Our US Department of the Interior announced yesterday (16-December-2010) that it has drafted a new environmental policy to expedite large-scale solar power projects in six western states.

The policy, known as the Draft Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), designates 24 sites on public lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah for renewable energy projects.

We’re not talking about small potatoes here.  This is about over 100 active solar applications covering 1 million acres that developers estimate could generate 60,000 megawatts of electricity.

Why should you care?

Well, if for no other reason: job security. Does this effort trigger projects (and therefore the need for project managers)?  Well, perhaps this will help answer that question.  The 32 page Introduction section of the PEIS document contains the word project of program over 150 times.

Presentation on the document structure:

Click here for a short video on how to use the document.

Link to full PEIS document:

Click here for the full document.

Click here for a set of Questions and Answers on the program.

As we have continued to assert – climate change cynic, or earthy enthusiastic environmentalist, as a project manager, you are best off – and importantly, best suited - to ride the green wave.  Start riding.

The cover story and the majority of this month’s PM Network magazine (the instrument of the Project Management Institute, PMI) is – as you can see, focused on renewable energy.

If you’re a member, make sure you log in and read the online version.  You’ll find quite a treasure trove of articles on the subject and you’ll see mention of a strong upsurge in the number of projects starting to take place worldwide in this practice area.  Striking examples of project management prowess overcoming obstacles are plentiful, especially in a very well-written article about the Danish Horns Rev 2 project.  In particular, read about the way that PM Henrik Lehmann overcame the problem of risk identification for a project taking place far offshore, in icy waters with 10-foot-high waves.  Lehmann knew that he didn’t know all of the risks himself and so brought together a team of 50 selected employees with the experience and competency in this area to help brainstorm and identify risk, which of course had the side benefit of gaining buy-in from a diverse set of contributing functional organizations.  This is a huge project and the world’s largest offshore wind farm.

At the moment.

Turns out, this will be dwarfed in only a few years by another wind farm which will be thrice the size.  Where is this new one to be, you ask?  Well, the name will give it away – it’s called the London Array.  And we suggest you go have a look at a brief video that will tell you all about it, right on PMI’s web page.

Go here to see that video.  And the London Array project site is worth a visit as well.

The inspiring overall message of the issue is the fact that we’re at a sharp upswing in the deployment of these types of projects, “the steepest upward climb to date”, according to Gaynor Hartnell, director of policy at the Renewable Energy Association, London, England.  This is the green wave in action and it sits right there – at the intersection of green and project management – an increasingly satisfying place to be.

According to the AWEA (American Wind Energy Association), the U.S. wind industry broke all previous records by installing nearly 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity in 2009 (enough to serve over 2.4 million homes), but still lags in manufacturing, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today in its Q4 report. These new projects place wind power neck and neck with natural gas as the leading source of new electricity generation for the country.  Together, the two sources account for about 80% of the new capacity added in the country last year.

But is this enough?

“The U.S. wind energy industry shattered all installation records in 2009, chalking up the Recovery Act as a historic success in creating jobs, avoiding carbon, and protecting consumers,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “But U.S. wind turbine manufacturing – the canary in the mine — is down compared to last year’s levels, and needs long-term policy certainty and market pull in order to grow.  We need to set hard targets, in the form of a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), in order to provide the necessary stability for manufacturers to expand their U.S. operations and to seize the historic opportunity we have today to build up a thriving renewable energy industry.”
Where is this wind power?

Amongst other places, deep in the heart of Texas.

See the table below, showing the top 5 states in terms of  MW of power installed.

Texas, the nation’s wind-power leader, set a new record for wind generation today, March 5, 2010, when — at 6:37 a.m. — about 19 percent of the electricity on the state’s main grid was supplied by turbines.

But sometimes, the problem – strangely enough – is that the wind turbines are shut down because they are generating too much power, yielding an effect in which the value of the electricity they generate is actually lower than zero.  Read this snippet from the New York Times eco blog, GreenInc:

“Texas’s progress in installing turbines is testing the bounds of just how much wind the electrical grid can handle. Some turbines are slowed or shut down on windy days because the state does not have sufficient transmission wires to move all the power from the remote, windy areas of West Texas to cities like Dallas and Houston that need it. Last night and this morning, for example, the prices for wind generation offered on the main Texas grid actually fell below zero, a sign of oversupply that usually prompts wind generators to shut their turbines down.

Texas is spending nearly $5 billion to fix the transmission problem. It plans to build a web of power lines that would be able to deliver the wind energy from congested West Texas, home to 89 percent of the wind capacity on the state’s main grid, to power-hungry cities. That process, however, looks likely to be delayed by a recent court decision.”

Whoa.  Here at EarthPM that sparks (yes, a pun!) a lot of ideas for projects.  Power transmission projects.  Power storage projects.  So we’d like to hear about some record number of project managers being hired…