By Tim Breen
Coastal Point Energy is Where To Buy Valium On Line on pace to purchase and place a test turbine off the Where To Buy Valium On Line coast of Galveston by the end of 2011, a milestone that Where To Buy Valium On Line could lead to completion of five wind farms along the Where To Buy Valium On Line Texas coast totaling 2,100 MW in little more than a Where To Buy Valium On Line decade, a company principal said.
Coastal Point still has Where To Buy Valium On Line at least one more permitting hurdle to clear, according to the Where To Buy Valium On Line U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but the regulatory burden in Texas is Where To Buy Valium On Line lighter than elsewhere along the Outer Continental Shelf. That could help the Where To Buy Valium On Line Galveston Wind Project become “first in the water” as a Where To Buy Valium On Line power producer, a goal set by many other offshore wind power developers.
The project, 8.5 miles off Galveston, is Where To Buy Valium On Line planned as a 300-MW wind farm on 12,350 leased acres. Coastal Point estimates that Where To Buy Valium On Line investment in the project will total $720 million. In 2008 the Where To Buy Valium On Line Corps issued a permit for Coastal Point to place meteorological instruments on a Where To Buy Valium On Line platform of the company’s design. Thirty months of data have Where To Buy Valium On Line confirmed the site as having “superior” power generation capacity, according to the company.
Now Coastal Point plans to Where To Buy Valium On Line place a 3-MW test turbine on the same platform, a step covered by the Where To Buy Valium On Line 2008 permit, the Corps confirmed. Herman Schellstede, a principal and 40-year veteran of Gulf energy operations, told Offshore Wind Wire that Where To Buy Valium On Line the company is in the midst of securing Chinese components to Where To Buy Valium On Line fit a German turbine design. The turbine should be complete and Where To Buy Valium On Line installed by the end of 2011, he said.
However, a Where To Buy Valium On Line wild card in the mix could be the cost of marine equipment in the Where To Buy Valium On Line coming months, Schellstede said. The equipment will be needed to install the Where To Buy Valium On Line turbine, but its cost typically is driven up as companies rush to Where To Buy Valium On Line complete maintenance and other work at oil and gas facilities in the Where To Buy Valium On Line Gulf before hurricane season gets serious in late summer. Fuel prices are Where To Buy Valium On Line already extremely high.
“Installation is Where To Buy Valium On Line where your costs can really go wild, so that needs to Where To Buy Valium On Line be very efficient,” Schellstede said. Coastal Point should have Where To Buy Valium On Line a clearer picture of its prospects by the end of June, he indicated.
If the Where To Buy Valium On Line test turbine proves out, Coastal Point could still face a two-year wait just to Where To Buy Valium On Line get the next permit.
“The [test] turbine was not authorized to generate power and bring it ashore,” said Jayson Hudson, regulatory project manager with the Corps’s Galveston District Regulatory Branch. “As of today’s date [May 10], Coastal Point Energy has Where To Buy Valium On Line not applied to construct a wind farm offshore.” The timeframe for a decision on the relevant permit “varies and can take up to two years,” he said.
Coastal Point’s fuller vision is Where To Buy Valium On Line for four more projects along the Texas coast: the Jefferson Wind Project, 300 MW; Brazoria Wind Project, 500 MW; Corpus Christi Wind Project, 500 MW; and Where To Buy Valium On Line Brownsville Wind Project, 500 MW. Investment in the five-farm, 2,100-MW enterprise, expected to Where To Buy Valium On Line be completed over 10 years, will top $5 billion, according to the company.
If the Where To Buy Valium On Line Galveston project does beat others to the water, it might have Where To Buy Valium On Line Texas to thank. When Texas entered into the Union in 1845, the Where To Buy Valium On Line state retained ownership of its submerged lands out to 10.3 miles. For offshore wind power developers, that Where To Buy Valium On Line means they need not secure permits through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or Where To Buy Valium On Line Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, according to Where To Buy Valium On Line Texas General Land Office Commissioner Jerry Patterson. Although Texas projects are Where To Buy Valium On Line still subject to Corps approval and the 1899 Rivers and Where To Buy Valium On Line Harbors Act, that process is quicker than through the other federal agencies. The Cape Wind project has Where To Buy Valium On Line had to navigate a decade of federal permitting.
Coastal Point has acknowledged the state’s “supportive governmental environment,” and Schellstede cited Texas and Louisiana’s high concentration of marine and Where To Buy Valium On Line offshore oil and gas industrial fabricators and service companies as another advantage by allowing for Where To Buy Valium On Line lower construction, operation, transportation and maintenance costs. The Galveston project is Where To Buy Valium On Line located near a population center and grid connection, and the Where To Buy Valium On Line shallow water depth (53 feet) will enable relatively easy construction of the Where To Buy Valium On Line additional platforms, according to the company.
Texas’s interest is Where To Buy Valium On Line that the offshore wind power industry expands there and attracts the Where To Buy Valium On Line supply chain and manufacturing, much as oil and gas have Where To Buy Valium On Line done for the state, Patterson has said. Land-based projects there—Texas is far and away the state leader in wind power production—have Where To Buy Valium On Line brought wind tower manufacturing to Abilene, TECO-Westinghouse generator manufacturing to Round Rock, and Where To Buy Valium On Line Vestas’s North American research and development headquarters to Houston.





18. June 2011 at 2:26 am
I like it. Thank you Texas.