a typical bill of a Michigan customer of Consumers Energy shows that a customer who uses 1,000 kWh, the component that applies to transmission is only 5%. The bulk of the electricity cost applies to generation and distribution.

“People tend to have an inflated sense of just what portion of their overall bill affected by transmission,” Fagan said.

On the other end of the spectrum, with a large quantity of wind generation, upwards of 50 to 70 GW, by the 2030, the report envisions transmission costs that would be an increment of $11 per MWh, or about a penny per kWh.

“Building new transmission to integrate wind, solar and other renewables doesn’t have to be an enormous burden on consumers. It’s quite the opposite,” said Jim Hoecker, WIRES Counsel (Working group for Investment in Reliable and Economic electric Systems) and former FERC chairman.

“Transmission is an enabler. That’s the message I’d like to impart, is that it enables the development of new technologies and the benefits of those technologies to market,” he added

The other facet of renewable generation, economic development, is also a WIRES platform. “And this is a job creator. This transmission is going to create 150,000 jobs annually, and when you bring in renewables, that number effectively doubles,” he said.

Read the full study here

Element Power held two meetings in Macomb on Tuesday to explain why the McDonough County area does not have wind farms yet and still may not have them for a while longer.

A meeting was held in the morning for public officials and members of the Macomb Area Chamber of Commerce and of the Macomb Area Economic Development Corporation. The evening meeting was held for landowners who signed contracts to allow the location of wind turbines on their properties.

Project manager Scott Koziar said there are 24,000 acres committed. He said the company needs a minimum of 16,400 acres to accommodate 116 turbines.

Koziar said the Cardinal Point Wind Energy Project has come a long way since Element Power took it over from EcoEnergy in 2010. But he said major tasks ahead include completion of federally-required environmental studies, selection of the type of turbines to be used, geotechnical testing of each turbine site, and advance sales of wind power.

The project manager said there are challenges on both the national and state levels. Koziar said there is a slow market due to the bad economy, there’s been flat or negative growth in electricity loads, and there’s now a record low in natural gas prices.

Dave Stoner, senior vice-president for Element Power’s projects east of the Mississippi River, said, “The energy market runs in cycles, with boom and bust years.”

Koziar said his company has enough faith in Cardinal Point that it has committed funds to cover increased, and in some cases non-refundable, fees for a place on the Midwest Independent System Operator power grid.

“We’ve paid our fees and I think some other companies may drop out and give us better position,” said Koziar. He said it’s imperative that the U.S. Congress renew the federal production tax credit that provides incentives for the first 10 years of a wind farm operation.

Kim Pierce, MAEDCO executive director, said her office has been in touch with local governments to get resolutions of support approved. “We may be coming back to you with more specific requests as bills become identified,” Stoner responded.

Koziar said a problem at the state level is that the Illinois Power Authority is currently interested in only approving power purchase agreements for one to five years. He said those who might buy wind power are more interested in 20-year agreements.

The project manager said his company may ask local landowners to join it in lobbying for a change in state policy. “Our industry needs to do a better job of breaking down details for legislators on why the 20-year contracts are needed,” said Koziar.

“We believe in this project,” Stoner said. “We’ve worked on it for three years already but a long timetable is typical for such projects. We’re extremely confident in wind power as an affordable energy source.”

Element Power is working on wind farms in 18 states and on solar energy in 17 states. Its national headquarters is in Portland, Ore. Stoner’s office is in Virginia, Koziar’s office is in Minneapolis, and the company maintains an office in Macomb.

The McDonough County project would provide more than 300 construction jobs and 12 to 16 permanent jobs handling the wind farms. Element Power estimates the finished project would make $1.8 million in local property tax payments, with more than $1 million going to the West Prairie School District.

In terms of power sales, Koziar said Ameren is the largest customer target. But he said several smaller buyers would be contacted and that his company is looking outside the Illinois market for customers.

From a Press Release from Clean Line:

HOUSTON (May 23, 2012) – Rock Island Clean Line LLC (Clean Line) has obtained a key regulatory approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to begin negotiating transmission service agreements with potential customers of the Rock Island Clean Line transmission project, likely load serving entities or wind developers.

The Rock Island Clean Line is a 500-mile overhead high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line that will run from northwest Iowa to an area near Morris, Illinois. The project will deliver 3,500 megawatts of the best wind energy resources in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota to communities in Illinois and other states to the east, areas that have a strong demand for clean, reliable energy.

