Alliant Energy plans to build a 2-MW solar facility atop a closed 20-acre coal ash landfill in Wisconsin. Alliant said the 7,600-panel complex near the shuttered Beloit coal-fired power plant will be the largest utility-operated solar site in the state.
Using a brownfield site like the coal ash dump makes sense, according to Geoffrey Underwood of South Korea-based Hanwha Corp., which is developing the solar installation for Alliant.
“Solar projects in general are an excellent re-use for landfill Superfund sites, brownfield sites, in that, one, the length of the projects and the long life of these projects in the 20- to 40-year range give the land additional time to settle and cure,” Underwood said.
More: Wisconsin Public Radio
Duke Plans $1.9B Investment to Modernize its Indiana Grid
Duke Energy plans to invest about $1.9 billion over seven years to improve the reliability of its transmission and distribution systems, Duke Indiana President Melody Birmingham-Byrd said.
Birmingham-Byrd, who took over Duke’s Indiana operations in June, said the electric utility plans to file an investment request with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission at the end of the year. The upgrades will replace aging equipment and modernize the grid.
“We have very detailed programs and project plans that have been developed so that we can begin those projects almost immediately after being approved,” she said. Duke serves 810,000 customers in 69 of Indiana’s 92 counties.
More: Tribune Star
NextEra Missouri Wind Project Back from the Dead?
NextEra Energy could be reviving its Osborn Wind Energy Center, a 97-turbine 200-MW wind farm in northwest Missouri that was fully permitted in 2010 but went unsold and was put on hold.
NextEra last week received regulatory approval to build two 197-foot meteorological towers. The company says it is re-verifying wind data with the aim of starting construction in summer 2016.
Over the 30-year project life, NextEra said it would invest about $350 million, which should generate $35 million in local property taxes.
More: St. Joseph News-Press
PSE&G Plans Switching Station at Newark Airport
Public Service Electric & Gas’ $1.2 billion plan to improve reliability in northeastern New Jersey includes a new switching station at Newark Liberty International Airport.
The switching station is an integral part of the utility’s Bergen-Linden Corridor transmission line project. The line will more than double the capacity of the existing 138-kV system, replacing it with a double-circuit 345-kV system.
More: NJ.com
Duke Energy Shows off Dan River Coal Ash Project
Duke Energy last week showed off a new rail yard and loading dock it has put into place to remove coal ash from the grounds of the retired generator where 39,000 tons of coal-combustion byproducts fouled the Dan River two years ago.
The utility’s system will excavate a mountain of coal ash stored on the plant grounds and transport the waste by train to a privately owned landfill in Amelia County, Va. The company is removing the waste under a state mandate to safely store coal ash from its power plant sites.
“Our first phase is to get rid of that whole mountain of coal ash,” said Jim Malloy, project manager at the Dan River site. “The stuff will not see the light of day again.”
More: Greensboro News & Record
DTE’s Fermi 2 Staying Shut Down for Refueling
DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 nuclear generating station will remain shut down after an unplanned Sept. 13 outage caused by a problem with an auxiliary cooling system. The company says it now plans to move up a planned refueling outage that was scheduled for later.
Vito Kaminskas, site vice president, said it was decided to accelerate the schedule for the refueling outage to take advantage of the plant being offline already. DTE shuts down the unit about every 18 months for refueling.
More: Monroe News
3 Hurt in Steam Leak at SC Nuclear Fuel Plant
Three workers were injured Friday from a steam leak at Westinghouse Electric’s nuclear fuel production plant near Columbia, S.C., forcing a section of the plant to shut down.
Plant officials said there was never a public or environmental threat during the incident and that there was no leak of radiation. They said a “mechanical issue,” rather than an explosion, caused the steam leak. The three men, who were not identified, were taken to a burn center at an Augusta hospital.
The leak happened in a wash tank in an area where nuclear fuel assemblies are prepared. Fuel assemblies are hollow rods that are filled with radioactive pellets. When completed, the fuel rods are shipped to nuclear generating stations around the country.
More: The State
Crown Hydro Tries Again to Amend License
Crown Hydro is making a third attempt at building a hydroelectric project at St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis.
The company is seeking to amend the federal hydropower license it was granted in 1999 but never put to use. This time it wants to install its powerhouse at the upper end of a lock complex owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, then tunnel underground to release water downstream. Two previous proposals fizzled.
Nearly 70 Minneapolis residents told FERC they think the firm should be required to obtain an entirely new license for the 3.4-MW project. City officials agreed. A FERC official also advised Crown Hydro in 2013 to seek a new license, calling the latest proposal “essentially a different project” that needs new engineering and environmental analysis.
More: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Dallas Billionaire Buys Williams Co. for $37.7 Billion
Dallas billionaire Kelcy Warren’s company Energy Transfer Equity is buying pipeline firm Williams Co., adding about 30,000 miles of pipeline to the 70,000 Energy Transfer already controls. Energy Transfer will pay $37.7 billion in a combination of stock and cash, with $43.50 for each share, about $2 more than the stock’s Friday closing price.
Warren and Energy Transfer have been pursuing Williams since the beginning of the year. Energy Transfer offered Williams $53.1 billion in June, but the offer was rejected by Williams. At the time, Williams said the offer “significantly undervalues Williams.” Since then, however, crude oil prices have plummeted, buffeting the industry.
Those conditions made this the right time to move on Williams, Warren said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News last week. “You try to guess the bottom, and you’re always wrong,” he said. “So you buy a little before or a little after. We believe the time is now.”
More: The Dallas Morning News