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High Lonesome Wind Farm powers Texas with 500 MW of renewable energy, backed by a 12-year PPA with Danone North America and a Proxy Revenue Swap, cutting CO2 emissions as Enel's largest project to date.

Key Points

A 500 MW Enel wind project in Texas, supplying renewable power via PPAs and hedged by a Proxy Revenue Swap.

✅ 450 MW online; expanding to 500 MW in early 2020

✅ 12-year PPA with Danone North America for 20.6 MW

✅ PRS hedge with Allianz and Nephila stabilizes revenues

Enel, through its US renewable subsidiary Enel Green Power North America, Inc. (“EGPNA”), has started operations of its 450 MW High Lonesome wind farm in Upton and Crockett Counties, in Texas, the largest operational wind project in the Group’s global renewable portfolio, alongside a recent 90 MW Spanish wind build in its European pipeline. Enel also signed a 12-year, renewable energy power purchase agreement (PPA) with food and beverage company Danone North America, a Public Benefit Corporation, for physical delivery of the renewable electricity associated with 20.6 MW, leading to an additional 50 MW expansion of High Lonesome that will increase the plant’s total capacity to 500 MW. The construction of the 50 MW expansion is currently underway and operations are due to start in the first quarter of 2020.

“The start of operations of Enel’s largest wind farm in the world marks a significant achievement for our company and reinforces our global commitment to accelerated renewable energy growth,” said Antonio Cammisecra, CEO of Enel Green Power, referencing the largest wind project constructed in North America as evidence of market momentum. “This milestone is matched with a new partnership with Danone North America to support their renewable goals, a reinforcement of our continued commitment to provide customers with tailored solutions to meet their sustainability goals.”

The agreement between Enel and Danone North America will provide enough electricity to produce the equivalent of almost 800 million cups of yogurt1 and over 80 million gallons2 of milk each year and support the food and beverage company’s commitment to securing 100% of its purchased electricity from renewable sources by 2030, in a market where North Carolina’s first wind farm is now fully operational and expanding access to clean power.

Mariano Lozano, president and CEO of Danone North America, added:“This is an exciting and significant step as we continue to advance our 2030 renewable electricity goals. As a public benefit corporation committed to balancing the needs of our business with those of society and the planet, we truly believe that this agreement makes sense from both a business and sustainability point of view. We’re delighted to be working with Enel Green Power to expand their High Lonesome wind farm and grow the renewable electricity infrastructure, such as New York’s biggest offshore wind projects, here in the US.”

In addition, as more US wind projects come online, such as TransAlta’s 119 MW project, the energy produced by a 295 MW portion of the project will be hedged under a Proxy Revenue Swap (PRS) with insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, Inc.'s Alternative Risk Transfer unit (Allianz), and Nephila Climate, a provider of weather and climate risk management products. The PRS is a financial derivative agreement designed to produce stable revenues for the project regardless of power price fluctuations and weather-driven intermittency, hedging the project from this kind of risk in addition to that associated with price and volume.

Under the PRS agreement, and as other projects begin operations, like Building Energy’s latest plant, High Lonesome will receive fixed payments based on the expected value of future energy production, with adjustments paid depending on how the realized proxy revenue of the project differs from the fixed payment. The PRS for High Lonesome, which is the largest by capacity for a single plant globally and the first agreement of its kind for Enel, was executed in collaboration with REsurety, Inc.

The investment in the construction of the 500 MW plant amounts to around 720 million US dollars. The wind farm is due to generate around 1.9 TWh annually, comparable to a 280 MW Alberta wind farm’s output, while avoiding the emission of more than 1.2 million tons of CO2 per year.

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Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program enables clean energy and grid modernization across Canada, funding wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, tidal, and storage to cut GHG emissions and accelerate electrification toward a net-zero economy.

Key Points

A $964M Canadian program funding clean power and grid upgrades to cut emissions and build net-zero electrified economy.

✅ Funds wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, tidal, and storage projects

✅ Modernizes grids for reliability, digitalization, and resilience

✅ Supports net-zero by 2050 with Indigenous and utility partners

Harnessing Canada's immense clean energy resources requires transformational investments to modernize our electricity grid. The Government of Canada is investing in renewable energy and upgrading the electricity grid, moving toward an electric, connected and clean economy, to make clean, affordable electricity options more accessible in communities across Canada.

