Renewables

While President Obama pledged to support domestic oil and natural gas development, he said he “will not let oil companies write this country’s energy plan.”

The Democrats’ national energy platform is heavy on clean energy, but it leaves the door open for the safe and responsible development of the nation’s “cheap, abundant natural gas” reserves.

U.S. resource plays that are spewing out natural gas and oil have virtually cleared producer calendars of speculative drilling and made for an energy supply bounty that is becoming the envy of numerous companies around the world, speakers at a Houston energy conference said.

Bellevue, WA-based Puget Sound Energy (PSE) has signed a deal with Portland, OR-based Iberdrola Renewables for winter-only electricity supplies from the independent power provider’s Klamath generating facility in Southern Oregon. PSE signed up for 100 MW to be delivered starting Jan. 1 next year.

In the story “EIA: Renewables Up, Gas Flat as Power Sources” (see Daily GPI, May 23), NGI incorrectly stated that the average price for natural gas used in power generation was $5.09/MMBtu a year ago. In fact, the average price paid for natural gas for power generation in February 2011 was $5.09/MMBtu, down 5.2% from the average price of $5.37/MMBtu paid in January 2011, and down 16% from the average price of $6.06/MMBtu paid in February 2010. NGI regrets the error.

Even in a period of slowing U.S. wind development, Spain-based Iberdrola Renewables announced that it will spend $6 billion in the United States for new and upgraded wind developments through the end of this year. Iberdrola Chairman Ignacio Galan made the commitment during a meeting earlier in May with the U.S. secretaries of Energy and Commerce. The company head said $3.9 billion will be focused on construction of new wind farms and they will be eligible for up to $1 billion from the Department of Energy’s loan guarantees under the federal stimulus program. The remaining $2.1 billion in investment will be used for what Iberdrola called “improving the quality of supply” to an existing base of 2.4 million customers that Iberdrola serves in the United States. Iberdrola said it installed 1.78 GW of wind power capacity last year in the United States, and it estimates that 1.5 GW of U.S. wind power will be added this year.

Enstor Inc., a unit of Iberdrola SA’s Iberdrola Renewables, last Tuesday announced it expanded two of its natural gas storage facilities — Caledonia in Lowndes County, MS, and Grama Ridge in Lea County, NM — by more than 7 Bcf.

Enstor Inc., a unit of Iberdrola SA’s Iberdrola Renewables, Tuesday said it expanded two of its natural gas storage facilities — Caledonia in Lowndes County, MS, and Grama Ridge in Lea County, NM — by more than 7 Bcf.

Congress needs to take action on carbon pricing to establish more parity between renewables and fossil fuels that historically have enjoyed generous tax code subsidies, FERC Commissioner Marc Spitzer, a former tax attorney and Arizona state regulator, told a Law Seminars International conference, “Energy in California,” Tuesday in San Francisco.