The FERC order was issued in response to the application filed by Clean Line in November 2011. Receiving this authority permits Clean Line to subscribe up to 75% of the line’s capacity with anchor tenant customers and sell the remaining capacity through an open season process. The anchor tenants will receive guaranteed capacity outside of the open season process; however, the same terms and pricing will be offered in the open season.

“The Rock Island Clean Line project will create good-paying labor jobs for Illinois families, help reduce rates for Illinois electricity consumers by providing more choices and provide clean home-grown renewable energy to support our environment,” said Illinois Governor Pat Quinn. “The approval from FERC is a positive step forward for this project.”

In its application, Clean Line addressed the following standards: the justness and reasonableness of rates; the potential for undue discrimination; the potential for undue preference, including affiliate preference; and regional reliability and operational efficiency requirements. Clean Line also described why granting its request will be in the public interest.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad said in response to the favorable FERC ruling, “The Rock Island Clean Line project has the potential to bring billions of dollars of new investment to Iowa and createthousands of jobs. I’m therefore pleased to see this approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.”

Clean Line has conducted over 600 one-on-one meetings with stakeholders, has hosted 33 open house meetings to which over 40,000 landowners were invited to submit feedback on routing options, and has held additional open houses in Illinois to introduce local businesses and labor groups to the Rock Island Clean Line project. Substantial progress on engineering and design of the project has been made since its inception in early 2010. In June of 2011, Clean Line signed an agreement with Siemens to provide HVDC technology solutions for the Rock Island Clean Line. Under that agreement, Siemens and Clean Line are working together to develop, design, and implement the HVDC converter stations for this important infrastructure project. In the summer of 2011, Clean Line acquired 2007-vintage interconnection queue positions that are advancing through the regional merchant transmission study process. These queue positions will greatly accelerate the interconnection process for the Rock Island Clean Line.

“This approval marks an important step forward in the steady progress of our Rock Island Clean Line project, which will bring considerable benefits to the existing grid by delivering low-cost clean wind power from northwest Iowa and the surrounding region to Illinois and states to the east," said Michael Skelly, President of Clean Line Energy. "We thank the FERC commissioners and staff for their diligence and consideration given to our application. We look forward to continuing to create opportunities for new jobs, low-cost clean energy and significant investment in Iowa and Illinois.”

Developing a project of this scale is a long-term undertaking; the approximately $1.7 billion project is expected to achieve commercial operation in 2016 or 2017. For more information about the Rock Island Clean Line, please visit www.rockislandcleanline.com.

For most of his 20-year career, Hans Detweiler lobbied state and federal officials to boost wind farms in the Midwest, but a couple of years ago he concluded he could make a bigger impact as a businessman than as a policy advocate.

The former lobbyist for both the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center and the American Wind Energy Association in Washington is championing a multiyear effort to build a $1.7 billion, 500-mile high-voltage power line to connect northwest Iowa, one of the windiest spots in the U.S., to Chicago, the Midwest's biggest energy consumer.

If he's successful—and the hurdle is mighty high—the 42-year-old with a political science degree from Grinnell College in Iowa will accomplish two tasks: He will make the composition of Chicago's electricity cleaner while lowering local electric bills.

The promise for Iowa farmers and Chicago-area consumers alike is up to 4,000 megawatts of wind energy funneled into and through the Chicago area. That's double the amount from farms developed in Illinois over the past decade, most coming after the 2007 enactment of a state law pushed by Mr. Detweiler and others requiring utilities to purchase an escalating percentage of renewable energy.

“We're very comfortable the project will occur,” Mr. Detweiler says. “We think the stars align in 2017.”

But the proposed Rock Island Clean Line won't go anywhere unless he can secure enough customers upfront. Unlike most transmission lines, which are built only after regulators agree to force ratepayers to finance them through higher electric bills, Clean Line is a “merchant” project, which means it would be privately financed.

In the Midwest and mid-Atlantic power grid traversing all or parts of 13 states, including northern Illinois, just two transmission lines have been built using this financing method, both of them in northern New Jersey, according to a power grid spokesman.

Also, today's rock-bottom wholesale power prices, in the low $30s per megawatt-hour, are too low to make the project economic. Mr. Detweiler expects that in five years, when he hopes the line will be built, prices will be modestly higher. He says, given how strong the wind blows in northwest Iowa, $45 per megawatt-hour would be sufficient.