The Honourable Seamus O'Regan Jr., Minister of Natural Resources, today launched a $964-million program, alongside a recent federal green electricity contract in Alberta that underscores momentum, to support smart renewable energy and grid modernization projects that will lower emissions by investing in clean energy technologies, like wind, solar, storage, hydro, geothermal and tidal energy across Atlantic Canada.

The Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program (SREPs) supports building Canada's low-emissions energy future and a renewable, electrified economy through projects that focus on non-emitting, cleaner energy technologies, such as storage, and modernizing electricity system operations.

Investing in these technologies reduces greenhouse gas emissions by creating a cleaner, more connected electrical system, supporting progress toward zero-emissions electricity by 2035 goals, while helping Canada reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Minister O'Regan launched the program during the Canadian Electricity Association's (CEA) virtual regulatory forum on Electricity Regulation & the Four Disruptors – Decarbonization, Decentralization, Digitalization and Democratization, highlighting evolving regulatory approaches as B.C. streamlines clean energy approvals to support deployment nationwide. The launch also coincides with Canadian Environment Week, which celebrates Canada's environmental accomplishments and encourages Canadians to contribute to conserving and protecting the environment.

Through SREPs and other programming, the government is working with provinces and territories, with the Prairie Provinces leading renewable growth in the years ahead, utilities, Indigenous partners and others, including diverse businesses and communities, to deliver these clean and reliable energy initiatives. With Canadian innovation, technology and skilled energy workers, we can provide more communities, households and businesses with an increased supply of clean electricity and a cleaner electrical grid.

To help interested stakeholders find information on SREPs, a new webpage has been launched, which includes a comprehensive guide for eligible projects.

This supports Canada's strengthened climate plan, A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy. Canada is advancing projects that support the clean grid of the future and seize opportunities in the global electricity market to boost competitiveness. Collectively with investments from the Fall Economic Statement 2020 and Budget 2021, Canada will achieve our climate change commitments and ensure a healthier environment and more prosperous economy for future generations.

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India Thermal Power Coal Imports surged 17.6% as CEA-monitored plants offset weaker CIL and SCCL supplies, driven by Saubhagya-led electricity demand, regional power deficits, and varied consumption across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, and Gujarat.

Key Points

Fuel volumes imported for Indian thermal plants, tracked by CEA, reflecting shifts in CIL/SCCL supply, demand, and regional power deficits.

✅ Imports up 17.6% as domestic CIL/SCCL deliveries lag targets

✅ Saubhagya-driven demand lifts generation in key beneficiary states

✅ Industrial slowdowns cut usage in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat

The receipt of imported coal by thermal power plants, where plant load factors have risen, has shot up by 17.6 per cent during April-October. The coal import volumes refer to the power plants monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), and come amid moves to ration coal supplies as electricity demand surges, a power update report from CARE Ratings showed.

Imports escalated as domestic supplies by Coal India Ltd (CIL) and another state run producer- Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) dipped in the period, after earlier shortages that have since eased in later months. Rate of supplies by the two coal companies to the CEA monitored power stations stood at 80.4 per cent, indicating a shortfall of 19.6 per cent against the allocated quantity.

According to the study by CARE Ratings, total coal supplied by CIL and SCCL to the power sector stood at 315.9 million tonnes (mt) during April-October as against 328.5 mt in the comparable period of last fiscal year.

The study noted that growth in power generation during the April-October 2019, with India now the third-largest electricity producer globally, was on account of higher demand from Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana or Saubhagya Scheme beneficiary states. Providing connection to households in order to achieve 100% per cent electrification has in part helped the sector avert de-growth, as part of efforts to rewire Indian electricity and expand access.

Large states namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, West Bengal and Rajasthan have recorded over five per cent growth in consumption of power. These states along with Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Assam accounted for 75 per cent of the beneficiaries under the Saubhagya Scheme (Household Electrification Scheme). The ongoing economic downturn has led to a sharp fall in electricity demand from industrialised states. Maharashtra, which is also the largest power consuming state in India, recorded a decline in consumption of 5.6 per cent.

