 |
|
|
|
For more on wind energy and environmental, economic, and grid integration issues, see The Big Picture.
09/30/09 – Sierra Club, NRDC, CalWEA Urge Governor Schwarzenegger to Protect Legacy by Signing RPS Legislation - Clean energy advocates today urged Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign legislation to increase California's Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) to 33%. These bills would protect his legacy by setting the new goal into law, preventing it from being overturned by a legal challenge or a future governor at the stroke of a pen.
09/25/09 – Governor: Cancel the Veto, Deliver on Your Promises - CalWEA Executive Director Nancy Rader explains in an editorial for California Energy Circuit why, despite the governor's good intentions in directing the California Air Resources Board to raise the state's Renewables Portfolio Standard to 33 percent under its AB 32 authority, only a statute will do the job.
09/12/09 – California Wind Energy Industry Lauds Passage of Landmark Renewable Energy Bill; Urges Governor to Resist Calls for Veto - The California Wind Energy Association (CalWEA) today praised the California Legislature for adopting legislation requiring the state's utilities to acquire 33% of their power from renewable-energy sources by the year 2020, which the state's Air Resources Board has said is essential if the state is to achieve its ambitious greenhouse-gas reduction goals for that year.
04/16/09 – AWEA, CALWEA, CEERT Welcome Findings
of NERC Integration Study - The California Wind Energy Association (CalWEA) and the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies (CEERT) today joined the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) in supporting the findings of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's (NERC's) Integrating Variable Generation Task Force (IVGTF) report. This is an excellent roadmap for the grid planning and operations changes needed for America's future electric generation portfolio.
01/26/09 – Wind Association Releases Scientific Review of
California Bird & Bat Study Guidelines for Wind Energy - The California Wind Energy Association (CalWEA) today released a scientific review of guidelines adopted in 2007 by the California Energy Commission and California Department of Fish & Game to reduce impacts to birds and bats from wind energy development.
CalWEA's Annual Meeting October 22-23, 2008. Get the latest information on the policies shaping California's renewable energy market. Hear from policymakers. Establish CalWEA's priorities for 2009.
09/30/08 – CalWEA and Other Solar, Wind and Other Renewable Power Companies Overwhelmingly Oppose Proposition 7 - Companies that Would Benefit from More Renewable Power Oppose Poorly-Written Measure and Warn Prop. 7 Would Disrupt Renewable Power Development in California
07/09/08 – Wind and Solar Developers Say CAISO Queue Reform Proposal Makes Progress, But Needs Improvement for Timely and Efficient Renewables Growth – The California Wind Energy Association (CalWEA) and the Large-scale
Solar Association (LSA) today gave a mixed grade to the proposed Generation Interconnection
Process Reform (GIPR) of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which is
expected to be approved today by the CAISO Board of Governors and filed at the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) later this month.
01/10/08 – CalWEA, Solar Developers, Propose Comprehensive CAISO Queue Reform – The California Wind Energy Association (CalWEA) and three solar thermal development companies -- Ausra, Inc., Abengoa Solar, Inc. and BrightSource Energy -- today filed at FERC a comprehensive proposal to address the dysfunctional large generator interconnection process at the California Independent System Operator Corporation (CAISO).
06/15/07 – Bottom Lines – With Focus on Wires, Wind Could Offer 20 Percent of State’s Energy by 2020
06/08/07 – More Wind, More Flexibility – A CalWEA opinion piece on wind reliability. While not intended as a "capacity" resource to meet system peak load, California's existing wind projects do provide "capacity value" to the system in an amount equivalent to about 25% of their nameplate electrical rating. Wind's variable output (very similar to changing consumer demand for power) can be readily managed by grid operators
06/06/07 - In a speech given at Wind Power 2007, CalWEA Executive Director Nancy Rader talks about how California can achieve 20% wind energy by 2020.