ON THE ROAD

For now, Mr. Detweiler, the project's director of development, is earning upgrades from his frequent car rentals to drive from his home in Chicago to Iowa and parts of Illinois. Since he began promoting the project in January 2010, he figures he has presided over or attended more than 600 meetings. “We've served several thousand pulled-pork sandwiches,” he jokes.

The line, one of four transmission lines around the country being pursued by Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners, needs approval from Iowa and Illinois regulators, who must endorse its path, and federal regulators, who must give permission to the developer to negotiate rates with end-use customers. A federal decision is expected soon, but the state rulings will take as long as two years.

The high-voltage power cord would originate in O'Brien County, Iowa, about 200 miles northwest of Des Moines. Locals want it, says Rodd Holtkamp, vice president of Savings Bank in [...] Iowa, which lends to the farmers in the area. "We're sitting in some of the best wind resources in the entire U.S.," he says. "We can build these turbines, but we can't get on the grid and get the juice out of here."

Clean Line would harm the financial interests of Illinois' biggest power generator, Chicago-based Exelon Corp., whose profit margins would suffer at its six nuclear plants in the state from lower prices here. Exelon is proposing a transmission line of its own, the $1.6 billion, 420-mile Rite Line, which would connect Chicago's power grid to the East, where power prices are higher. But, unlike Clean Line, Exelon is seeking federal approval to finance the project through electric bills.

In a statement, Exelon doesn't say it supports or opposes Clean Line but makes clear its misgivings: “Illinois already benefits from an oversupply of inexpensive power. . . . We believe any additional power coming into Illinois from planned wind projects in the upper Midwest can and should be moved eastward for reliability reasons, which will not unduly impact Illinois power prices.”

In the meantime, Mr. Detweiler is winning support from other quarters. On May 8, Grundy County struck a deal with Clean Line under which the developer will pay about $2.8 million over 20 years in lieu of property taxes, the same arrangement Iowa requires of transmission developers but Illinois does not. Grundy County would be the line's eastern terminus, about 65 miles southwest of the Loop.

The board voted 18-4 against a new ordinance drafted by the Zoning Board of Appeals.

"We're under the old ordinance," Chairman Jim Seeberg said after the vote.

Also Tuesday, a representative of Ireland-based Mainstream Renewable Power said his company turned in an application for 60 turbines the day before.

The turbines are planned for Hamilton and East Grove townships, in the southwestern part of the county.

John Martin, the project manager, said his company's proposal "largely" followed the zoning board's recommended ordinance. Doing so, he said, would appeal to the body that spent months drafting the proposed rules.

He said his company's wind farm would comply with the setback requirements under the proposed ordinance – 1,400 feet away from homes or 3.5 times the height of turbines, whichever is greater.

Mainstream also plans noise and shadow flicker studies up front, as the proposed rules called for, Martin said.

"We trust the Zoning Board of Appeals and the county will provide appropriate scrutiny," he said.

When the proposed ordinance came up during Tuesday's County Board meeting, Seeberg, R-Ashton, wanted no discussion. He call for an immediate up-or-down vote.

Member David Gusse, R-Dixon, quietly asked, "No discussion?"

He didn't speak loud enough for Seeberg to hear him.

Member Lisa Zeimetz, R-Paw Paw, asked State's Attorney Henry Dixon whether the board could legally vote on the ordinance. He said yes.

Only four members voted for the ordinance – Gusse, Ed Fritts, Steve Kitzman and Bill Palen, all Dixon Republicans.

Afterward, Vice Chairman John Nicholson, R-Franklin Grove, said he voted against it because it would have opened up the process to amendments that would effectively ban new wind farms.

He was referring to the objections of Hamilton and Willow Creek townships. They wanted a 2,000-foot distance between turbines and the property lines of nonparticipating landowners.

"This would have been the strongest wind ordinance in Illinois, yet we had people objecting to it," Nicholson said.

He said the zoning board "worked their butts off for 21 months" yet was chastised from both sides.

Member Rick Ketchum, D-Amboy, said he opposed the ordinance because it included a home seller protection program. That program involved a complex process in which wind companies would compensate neighboring landowners struggling to sell their homes.

Mainstream opposed it mainly for the same reason. Its representative said the costs of the program would be too unpredictable.

The existing ordinance requires a setback of 350 feet away from the boundaries of nonparticipating landowners.

Over the years, however, the county has mandated that wind turbines be 1,400 feet away from homes on a case-by-case basis.

According to coordinators, the workshop will "present a background of the energy and wind energy industries, wind energy fundamental principles and curriculum and methods for integrating energy and wind energy materials into the classroom."