Other states namely Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Gujarat and Odisha too recorded fall in power consumed, echoing global dips in daily electricity demand seen later during the pandemic. These states house large clusters of mining, automobile, cement and other manufacturing industries, and a decline in these sectors led to fall in demand for power across these states. - The demand-supply gap or power deficit has remained at 0.6 per cent during the April-October 2019. North-East reported 4.8 per cent of power deficit followed by Northern Region at 1.3 per cent. Within Northern Region, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh accounted for 65 per cent and 30 per cent respectively of the regions power supply deficit.

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Climate Change Consensus and Disinformation highlights the 97% peer-reviewed agreement on human-caused warming, IPCC warnings, and how fossil fuel lobbying, misinformation, and astroturf tactics echo tobacco denial to mislead media and voters.

Key Points

Explains the 97% scientific consensus and the disinformation that obscures IPCC findings and misleads the public.

✅ 97% peer-reviewed consensus on human-caused climate change

✅ Fossil fuel funding drives denial and media misinformation

✅ IPCC and major scientific bodies confirm severe impacts

Orson Johnson says there is no scientific consensus on climate change. He’s wrong. A 2015 study by Drexel University’s Robert Brulle found that nearly $1 billion per year is being spent to support climate change denial. Electric utilities, fossil fuel and transportation sectors outspent environmental and renewable energy sectors by more than 10-to-1, undermining efforts to achieve net-zero electricity emissions globally. It is virtually the same strategy that tobacco companies used to deny the dangers of tobacco smoke, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to delay recognition of harm from tobacco smoke for decades, and today Trump's oil policies can similarly influence Wall Street's energy strategy. These are the same debunked sources Johnson quotes in his commentary.

The authors of six independent peer-reviewed papers on the consensus for human-caused climate change examined “the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies,” according to an abstract in Environmental Research Letters, and public support for action is strong, with most Americans willing to contribute financially to climate solutions. Of the 30,000 scientists (people with a bachelor’s degree or higher in science) Johnson cites, only 39 specialized in climate science.

A new study by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change draws on momentum from the Katowice climate summit to warn that “The consequences for nature and humanity are sweeping and severe.”

California’s Office of Planning and Research says: “Every major scientific organization in the United States with relevant expertise has confirmed the IPCC’s conclusion, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The list of international scientific organizations affirming the worldwide consensus on climate change is even longer.”

Former President Obama argued that decarbonization is irreversible as the clean-energy transition accelerates.

This issue is a symptom of an even larger problem. Recently, Facebook announced it would continue to allow political ads that contain obvious lies. America’s corporate news media has been following the same policy for years. Printing stories and commentary with information that is clearly not true or where data has been cherry-picked to strongly imply a lie, such as claims that Ottawa is making electricity more expensive for Albertans, sets up a false equivalence fallacy in which two incompatible arguments appear to be logically equivalent when, in fact, they are not.

Conservatives focus exclusively on progressive income taxes to argue that rich people pay a disproportionate share of taxes while ignoring that they take a disproportionate share of income, and federal income taxes account for less than half of taxes collected, with almost all of the other taxes being heavily regressive. Critics of single-payer healthcare disregard that almost every other developed country on earth has been using single-payer for decades to provide better care with universal coverage at roughly half the cost. Other examples abound, including recent policy milestones like the historic U.S. climate deal that nevertheless become targets of misinformation. We live in a society where truth is no longer truth, reality is supplanted by alternative facts and where crippling polarization is driven by the inability to agree on basic facts.

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Ofgem Renewables Obligations drive supplier payments for renewables fees, feed-in tariffs, and renewable generation, with non-payment risking supply licences amid the price cap and volatile wholesale prices across the UK energy market.

Key Points

Mandatory payments by suppliers funding renewables via feed-in tariffs; non-payment can trigger supply licence revoking.

✅ Covers Renewables Obligation and Feed-in Tariff scheme compliance.

✅ Non-payment can lead to Ofgem action and licence loss.

✅ Affected by price cap and wholesale price volatility.

