IRENA, Int’l Renewable Energy Agency Launches

RenewableEnergyWorld.com, January 29, 2009
On January 28, 2009, the launch of a long-planned international agency to promote the interests of renewable energy took place in Bonn, Germany. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) will advise industrialized and developing nations on ways of reducing their dependency on oil, coal and gas.
The new agency aims to counterbalance existing [...]

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Lockheed, OPT Going for Wave Energy in the West

MendoCoastCurrent, January 31, 2009
On January 26, 2009, Lockheed Martin and Ocean Power Technologies agreed to work together to develop a commercial-scale wave energy project off the coasts of Oregon or California.
OPT is providing their expertise in project and site development as they build the plant’s power take-off and control systems with their PowerBuoy for electricity [...]

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Mexico Launches $550 Million Wind Farm

MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press, January 22, 2009
La Ventosa, Mexico — On January 22, 2009 Mexico inaugurated one of the world’s largest wind farm projects as the nation looks for alternative energy, in part to compensate for falling oil production.   
Mexico is trying to exploit its rich wind and solar potential after relying almost exclusively on petroleum [...]

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Sopogy’s Global Strategy Expands to Spain

NANEA KALANI, Pacific Business News, January 12, 2009
Honolulu-based Sopogy announced last week that it will build a 50-megawatt system in Toledo, Spain, using its proprietary technology in partnership with a German energy financier and a Spanish project developer. The system could generate enough electricity to power 15,000 homes.
Sopogy founder and CEO Darren Kimura said the [...]

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OPT Gaining Traction in Wave Energy Projects

MendoCoastCurrent, December 15, 2008
Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) recently reported quarterly financials and also recent developments:
- Deployed and tested a PowerBuoy off the coast of Spain under the wave power contract with Iberdrola
- Awarded $2.0 million from the US Department of Energy in support of OPT’s wave power project in Reedsport, Oregon
- Deployed and tested a [...]

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Portugal Plugs in Biggest Onshore Wind Farm in Europe

Giles Tremlett, The Guardian UK, December 2, 2008
Europe’s biggest onshore wind farm plugged itself into the grid today to provide enough electricity for up to a million people in northern Portugal.
A total of 120 windmills are dotted across the highlands of the Upper Minho region of Portugal as one of western Europe’s poorer nations continues [...]

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A Splash of Green for the Rust Belt

PETER S. GOODMAN, The New York Times, November 2, 2008
Newton, Iowa – Like his uncle, his grandfather and many of their neighbors, Arie Versendaal spent decades working at the Maytag factory here, turning coils of steel into washing machines.
When the plant closed last year, taking 1,800 jobs out of this town of 16,000 people, it [...]

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OPT Floats First PowerBuoy in Spanish Wave Farm with Iberdrola

MendoCoastCurrent, September 23, 2008
Ocean Power Technologies, Inc., a New Jersey publicly-traded company deployed its first PowerBuoy with Iberdrola S.A, a Spanish renewable energy company, and its partners, at a site approximately three miles off the coast of Santoña, Spain.
As noted by Iberdrola, the deployment of OPT’s PB40 PowerBuoy is the latest milestone toward the building [...]

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New York Agency Approves Iberdrola Energy East Plan

Associated Press, September 4, 2008
Albany — New York utility regulators have given the global energy company Iberdrola the go-ahead to buy Energy East.
The 4-0 vote by New York’s Public Service Commission yesterday clears the way for the $4.6 billion deal, which includes Energy East subsidiaries Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. and New York State Electric [...]

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Iberdrola Soon Marketing Natural Gas in Portugal

EnergyBusinessReview.com, August 12, 2008
Spanish utility Iberdrola Renewables S.A. has been awarded the license to market natural gas in Portugal’s liberalized energy market by the country’s Directorate General of Energy and Geology, with support from the Portuguese Ministry of Economy and Innovation.
Pursuant to the terms of this authorization, Iberdrola will be able to import, export and [...]

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Iberdrola & NY Public Service Commission Meeting on Energy East

Democrat & Chronicle, August 9, 2008
New York’s Public Service Commission (PSC) will hold two sessions related to Iberdrola’s disputed acquisition of Energy East this month in Albany.
The proposed $4.5 billion takeover of Energy East Corp. by Iberdrola SA of Spain will come before the NY PSC on August 20 and 27, 2008, the PSC announced [...]

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Gamesa Sees First-half Net Profits Soar

AFP, July 29, 2008
MADRID (AFP) — Spanish wind turbine maker Gamesa Energia, a sector leader, said on Tuesday its net profits soared during the first-half at a time when record high oil prices are fueling interest in alternative energy sources.
The company posted a comparable net profit of 93 million euros ($146 million US) during the [...]

