On Wednesday the second CleanTECH San Diego Showcase event: WIND POWER – Leading the Renewables Revival was held at the Marriott in La Jolla.  After the active networking session the 240 attendees heard Jim McDermott, Managing Partner of US Renewables Group, give the opening presentation followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Jim Walker, Vice Chairman, Board of enXco, Ian Gardner, CEO of Helix Wind, James Sahagian, VP for commercial development with Sempra Generation and Steven DeWolf, principal of Wind Tex Energy LP.

McDermott noted that wind power represents about 75% of the renewable energy produced in the United States.  Currently wind is a close second to natural gas for newly installed production capacity.  Like all projects which are capital intensive, wind power construction suffered with the collapse of credit markets.  Some deals are now being done, but on more conservative terms.  Key hurdles continue to be the on-again, off-again government support in the form of tax credits and loans as well as the onerous delays caused by environmentalists. 

Intermittency is the renewable energy term to describe the uneven production of power by both wind and solar.  Dr. Walker stated that as wind power becomes a larger portion of total energy production it should be considered part of the base load with natural gas as the go-to energy to fill in the gaps.  He noted that the bulk of wind energy production in the United States is concentrated in a short list of utilities.  Except for the very largest users, most utilities struggle with understanding how to manage an intermittent supply.

Although the established global wind energy market is huge, the panel felt that it was not mature and therefore there were significant opportunities for new business creation and growth.  Their opinion was that there were vast improvements which will be made in blade design and the mechanics of wind turbines.  They felt that there was a great opportunity for innovation and invention to originate from outside the research departments of the large manufacturers.  As the number of wind turbines proliferates they see an opportunity for companies in the “nuts and bolts” aspects of service and maintenance in a more organized manner than currently exists.

Energy storage in its various forms is a response to the problem of intermittency as well as integral part of an effective smart grid.  James Sahagian said that Sempra Generation has a strong interest in compressed air strorage in spent oil and natural gas wells as a viable means to store energy during those times when wind energy production is greater than immediate demand.

The CleanTECH San Diego Showcase presents WIND POWER: Leading the Renewables Renaissance Wednesday, February 10_^th at the La Jolla Marriott.  Keynote speaker, Jim McDermott, Managing Partner of US Renewables Group, will discuss the wind market and strategies for buyers, sellers and new market entrants.  US Renewables Group is one of the largest investment firms focused exclusively on the renewable energy industry with $750 million of capital commitments.  Following Mr. McDermott’s remarks will be a panel discussion featuring regional wind developers and technology companies including Dr. Jim Walker Vice Chairman of enXco and the CEO of Helix Wind, Ian Gardner.

In addition to enXco and Helix Wind, there are 22 other wind power companies listed in CleanTECH San Diego’s database of cleantech companies include Cannon Power, Knight & Carver and Padoma Windpower. 

The networking hour before the CleanTECH San Diego Showcase is a unique opportunity to get face to face with the captains of industry, futurists, venture capitalists and propeller heads who play in the clean tech space.  Click here to make your reservation.

If San Diego County were a simple geometric shape it would be a square with sides of 65 miles.  Within those four sides the resources, both natural and man-made, the intellectual heft and techno-talent are incredible.  The effectiveness of what’s in the box is magnified by what lies beyond the perimeter.  In our case it is Imperial County and Mexico.  The economic development description of this outside-the-box-thinking is the Cali Baja Bi-National Mega-Region. 

This past week I participated in a two day Discover Imperial County tour organized by the San Diego Regional Economic Development Council.  For most of us, we rarely have any contact with the sources of our food and energy.  Food comes from an aisle at Vons and electricity from a wall plug.  Just two hours from the center of our box is a different world where every resident has an up-close view of innovative technologies which make our food and energy available and affordable. 

The Imperial Valley is an energy cornucopia.  I doubt if there is any comparable space in the world that can harvest energy from solar, geothermal, water, wind, algae, biomass and piped-in natural gas.  Their ability to add new electrical production is only tempered by the timing of construction of new transmission lines.

The first stop on our tour was at the east edge of San Diego County at the Kumeyaay wind farm on the Campo Indian Reservation.  Three square miles of tribal land adjacent to Interstate 8 are home to 25 giant Gamesa wind turbines rated at 2 megawatts each.  The winds which cross the Tecate Divide provide electricity sufficient to serve more than 12,000 homes while saving 110,000 tons of green house gas emissions annually. 

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By the numbers:  Towers 70 meters (230 feet).  Blades 41.5 meters (136 feet).  The area swept by the blades of each tower = 1 1/3 acres.   Total swept area for the 25 towers = 33 1/3 acres.  (Swept area refers to the area in square feet of the rotor. It is also called the ‘capture area’.  pi x Radius² = Area Swept by the Blades).

This evening I attended a dinner organized by the UK Trade & Investment, in conjunction with CleanTECH San Diego and Global CONNECT.  The UK Trade & Investment is the business development arm of the British government.  The evening’s theme was clean technology and renewable energy in the UK, in particular wind energy, biomass and marine energy.

Many of the story threads of the clean technology take on proportions that are almost beyond comprehension.  The UK’s role in wind energy has a plethora of gee-whiz facts. 

Airtricity, a division of Scottish and Southern Energy is developing two of the world’s larger wind farms.  One is off the Suffolk coast of England (540MW).  An onshore wind farm is located in the Upper Clyde Valley in Scotland (456MW).  Last week the British government announced grants for the construction of the largest wind turbine blades ever built.  Designed for offshore towers 574 high, each blade will be 230 feet long.  With a combined maximum sweep height of over 800 feet the wind turbines will be 300 higher than the tallest building in San Diego.  Each blade will weigh about 67,000 pounds which is equivalent to 22 Toyota Prius hatchbacks or a couple of Rolls Royce Phantoms.