3 August '10
10:02 AM UTC
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Cleantech

A123 Looks for Boost From $17.1M Energy Department Loan for Batteries

UPDATE: A123 stock (NASDAQ: AONE) is up almost 5 percent to $11.05 at 11:42 a.m.

Could A123 be on its way back up?

The Watertown, Mass., battery maker got a boost yesterday when the Department of Energy gave a conditional commitment for a $17.1 million loan guarantee to AES Energy Storage, which will use A123 lithium ion batteries to build an energy storage system.

The 20 megawatt project, in Johnson City, New York, will allow renewable energy to play a bigger role in energy transmission by storing energy from intermittent sources such as wind and solar in A123 batteries. When demand spikes, power companies can use the stored energy rather than burning fossil fuels to balance its load. Read More »

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6 July '10
9:12 AM UTC
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Funding

Chinese Wealth Fund $571M Investment In AES Wind Evaporates

China Investment Corp., the Chinese Sovereign wealth fund, has let a letter of intent paving the way for its $571 million acquisition of a 35 percent stake in AES Wind Generation expire. Read More »

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15 June '10
1:05 PM UTC
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Wind

AES Grows East European Wind Portfolio

Arlington, Va.-based power developer AES is boosting its renewable energy project pipeline in Eastern Europe. Yesterday, the power developer announced an agreement to acquire a 51 percent stake in the 353-megawatt development pipeline of Polish wind developer Jan Reichert.

Read More »

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8 April '10
4:49 PM UTC
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Wind

AES Adds 700 MW To Wind Project Pipeline

Power developer AES acquisition of a  UK and Polish wind developer will add 700 megawatts to its European project portfolio.

The company’s wind unit, AES Wind Generation, acquired British developer Your Energy Ltd as well as  a 51 percent stake in a wind portfolio from 3E, a Polish wind developer.

AES is expected to invest about $400 million over the next five years to fully develop the projects. Of that amount, the company will spend  $120 million to launch construction on 200 megawatts by the end of 2011.

Over the past year, AES has come online with 213 megawatts of wind power in France, Scotland and Bulgaria.

Under the 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive, both the U.K. and Poland must meet 15 percent of their gross energy consumption through renewables by 2020.

AES Wind Generation has approximately 1,700 MW of wind capacity in operation globally.

Image: iStockphoto

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30 October '09
6:56 PM UTC
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Cleantech

AEP Announces CCS Project…. Really?

This press release, announcing a “first of its kind carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project,” released today by American Electric Power (AEP), one of the country’s largest CO2 emitter, caught our attention. This is interesting because there’s growing consencus that, while an attractive idea,  it would take time and a mountain of  money for CCS technology to even become commercially viable. There are also a number of unknowns including, what happen over the long-term to all that CO2 stored underground, so far no one knows.

The CCS test project,deployed at AEP’s 1,300 megawatts, Mountaineer coal-fired power plant in West Virginia, uses technology developed by French turbine maker Alstom Power. It’s been live since in September and started storing CO2 this month.  AEP, says this is the world’s first CCS project.

The test project is set to capture at least 100,000 metric tonnes of CO2 annually. The CO2 is compressed and piped roughly 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) beneath the earth’s surface for storage.

The $787 billion federal stimulus includes $3.5 billion to finance CCS research. AEP says it plans to tap some of that money to scale up the Mountaineer project so it captures 1.5 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year.

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