Posts Tagged ‘Wind Farming’

Shell WindEnergy Inc. announced today that the company is opting to exit the Bear River wind project that has been in the works for years.

A press release from the company states it’s withdrawing from the project due to “unfavorable market conditions and issues pertaining to the transportation logistics” of getting wind turbines into Humboldt County.

The proposed 50-megawatt project would’ve used 25 wind turbines along the ridge south of Ferndale to produce an alternative energy wind farm. Getting the wind turbines into the county would’ve involved the construction of some five miles of road, according to a previous county notice. read more

Last year Royal Dutch Shell, one of the original partners alongside Eon and Dong Energy of Denmark, pulled out, saying it wanted to concentrate on onshore wind in the US, where the technology had a longer record and the returns were more certain. Shell has since said it plans no new investment in wind power because oil and gas projects offer better returns.

The London Array project has been struggling since last May when Shell, the oil company, withdrew its support, citing spiralling costs. A string of companies have cut their investments in the sector in recent months, including Shell and BP.

Shell has made the same decision and sold out of its wind interests. Last month the company also said it was pulling out of solar and hydrogen technologies. The oil giants have been rethinking their operations since the oil price plunged from $145 a barrel to $50.

Britain must revert to greater state control of energy markets to hit ambitious targets on renewable energy and climate change, according to the former head of BP.

One by one, the energy giants that hoisted green flags and trumpeted their conversion to renewables are ducking and diving and hiding behind the curtains. Iberdrola, a big investor in wind farms in Spain and the owner of ScottishPower, is slashing its spending on renewables by 40 per cent. Shell said recently it would no longer invest in wind turbines, preferring to focus its efforts on new biofuel technology, while BP has opted out of the UK renewables market, deeming it to be a poor bet.

Shell and BP have shelved or pulled out of renewable energy projects, including a £3 billion project for 341 turbines in the Thames Estuary, and questions have been raised over the future of npower’s £2.2 billion Gwint y Mor farm off the Welsh coast.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil Major Royal Dutch Shell Plc doesn't plan to make any more large investments in wind and solar energy in the future and does not expect hydrogen to play an important role in energy supply for some time.

Lord Smith of Finsbury, chairman of the Environment Agency, recently cited Shell’s withdrawal from the London Array last summer as an example of the “green drain” out of Britain.

Shell made a similar announcement when it pulled out of the London Array last summer, leaving Eon and Dong, the other partners, to find a replacement.

The London Array project, a plan to build 341 turbines with the capacity to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity – more than that produced by most of the nuclear reactors in Britain – has been in trouble since last May, when Shell pulled out of the project, citing spiralling costs.

A market worth more than £50bn will be created for new wind, wave and tidal power equipment in British waters by 2020, the head of the new government-backed energy research and development group has said.

Many energy companies complain that the UK's renewable energy subsidies are not generous enough: Shell, for instance, last year pulled out of the proposed London Array wind farm.

Royal Dutch Shell has quit the UK altogether after pulling out of its two remaining projects –London Array being one of them – in recent months. James Smith, chairman of Shell’s UK business, told The Sunday Times: “When we think about renewables in the UK, it is going to be biofuels rather than wind.”

Dominion and Shell WindEnergy Inc. announced today the completion of the NedPower Mount Storm LLC wind energy project in which they each own a 50% interest. Sited along the high ridges of West Virginia, the project is now fully operational, generating up to 264 megawatts of electricity from a renewable energy source for the mid-Atlantic power grid.

Dominion and Shell WindEnergy Inc. (Shell) announced today the completion of the NedPower Mount Storm LLC wind energy project in which they each own a 50 percent interest. Sited along the high ridges of West Virginia, the project is now fully operational, generating up to 264 megawatts of electricity from a renewable energy source for the mid-Atlantic power grid.

British oil major Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L:Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) confirmed on Sunday that the company and its partners have withdrawn from a major UK wind energy project.

Less than a month ago, Shell denied a Sunday Times report that it had exited the project. However, on Friday the company confirmed that it had no plans for further investment in the UK wind sector.

Although BP and Shell have pulled out of the UK offshore market, others such as Masdar, the Abu Dhabi government's investment vehicle for sustainable energy, moved to fill the gap. Masdar acquired a 20 per cent stake in in the £2bn London Array offshore wind project after Shell walked away.

Royal Dutch Shell and Anglo American yesterday became the latest natural resources companies to shelve a clean energy scheme. Their joint A$5bn project in Australia to convert coal into liquid fuels may go ahead, eventually, but not with development costs this high and an oil price this low.

In May, Shell provoked uproar when it withdrew from the world's largest offshore windfarm - the London Array in the Thames Estuary - after the costs allegedly had risen from £1 billion in 2003 to £3 billion.

The Government is smarting from the withdrawal of a number of key players from the industry in Britain, including Shell and BP.

Last week, BP said that it was pulling out of a British CCS project and was abandoning the domestic wind energy industry altogether in search of higher returns in the United States. Other renewable energy projects are struggling under the twin burdens of high costs and a lack of finance. The weaker oil price has also undermined their economic attractiveness to lenders a

RENSSELAERVILLE — Shell WindEnergy Inc. has offered to pay legal expenses for landowners in the Albany County hill towns who had considered leasing their land to Shell for two large wind farms.

BP has dropped all plans to build wind farms and other renewable schemes in Britain and is instead concentrating the bulk of its $8bn (£5bn) renewables spending programme on the US, where government incentives for clean energy projects can provide a convenient tax shelter for oil and gas revenues.

