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US Grid Strain, Possible Allete Sale

Allen discusses the strain on America’s largest power grid due to data center demand, Taiwan’s $3 billion wind farm project, the potential sale of Allete and new data center regulations in Ohio.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on FacebookYouTubeTwitterLinkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

America’s largest power grid is under serious strain. Data centers and AI chatbots are using electricity faster than new power plants can be built.

PJM Interconnection covers thirteen states from Illinois to Tennessee and Virginia to New Jersey. The company serves sixty seven million customers. This summer, electricity bills could jump more than twenty percent in some areas.

The region has the most data centers in the world. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is threatening to pull his state out of the grid entirely. Recently, PJM’s CEO has announced he’s leaving and PJM Board members have been voted out.

PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields says the problem is simple economics. “Prices will remain high as long as demand growth is outstripping supply. Right now, we need every megawatt we can get.”

The grid lost more than five point six gigawatts in the last decade. Old power plants shut down faster than new ones come online. Meanwhile, data center demand keeps growing. By twenty thirty, PJM expects thirty two gigawatts of increased demand. Almost all of that will come from data centers.

Ørsted has secured three billion dollars in financing for a major wind farm project in Taiwan.

The Greater Changhua Two project will supply clean energy to over one million households once it’s fully operational. The wind farm sits thirty to thirty seven miles off Taiwan’s coast.

Taiwan wants twenty percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources by twenty twenty five. This project is a critical step toward that goal.

Ørsted plans to sell part of its ownership stake after the project is completed. This strategy lets the company recycle money into new projects while keeping operational control.

Allete is one step closer to being sold. The Minnesota Department of Commerce has withdrawn its opposition to the six point two billion dollar deal.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Global Infrastructure Partners want to buy the company. Allete runs Minnesota Power and Superior Water, Light and Power of Wisconsin.

The sale still needs approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. That’s the last hurdle before the deal can close.

The new owners have agreed to several customer protections. They’ll freeze rates for one year and reduce the company’s allowed profit margin. They’ve also promised fifty million dollars in additional clean energy investments.

AEP Ohio has won approval for new rules that protect customers from data center costs.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved the plan on July ninth. Large data centers will now have to pay for at least eighty five percent of the electricity they sign up for, even if they use less.

AEP Ohio President Marc Reitter says the rules align data center demand with infrastructure costs. “This infrastructure will support Ohio’s growing tech sector and help secure America’s data storage facilities here in the U.S.”

The requirements will last twelve years, including a four year ramp up period. Data center owners must also prove they’re financially able to meet their obligations.

RWE has extended CEO Markus Krebber’s contract until twenty thirty one. The early extension adds another five years to his current agreement.

Krebber has led the German energy company since twenty twenty one. He joined the company in twenty twelve and became an Executive Board member in twenty sixteen. The Supervisory Board praised his leadership during the energy crisis and his work positioning the company for future growth.

That’s this week’s top news stories, join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.

https://weatherguardwind.com/grid-strain-allete/

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Trump’s Dementia Is the Least of Our Problems

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Our problem isn’t really dementia; it’s criminal sociopathy.

All through his life, Trump has operated on the basis “what’s good for me?” with no regard for the wellbeing of others.  That’s a sociopath.

On top of this, you add criminality.  Anything that won’t land his in prison is totally fine, where it be fraud, theft, or treason.

Trump’s Dementia Is the Least of Our Problems

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Empathy and Happiness

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Exactly.  Being indifferent to the suffering of others makes it easy to keep a smile on your face.

Empathy and Happiness

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Nova Scotia’s Wind West Plan, Rivian Tries Wind

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Nova Scotia’s Wind West Plan, Rivian Tries Wind

Allen covers Nova Scotia’s ambitious 60 GW Wind West offshore plan and the standoff between Ottawa and developers over who invests first. Plus a scaled-back English onshore project faces local opposition, Blue Elephant Energy triples its German wind portfolio, Adani prepares to build India’s longest onshore blade, and Rivian signs a wind PPA to power its Illinois factory.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTubeLinkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

There is something happening in the wind business right now. Something big … and something small.

Let us start with big.

In Nova Scotia … Premier Tim Houston has a dream. He calls it Wind West. Sixty gigawatts of offshore wind turbines. A transmission line to move that power across Canada and into the United States. The price tag … sixty billion dollars. Forty billion for the turbines. Twenty billion for the cables.

But Ottawa says … not so fast. Federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told reporters the Major Projects Office needs to see private industry commit first. No private partners … no national interest designation.

And here is the catch. The developers want to see transmission infrastructure before they invest. Ottawa wants to see developers before it invests. Everybody is waiting for everybody else.

Still … Houston is not worried. He says the response from developers has been … through the roof. French firm Q Energy has already applied to pre-qualify. And Natural Resources Canada just put up nearly five million dollars for a feasibility study.

Houston says the wind is there. It blows … a lot. The only question is where the power goes.

Now … across the Atlantic.

In England … a developer is learning that sometimes bigger is not better. Calderdale Energy Park wanted to build sixty-five turbines on Walshaw Moor near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. That would have made it the largest onshore wind farm in England. Last April they cut it to forty-one. Now … thirty-four. That would match the current largest site at Keadby in Lincolnshire.

Campaigners say it will still damage the peat bogs and threaten ground-nesting birds. A local parish council survey found ninety-three percent of residents opposed. The developer says it could power a quarter million homes. That application goes to the Planning Inspectorate in November.

Meanwhile … in Hamburg, Germany …

Blue Elephant Energy is doing some shopping. The company just acquired a three hundred eighty-one megawatt wind portfolio from Wind-Projekt. That is thirty-seven operating wind farms in northern Germany. Two hundred sixty megawatts already feeding the grid. Another forty-six megawatts under construction … coming online this year. And seventy-five more megawatts in the pipeline for twenty twenty-seven.

This deal will triple their German wind capacity … from one hundred seventy-three to five hundred thirty-three megawatts. It still needs approval from the German Federal Cartel Office.

Now … to India.

The Adani Group is about to build the longest onshore wind turbine blade in the country. Ninety-one-point-two meters. That is the length of a football field. Those blades will create a rotor diameter of one hundred eighty-five meters. Each rotation sweeps an area larger than three football fields combined.

The factory is at Mundra in the state of Gujarat. Current capacity … two-point-two-five gigawatts per year. They plan to double that to five … and eventually reach ten. India added six-point-three gigawatts of wind last year alone. That was an eighty-five percent jump over the year before.

And finally … back home in the American heartland.

Rivian … the electric vehicle maker … just signed a power purchase agreement with Apex Clean Energy. Fifty megawatts from the proposed Goose Creek wind farm in Piatt County, Illinois. That wind farm sits within an hour of Rivian’s flagship plant in Normal, Illinois. With this deal … Rivian could power up to seventy-five percent of its factory with carbon-free energy. An electric truck company … powered by wind.

So let us step back.

Nova Scotia dreams of sixty gigawatts off its coast. An English moor fights over thirty-four turbines. A German company triples its wind portfolio overnight. India builds blades as long as football fields. And an American truck maker turns to the prairie wind to build its future.

From the North Atlantic to the plains of Illinois … from the moors of Yorkshire to the coast of Gujarat … the wind keeps blowing. And people … keep building.

And that is the state of the wind industry for the first of March twenty twenty-six.

Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast tomorrow.

Nova Scotia’s Wind West Plan, Rivian Tries Wind

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