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Chinese To Supply 600 MW Wind Farm In Texas
Hugh Pickens sends in a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese banks will provide $1.5B to a consortium of Chinese and American companies to build a 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas, using turbines made in China. The wind farm will be built on 36,000 acres, and will use 240 2.5-megawatt turbines, providing enough power to meet the electrical needs of around 150,000 American homes. The project will be the first instance of a Chinese manufacturer exporting wind turbines to the United States. China aims to be the front-runner in wind- and solar-power generation "The Obama administration is hoping a shift to renewable energy will inject new life into the US manufacturing base and provide high-paying jobs, making up for losses in other sectors. But while the US has poured money into renewable energy through tax credits and other subsidies, China has positioned itself to reap many of the benefits by ramping up its export machine."
Remember that 240 wind turbines spread across 36,000 acres does not *use* 36,000 acres - not anywhere near it. Every wind energy corporation I've worked with allows farmers to farm right up to within 10 meters of the turbine tower base. The wires are almost universally all run underground with these new wind farms. The actual footprint of the turbine tower base with the 10 meters of safety space, is less than 1/2 of 1 acres. 240 towers will use an area around 120 acres. The remaining 35,880 acres will still be prime viable agricultural space. In the meantime, the typical turbine lease involves payments to the landowner of approx. $10,000 per year per turbine on their property. That means if you have a farm that is 1000 acres and have suitable space for 10 turbines, you'll lose about 5 acres of your growing space, but be paid around $100,000 a year. The loss of 5 acres of crop space may see something in the order of $5000 in lost revenue from the growing space.
The farmer comes out $95,000 a year ahead - that just might keep their farm operating when otherwise economics might say they couldn't. Also, note that for every MWh of power generated by a wind turbine, that's typically 1220 pounds of CO2 emissions avoided from traditional power generating plants (coal, gas, oil, etc.) - a 600Mw farm running at 25% capacity for a 20 year life span generates 26,280 GWh of power - potentially keeping 16 million tons of CO2 out of the environment.
This article really explains it: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_13655311
The largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world, Vestas, has just built a plant in Colorado and is building a second. However, due to the credit crisis they are having a harder time selling turbines worldwide since its difficult for customers to get financing.
The reason the project in Texas is going forward is because one of the few countries in the world that is still in a good position to finance, China, is willing to do so with the obvious catch that he must use Chinese turbines.
I think once the credit market improves US-built turbines will be more attractive for other projects. The reason Vestas is building the two plants in Colorado is because there are many skilled laborers there that cost less to employ than similar ones in Europe (a Vestas plant over there was closed due to the creation of the new plants in Colorado).
To Pickens' credit, he tried hard for years to get financing for this project, but if he was to get this thing going while he was still alive this was probably the only way for him to proceed. I think it's still a smart move and hopefully will lead to similar projects in other states. If his project succeeds it should make it easier for other companies to get domestic financing so won't be forced to purchase Chinese turbines in the future.