by jboullion | Feb 12, 2009 | Uncategorized
From an article by Craig Reberth in the Telegraph Herald (Dubuque):
CASSVILLE, Wis. — Pending a state Department of Natural Resources air-quality hearing next week and the ensuing public comment period, work should start on converting a Cassville power plant from coal to 100 percent renewable fuel.
In May, DTE Energy Services, of Ann Arbor, Mich., announced it was purchasing the E. J. Stoneman power plant. DTE said it planned to convert the coal-fired plant to burn wood waste, a renewable fuel.
The Stoneman facility was built in 1950. Integrys Energy Services bought the 53-megawatt capacity plant in 1996 from Dairyland Power Cooperative and operated it as a merchant power plant, selling power in the open market. This is DTE Energy’s initial foray into Wisconsin.
Once the air permit is issued, the project will move forward, DTE officials say. The plant probably will be pulled off-line by the end of this month, with demolition and construction to take place during the summer. The plant could be back online as early as June 2010.
Work includes converting the boilers from burning pulverized coal to a stoker technology and conversion of the material handling process. It is estimated the project will use 40 people at the peak of the effort.
by jboullion | Feb 10, 2009 | Uncategorized
From an article by in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Anticipating a decline in electricity sales in 2009, Wisconsin Energy Corp. has frozen the salaries of top executives and implemented a limited hiring freeze.
“We have frozen hiring, except for critical operating positions,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gale Klappa said.
The cost-containment moves were made at the end of the year and announced Tuesday, after the Milwaukee energy holding company reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations of Wall Street analysts.
Colder-than-projected weather that drove higher use of natural gas and electricity; declining fuel prices; and income from the new Port Washington natural gas-fired power plant helped the company report better-than-expected earnings in the quarter, Chief Financial Officer Allen Leverett said.
We Energies, the main utility subsidiary of Wisconsin Energy, has projected that electricity sales to factories and other large customers will fall 6% in 2009.
In the fourth quarter, sales to those large customers fell 9% from the fourth quarter of 2007. Hardest hit, Klappa said, are paper mills, auto parts suppliers and basic metal companies such as foundries and specialty steel companies.
“Just having talked to a few of our largest customers over the last couple of weeks, my sense is we’re not at the bottom yet in terms of the impact of the recession,” he said.
by jboullion | Feb 9, 2009 | Uncategorized
From a blog entry by Tom Content on JSonline.com:
A major power line network linking the windiest parts of the Midwest with Milwaukee and Chicago was unveiled today by a Michigan transmission utility.
There’s no word on how such a project would get built, given longstanding opposition to major high-voltage power line projects, but ITC Holdings Corp. (ITC) said it seeks to address the inability of the nation’s power grid to move power around.
ITC has named its project the “Green Power Express.” The express would come through Wisconsin, linking the Madison area with northeastern Iowa and southern Minnesota, according to a conceptual map prepared by ITC.
“The Green Power Express will create the much-needed link between the renewable energy-rich regions of the Midwest and high-demand population centers,” said Joseph L. Welch, chairman, president and chief executive of ITC, a transmission utility that is based in Novi, Mich.
The project carries a price tag of $10 billion to $12 billion and would span 3,000 miles in Wisconsin and six other states with power lines that carry 765,000 volts of electricity. These lines are capable of carrying much more electricity than the largest lines in Wisconsin, which are 345,000 volts.
The project aims to address one of the biggest hurdles seen to having Wisconsin and other states meet targets that would require as much as 25% of the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar, by 2025. Some of those hurdles were described over the weekend in the New York Times.
In short, the best sources where renewable energy can be produced — states such as the Dakotas and Iowa — areas that are far from population centers where most electricity is consumed.
by jboullion | Jan 29, 2009 | Uncategorized
The Wisconsin Renewable Quarterly, RENEW Wisconsin’s newsletter, features these articles:
+ Rest in Peace: Cassville Generation Plant
+ Mississippi River Bird and Bat Study
+ Osceola School Heats Pools with Solar
+ Bob Ramlow: Solar Pioneer
+ Focus on Energy Issues Biogas Profiles
+ Focus on Energy Earns National Honor
+ State Plugs into Renewable Energy
by jboullion | Dec 19, 2008 | Uncategorized
From a media release issued by Xcel Energy:
The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW) has created a docket to begin evaluating the company’s request to install biomass gasification technology at the Bay Front Power Plant in Ashland, Wis. This represents the first step in the regulatory review process for the innovative project that, if approved, would transform Bay Front into the largest biomass-fueled power plant in the Midwest, and one of the largest in the nation. When completed, the project will convert the plant’s remaining coal-fired unit to biomass gasification technology, allowing it to use 100 percent biomass in all three boilers. Currently, two of the three operating units at Bay Front use biomass as their primary fuel to generate electricity.
In 1979, the facility became the first investor-owned utility plant in the nation to burn waste wood to generate electricity.
This is the first time biomass gasification technology will be used to convert a coal-fired boiler at an existing base-load power plant. The project will require new biomass receiving and handling facilities, an external gasifier, modifications to the plant’s remaining coal-fired boiler and an enhanced air quality control system and is expected to cost $55-$70 million.