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Wind Energy Taking Off in Spain

EuroWeekly News, July 24, 2008
The results of a study by business analysts DBK, which have just been released, show that the use of renewable energy resources is increasing rapidly here in Spain.
The energy generated from wind in 2007 rose to 13.8 Megawatts, with a projected increase to15.9 MW by the end of the year. The [...]

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Iberdrola Renovables Ups Stake in Greece’s Rokas

Euro2day.gr, July 17, 2008
Athens – Spain’s Iberdrola Renovables SA said it upped its holding of ordinary shares in Greece’s wind energy company C.Rokas SA to 67.95% of total share capital.
Its holding of preferred shares increased to 52.66%, according to an announcement by Rokas to the Athens Stock Exchange.
On July 1, Iberdrola launched a voluntary tender [...]

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Iberdrola Renovables, Bancaja Developing Wind Power in Valencia

RedOrbit.com, July 8, 2008
Spanish clean energy firm Iberdrola Renovables and Bancaja have announced their participation in the wind energy plan for the region of Valencia, under the auspices of the regional government, in a bid to increase power generation in the province of Castellon.
Both companies suggested their proposal through a newly created company called Sistemas [...]

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NY Regulators: Make Iberdrola Commit to Wind Energy Development

JIM STINSON, Gannett News Service, July 2, 2008
The staff of the state Public Service Commission has again advised its five-member board to disapprove the $4.5 billion sale of Energy East Corp. to Iberdrola SA, but staffers have added a big “however” on wind farms.
In a brief filed in the long-running case, the PSC staff has [...]

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Iberdrola & Tecnalia to Develop Basque Wave Energy

Datamonitor, June 16, 2008
Spanish utility major Iberdrola and diversified technology group Tecnalia Corporacion Tecnologica have announced an agreement to develop the Oceantec wave energy project in the Basque Country of Spain, with the goal of putting into operation a high-performance wave energy device at a competitive cost.
This initiative, which is expected to stimulate industrial development [...]

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Iberdrola Warns of Reconsideration on Energy East

KELLY HARRINGTON, SNL Interactive, June 18, 2008

Spanish utility Iberdrola SA will reconsider its proposed acquisition of Energy East Corp. should New York regulators “impose unacceptable” conditions on the deal, the company said.

The company’s statement comes a day after Administrative Law Judge Rafael Epstein recommended that the Public Service Commission not approve the deal. The proposal, [...]

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Iberdrola’s Bid for New York Utility Hits a Hurdle

NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, International Herald Tribune, June 17, 2008
ALBANY: An administrative law judge advised state regulators on Monday to block a Spanish energy conglomerate’s bid to buy Energy East, a Maine-based utility with operations in four states, including New York, citing anticompetitive concerns.
The recommendation by the judge, Rafael Epstein, largely sided with an earlier recommendation by [...]

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Iberdrola’s Stalled Sale Seeks Power From Wind

NICOLAS CONFESSORE, The New York Times, June 4, 2008
ALBANY — One of the world’s largest energy companies proposed on June 3rd to build hundreds of wind turbines in New York, significantly raising the stakes in a nine-month battle with state regulators over its intended purchase of a power company.
Executives of the company, Iberdrola S.A., of [...]

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Iberdrola, Gamesa Creating Strategic Company and Largest Turbine Supply Deal

MendoCoastCurrent, June 13, 2008
Iberdrola Renewables and Gamesa Energia have signed the largest turbine supply contract ever in the wind power industry representing a total capacity of 4,500 megawatts (MW), for delivery between 2010 and 2012. The investment for wind power projects to which the turbines will be assigned is approximately €6.3 billion, a figure that [...]

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Iberdrola to Invest $8B in U.S. Renewable Energy

CRAIG RUBENS, earth2tech/GigaOM, May 19, 2008
Iberdrola Renewables, one of the largest owners and operators of renewable energy facilities in the world, announced yesterday its plans to invest $8 billion in American renewable energy by 2010. A large part of the money will go to expanding Iberdrola’s wind energy capacity, but the company also said it [...]

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Iberdrola Renewables Begins Testing Wave Energy in Spain

Green Car Congress, March 10, 2008
Iberdrola Renewables has begun the testing of a wave energy pilot plant in Santoña, Cantabria, Spain which will become the first of this kind to be installed in Europe.
The company has begun on-shore testing of the operation of the internal components of the first PowerBuoys from Ocean Power Technologies (OPT). [...]

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Solar Without Panels

PETER FAIRLEY, MIT Technology Review, February 29, 2008
Using the Sun’s Heat to Boil Water to Steam Turbines
Investors and utilities intent on building solar power plants are increasingly turning to solar thermal power, a comparatively low-tech alternative to photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity. This month, in the latest in a string of recent [...]

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