04/01/07 - A Mighty Wind - By Ryan Schuster - Tehachapi area may see nation’s largest wind energy project
02/16/07 - CalWEA Responds to CPUC 2006 Resource Adequacy Report - Because staff chose a misleading evaluation method, the report perpetuates the myth that wind generators do not contribute to system reliability.
02/15/07 - Wind vs. Coal: False Choices in the Battle to Resolve Our Energy Crisis - By Tara Lohan, from Alternet, February 15, 2007. When you cross the border into West Virginia along I-64 the welcome sign that used to say, "West Virginia: Wild and Wonderful," now says, "West Virginia: Open for Business." It is a sign of the times. According to a few area residents, the sign change coincidently occurred this fall around the same time that the state decided to approve an application for development of the largest wind farm east of the Mississippi. Read more >>>
01/24/07 - CalWEA Statement on CAISO’s Approval of Tehachapi Transmission Project
01/07 - The Birds and The Breeze - Making Wind Power Safe for Wildlife - By Frances Cerra Whittelsey, from Sierra Magazine, published by the Sierra Club, January/February 2007 Efforts to make turbines safer for birds seem to be working. According to a 2003 study of 4,700 turbines located outside California, each killed 2.3 birds per year. That's a tiny number compared with the hundreds of millions of birds that fall prey to cats every year, or the 4 million, at minimum, that collide with communication towers. And it pales in comparison to the number of birds and other creatures that would be killed by catastrophic global warming. Read more >>>
12/24/06 - CalWEA's Independent Review of 2004 California Energy Commission Report on Avian Issues - CalWEA commissioned three independent scientific reviews of the consultant report, "Developing Methods to Reduce Bird Mortality in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area," and numerous significant statistical and methodological errors were found. CalWEA and others in the wind industry have been highly critical of the quality of this report, whose estimates of avian fatalities in the Altamont are significantly higher than those found in previous studies, fueling anti-wind efforts around the globe. Read more >>>
12/06 - California Energy Commission Releases Its Own Peer Review Study of Altamont Pass Avian Report - On behalf of the California Energy Commission (Energy Commission), the California Institute for Energy and Environment (CIEE) conducted three peer reviews - with a primary focus on statistics - of "Developing Methods to Reduce Bird Mortality in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area." These peer reviews show that the report did not provide a credible statistical evaluation of the data and is not suitable as a basis for policymaking or law enforcement. Read more >>>
10/24/06 - CalWEA Independent Review of 2004 CEC Report on Altamont Avian Issues
09/08/06 - Editorial: CalWEA Executive Director Answers the Question: Is the RPS Working?
01/12/06 - Nature Writer Bill McKibben Puts Wind's Environmental Impacts in Perspective - "No More Mr. Nice Guy --Climate change is pushing this easygoing enviro over the edge" - from Grist, January 12, 2006. “[W]hat we need to say is: every bird, and everything else that we know, is fundamentally at risk in the next few decades [due to global warming]. In the name of birds, I want that windmill on my ridge. In the name of wild beauty, I want that windmill out my window...” Read more >>>
top
|
|
|
|
|
An Editorial: CalWEA Executive Director Answers the Question: Is the RPS Working? Read more >>>
Nature Writer Bill McKibben -- “[W]hat we need to say is: every bird, and everything else that we know, is fundamentally at risk in the next few decades [due to global warming]. In the name of birds, I want that windmill on my ridge. In the name of wild beauty, I want that windmill out my window...” Read more >>>
The Birds and The Breeze - from Sierra Magazine, “According to a 2003 study of 4,700 turbines located outside California, each killed 2.3 birds per year. That's a tiny number compared with the hundreds of millions of birds that fall prey to cats every year……and it pales in comparison to the number of birds and other creatures that would be killed by catastrophic global warming.” Read more >>>
CalWEA addresses wind energy’s reliability in this Energy Circuit Editorial – “The initial results from a California Energy Commission study show that the California grid has the technical capability to include 20 percent intermittent generation under a 33 percent renewable goal without the need for significant new resources to accommodate the variability of these intermittent renewables.” Read more >>>
|
|