From an announcement from ILWFS: 

Illinois Wind for Schools Team would like to invite you to the first-ever statewide Illinois Wind for Schools workshop, to be held on June 14^th, 2012.  The workshop is free of charge and will be held on the Illinois State University campus in Normal, IL.  CPDUs will be offered to all participants and lunch will be provided.

 The workshop will be held from 9 AM – 3:30 PM in the State Farm Hall of Business Building, Room 430.  At this workshop the Illinois Wind for Schools Team will present a background of the energy and wind energy industries, wind energy fundamental principles, and lesson plans and methods for integrating energy and wind energy materials into the classroom.

Please click here to register online for the statewide Illinois Wind for Schools workshop.

Workshop agenda:

9:00 – 9:15           Introduction and Welcome

9:15 – 10:15         Energy and Wind Energy Background

10:15 – 10:30       Break

10:30 – 11:30       Fundamentals of Wind Energy

11:30 – 12:30       Lunch (provided)

12:30 – 1:30         How does a Wind Turbine Work?

1:30 – 2:00           Energy and Wind Energy Lesson Plans

2:00 – 2:15           Break

2:15 – 3:30           How to implement energy and wind energy curricula

For more information about the Illinois Wind for Schools program, please visit our website at www.ilwfs.org.

The program addresses Illinois Learning Standards Goals 7 and 10 in Mathematics (Estimation and Measurement; Data Analysis and Probability), and Goals 11, 12 and 13 in Science (Inquiry and Design; Concepts and Principles; Science, Technology and Society).

This week, news sources implicated one Rich Porter as the author of a memo detailing a national anti-wind strategy that would team up wind opponents with national libertarian groups like the American Tradition Institute in an effort to discredit and stop the wind industry's growth.

The memo details a wide-ranging mix of astroturf (fake-grassroots) tactics to undermine the wind industry, and calls for funding from fossil fuel-funded organizations. Click here to read the memo.

From E&E's Greenwire (via Governor's Wind Coalition):

[A] 10-page strategy memo appearing to detail an expensive and ambitious campaign targeting the wind energy industry. The memo, circulated by the watchdog group the Checks and Balances Project, calls for opponents of wind power to engage in messaging and media outreach efforts that “appear as a ‘groundswell’ among grass roots.”

The memo also calls for the establishment of “dummy” businesses in communities considering hosting wind power projects to purchase 400-foot billboards opposing the idea.

Renaming wind power as “puff power” or “breeze energy” is also recommended.

The document, which was first referenced in an article yesterday in the Guardian, was drafted by Illinois attorney Rich Porter and edited by John Droz, a longtime opponent of industrial wind and a senior fellow at the American Tradition Institute.

Note & Retraction: Although Greenwire reported that attorney Rich Porter authored the document, Porter contacted the editor of this blog to explain that he was not the document's author.  A likely explanation is that the original author was actually the Richard Porter that is affiliated with a wind opposition group known as Illinois Wind Watch. We regret this error.

Wind energy harvested from some blustery western states will be routed through Morris and Channahon substations and converter stations if Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners’ plans go through.

A representative of the firm explained the concept to the Channahon Village Board this week.

The “Rock Island Clean Line” would begin in several wind farms in South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa, which are four of the windiest states in the country, and be carried first to a newly constructed converter station in western Channahon. The firm is eyeing an 85-acre site off Bungalow Road.

The electricity would then run to Collins Station in Morris, which would act as a substation. Construction in Channahon could employ a large number of workers, the trustees were told, and could begin as soon as 2014. The system could be up and running by late 2016.

Trustees were asked to issue a letter of recommendation for the project, but no decision was given on the letter at this week’s meeting.

The entire project would be privately financed, the board was told, using direct current, which is more efficient than transporting alternating current. DC also leaves a much smaller environmental footprint than AC, the representative said, and has better reliability. The farms would produce as much as 3,500 megawatts of energy.

Trustees were optimistic about the number of labor jobs the construction would generate, albeit The M&E tax taxes heavy industrial machinery and equipment as real property. The state’s other 101 counties classify machinery and equipment as personal property, which is not taxed in Illinois.

Also this week, Channahon’s Finance Director Bob Guess told the board that Pace Dial-a-Ride will begin doubling its hours of service to try to meet the needs of more Channahon residents. Too many people are being turned down lately, Guess said, because of the limited hours.

The hours will be increased for the months of May and June in order to see if the change meets the needs of more riders.