Seven small British energy suppliers owe a total of 34 million pounds ($43.74 million) in renewables fees, amid a renewables backlog that has stalled projects, and could face losing their supply licences if they cannot pay, energy regulator Ofgem reports.

Under Britain’s energy market rules, suppliers of energy must meet so-called renewables obligations and feed-in tariffs, including households' ability to sell solar power back to energy firms, which are imposed on them by the government to help fund renewable power generation.

Several small energy companies have gone bust over the past two years, a trend echoed by findings from a global utility study on renewable priorities, as they struggled to pay the renewables fees and as their profits were affected by a price cap on the most commonly used tariffs and fluctuating wholesale prices, even as a 10 GW contract brings new renewable capacity onto the UK grid.

Ofgem has called on the companies to make necessary payments by Oct. 31, as moves to offer community-generated power to all UK customers progress.

“If they do not pay Ofgem could start the process of revoking their licences to supply energy,” it said in a statement, as offshore wind power continues to scale nationwide.

The seven suppliers are, amid debates over clean energy impacts, Co-Operative Energy Limited; Flow Energy Limited; MA Energy Limited; Nabuh Energy Limited; Robin Hood Energy Limited; Symbio Energy Limited and Tonik Energy Limited. ($1 = 0.7773 pounds)

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Australia electricity grid transition is accelerating as renewables, wind, solar, and storage drive decentralised generation, emissions cuts, and NEM trade shifts, with South Australia becoming a net exporter post-Hazelwood closure and rooftop solar surging.

Key Points

Australia electricity shift to renewables, distributed generation and storage, cutting emissions, reshaping NEM flows.

✅ South Australia now exports power post-Hazelwood closure

✅ Rooftop solar is the fastest-growing NEM generation source

✅ Gas peaking and storage investments balance variable renewables

The politics may not change much, but Australia’s electricity grid is changing before our very eyes – slowly and inevitably becoming more renewable, more decentralised, and in step with Australia's energy transition that is challenging the pre-conceptions of many in the industry.

The latest national emissions audit from The Australia Institute, which includes an update on key electricity trends in the national electricity market, notes some interesting developments over the last three months.

The most surprising of those developments may be the South Australia achievement, which shows that since the closure of the Hazelwood brown coal generator in Victoria in March 2017, and as renewables outpacing brown coal in other markets, South Australia has become a net exporter of electricity, in net annualised terms.

Hugh Saddler, lead author of the study, notes that this is a big change for South Australia, which in 1999 and 2000, when it had only gas and local coal, used to import 30% of its electricity demand.

#google#

The fact that wholesale prices in South Australia were higher in other states – then, as they are now – has nothing to with wind and solar, but the fact that it has no low-cost conventional source and a peaky demand profile (then and now).

“The difference today is that the state is now taking advantage of its abundant resources of wind and solar radiation, and the new technologies which have made them the lowest cost sources of new generation, to supply much of its electricity requirements,” Saddler writes.

Other things to note about the flows between states is that Victoria was about equal on imports and exports with its three neighbouring states, despite the closure of Hazelwood. NSW continues to import around 10% of its needs from cheaper providers in Queensland.

Gas-fired generation had increased in the last year or two in South Australia as a result of the Northern closure, but is still below the levels of a decade ago.

But because it is expensive, this is likely to spur more investment in storage.

As for rooftop solar, Saddler notes that the share of residential solar in the grid is still relatively small but, despite excess solar risks flagged by distributors, it is the most steadily growing generation source in the NEM.

That line is expected to grow steadily. By 2040, or perhaps 2050, the share of distributed generation, which includes rooftop solar, battery storage and demand management, is expected to reach nearly half of all Australia’s grid demand.

Saddler, says, however, that the increase in large-scale solar over the last few months is a significant milestone in Australia’s transition towards clean electricity generation, mirroring trends in India's on-grid solar development seen in recent years. (See very top graph).

“Firstly, they are a concrete demonstration that the construction cost advantage, which wind enjoyed over solar until a year or two ago, is gone.

“From now on we can expect new capacity to be a mix of both technologies. Indeed, the Clean Energy Regulator states that it expects solar to account for half of all (new renewable) capacity by 2020, and the US is moving toward 30% from wind and solar as well.”

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