Now, the Houston company, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell, has mailed letters to landowners it had been negotiating with to say it is walking away from the project.

Yesterday's deal was a fillip for the offshore market, which took a blow this year when Shell pulled out of the biggest planned offshore wind farm, the London Array, amid spiralling costs. Dong Energy and Eon, the other partners in the London Array, found a new partner in Abu Dhabi's Masdar initiative last month.

LONDON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - British oil major Royal Dutch Shell has denied a report that it has withdrawn from the UK wind energy sector by agreeing to sell its stake in a project off the Blackpool coast to partners Scottish Power and Denmark's Dong Energy.

The decision will also anger environmentalists already critical of Shell’s push into dirty-fuel sources such as Canada’s tar sands.

The $4.75 billion project quickly became known as London’s “disarray” after Shell pulled out...

The future of the proposed London Array wind farm was thrown into doubt in May when Shell, one of the three initial investors, pulled out of the project as the estimated cost rose from about £1bn to more than £2bn.

The Government of Abu Dhabi has stepped in to help to fund the world’s biggest offshore wind farm in the Thames Estuary after the withdrawal of Royal Dutch Shell from the project.

Without such measures, Britain will fail to meet the climate change targets it has pledged to the European Union at a time when companies such as Shell are pulling out of offshore schemes in pursuit of cheaper onshore wind opportunities in the US, it says

Shell WindEnergy has been contacting landowners in the Hill Towns about installing 50 wind turbines totaling 100 megawatts of capacity — enough to power about 25,000 homes...

By John Donovan

The article below “Could the answer really be blowing in the wind?”, comes from a blog site sponsored by the champions of greenwashing, Royal Dutch Shell Plc: 

http://scienceblogs.com/energy/about.php

Shell Connections: It is interesting to note that a Wikipedia Administrator, William M. Connolley, who has been hostile towards the content of the “Royaldutchshellplc.com” Wikipedia article and active in editing the “Controversies surrounding Royal Dutch Shell” Wikipedia article (deleting large chunks of content on grounds on inadequate quality of reference sources), is the same William M. Connolley who is now a contributor to the Shell sponsored blog. It’s a small world. No doubt in view of this development he will declare a potential conflict of interest before carrying out further editing on Wikipedia articles relating to Shell.  read more

Dong, based in Skaerbeak, Denmark and E.ON AG of Dusseldorf, Germany, last month bought Royal Dutch Shell Plc's stake in London Array, a planned 1,000 megawatt development of as many as 341 turbines off the southeast coast of Britain, after Shell said offshore wind costs had become too high.

I am puzzled by the logic used by Shell to justify its intention to extract coal-bed methane in the Klappan area.

By Paddy Briggs

This is important news. These two major companies would not have made this investment if they did not think that the project was viable. So Shell’s withdrawal has nothing to do with the inherent merits of the project but with their continued aversion to activities away form their core hydrocarbon business. As a shareholder I have no problem with this. As Tom Peters wisely said – STICK TO YOUR KNITTING !

What I object to, however, is the continued claims by Shell and other Oil Majors that they are genuinely interested in “Renewables”. The reality is that they have neither the time nor the skills nor the imagination to be heavily involved in Wind Energy (etc.). The number of staff, the capital investment and the revenue expenditure on Renewables is minuscule compared with the core hydrocarbon business. But the rhetoric in the corporate advertising of Shell and the rest is quite disproportionate to this reality. It really is utterly hypocritical. read more

Shell decided to withdraw from the project in May after a strategic review saying it did not meet its financial rates of return.

The U.K. arm of German utility E.On AG and Denmark-based DONG Energy said they bought Royal Dutch Shell PLC's stake in the U.K.'s London Array offshore wind project for an undisclosed sum, giving each company a half share in the project.

The biggest German power group, EON, and Dong Energy of Denmark have bought additional stakes in the London Array wind park from the Anglo-Dutch energy company Shell, an EON statement said Monday.

Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil group, has agreed to sell its stake in the £2.5 billion London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, to E.ON and Dong Energy, its former partners.

Under a settlement reached last week, the utilities agreed to divide Shell’s one-third stake evenly between them. Eon and Dong will now own 50% each.

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- E.ON AG and its Danish partner Dong Energy A/S are close to buying Royal Dutch Shell Plc's 33 percent stake in the London Array wind farm...

E.ON AG. is in talks with Royal Dutch Shell to acquire the latter's stake in their joint wind park project London Array off the British coast, Boersen-Zeitung reported, citing company sources.

However, confidence in the industry suffered a blow in May, when Royal Dutch Shell pulled out of the London Array, a planned 1,000MW offshore wind farm, which would be the world's biggest on completion. Shell is in talks to sell its one-third stake to its partners in the London Array, Dong Energy of Denmark and Eon, the German energy group.

Shell is in talks to sell its stake in the London Array to its partners in the project, Dong Energy of Denmark and Eon, the German utility.

The Danish utility is in talks with Shell to purchase its interest together with E.ON...

Shell sent shockwaves through the offshore market recently, when it pulled out of the London Array, a proposed development in the Thames estuary. Shell cited cost issues and said it could get a better return by investing in onshore wind assets in the US. Mr Cooper says that Shell's decision raised doubts over the economics of offshore wind.

Shell has pulled out of the London Array project - supposed to produce a quarter of London's electricity - to pursue richer pickings in the US.