CHICAGO, IL - (April 30, 2012) – Invenergy Wind LLC (“Invenergy”) announced today that it has closed debt financing for its 200 MW California Ridge Wind Energy (“California Ridge”) project, which currently is under construction in central Illinois.

The financing included construction, bridge and term loans and a letter of credit facility.  The 

financing was allocated across a bank tranche and an institutional tranche.  

Santander/Sovereign Bank acted as Lead Arranger and Global Coordinator.  Rabobank was 

Syndication Agent and Letter of Credit Issuer.  Union Bank, RBC Capital Markets, and Lloyds 

were Co-Documentation Agents.  Prudential Capital Group led the Institutional tranche of the  facility, and acted as Structuring and Documentation Advisor.  Allstate also participated in the Institutional Tranche.

“Invenergy is proud to complete financing for the  seventh wind project we are building in our home state,” said Jim Murphy, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Chicagobased Invenergy.  “This financing utilized a blend of bank and institutional sources to provide both flexibility and tenor.”

California Ridge is located northwest of Danville, Illinois, in Champaign and Vermilion Counties.  Upon its scheduled completion later this year, the project will feature 134 General Electric 1.6 MW wind turbines and generate enough energy to power approximately 65,000 homes. Energy produced from California Ridge will be purchased by the Tennessee Valley Authority through a long-term power purchase agreement.

The wind turbines utilize GE’s latest technology, including 100 meter rotor diameters and 100 meter towers.  White Construction is responsible for the turbine erection and other balance of plant work.  Henkels & McCoy will be responsible for the construction of  the project’s transmission line and substation.  GE will provide certain construction management services for the substation work.  The project will be operated by Invenergy Services LLC.  

About Invenergy

Invenergy and its affiliated companies develop, own and operate large-scale renewable and other clean energy generation facilities in North America and Europe. Invenergy is committed to clean power alternatives and continued innovation in electricity generation. Invenergy's home office is located in Chicago with regional development offices located throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

As the nation's largest independent wind power generation company, Invenergy and its affiliated companies currently have over 6,600 MW of wind, solar and thermal projects under contract, in construction or in operation. For more information, please visit www.invenergyllc.com.

Lee County State’s Attorney Henry Dixon contends that an attorney representing objectors to a proposed wind ordinance is attempting “legalized extortion” – or maybe just “coerced compromise.”

In an April 18 letter to County Board Chairman Jim Seeberg, Dixon said Hamilton and Willow Creek townships had failed to properly submit their objections to a proposed wind energy ordinance.

If the objections are deemed valid, a supermajority of 75 percent of the 28-member board must approve the ordinance for passage. Otherwise, only a simple majority is needed.

Dixon’s letter said Rockford attorney Rick Porter, who has helped Hamilton Township with its objection, was trying “legalized extortion, and I don’t mean that in a bad or evil sense.”

He said Porter was using the objection process to get the board to amend the proposed ordinance to Hamilton’s liking.

“I suppose rather than ‘legalized extortion,’ I might more delicately use the term ‘coerced compromise,’” the state’s attorney wrote.

Dixon couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.

The County Board is expected to vote on the proposed ordinance at its May 15 meeting.

Dixon’s letter recommended that Seeberg call for an up-or-down vote on the ordinance, which includes more regulations for wind farms than exist now.

The letter comes on the heels of a move by the County to disband an ad-hoc panel of the Board, which was charged with considering changes to the ordinance. From the article:

Earlier this week, a special committee designed to review the proposed ordinance, which was drafted by the Zoning Board of Appeals, disbanded after Dixon told members that the panel had not been “properly constituted.”’

In the letter to Seeberg, Dixon wrote that he didn’t know where the Shippert committee came from, referring to its chairwoman, Marilyn Shippert, R-Dixon.

He also said he was disappointed that no one on the committee asked him to attend to provide legal advice. That panel met a couple of times before he found out about it, he said.

He said that when he heard that Zoning Administrator Chris Henkel was “strongly urged” not to attend, “I realized not informing me of those meetings and not inviting me to attend was not accidental.”

Shippert said Thursday that she informed Henkel through his office that he was welcome to attend the meetings, but that he wouldn’t sit at the head table as he has at Zoning Board meetings.

As for Dixon, she acknowledged she hadn’t specifically asked the state’s attorney to attend, but said that wasn’t intentional.

His opinion on whether the objections were properly filed likely would stand, Shippert said.

“He’s the legal expert of the county,” she said. “We have to go by his word.”