Houston Rewriting Its Energy Game Plan
By Tom Fowler, Houston Chronicle
Jun. 3–Oil and gas may be the prime mover in Houston’s economy, but a growing wind power business is proving there’s more than one way to spell "energy" in the Bayou City.
Houston is already home to a handful of major wind power project developers, including those owned by oil and gas giants BP and Shell, thanks in large part to the state’s ample wind resources, renewable energy incentives created by lawmakers and competitive power markets.
And the industry blew this way again Monday when Danish powerhouse Vestas Wind Systems said it will open its first U.S. research and development facility here. The office will open in 2009 and grow to about 100 researchers by early 2010, not including support staff, with more positions likely to come.
"Large-scale renewable energy has to be done in conjunction with major energy companies," said Ditlev Engel, Vestas chief executive. "There’s no either-or with renewable and traditional fossil fuels. You need them all."
The announcement came during the American Wind Energy Association’s annual Wind Power conference, which is in Houston for the first time this year and runs through Wednesday. More than 12,000 attendees have registered for the conference at the George R. Brown Convention Center. The conference features panel discussions, hundreds of exhibitors and a job fair.
Texas leads the nation in wind power, with 5,300 megawatts on line, enough to power more than 1.5 million homes, according to the Department of Energy.
In addition to BP and Shell’s wind operations, Houston is home to Horizon Wind Energy, a wind developer that was acquired by Portuguese energy giant Energias de Portugal, as well as the wind development offices for international investment firm Babcock & Brown.
UH to help test wind blades Munich, Germany-based Siemens, the third-largest wind turbine manufacturer, has maintenance staff and a training facility in Houston.
And the University of Houston is part of a consortium that will operate a wind blade test facility planned near Corpus Christi.
Houston Mayor Bill White noted Monday the city is already one of the largest public purchasers of wind power.
"Our goal is that Houston will not just be the energy capital of the world, but for renewables and energy efficiency," White said.
The renewable and alternative energy business could have a bigger impact on Houston than almost any other city, said Tom "Smitty" Smith, head of the Texas office of Public Citizen and a longtime wind energy advocate.
The largest biodiesel refinery in the U.S., the GreenHunter Energy plant, formally opened Monday at the Ship Channel and eventually will produce 105 million gallons a year.
The oil and gas industry is also one of the largest users of solar energy, Smith said, using photovoltaic cells to power everything from remote oil field monitoring equipment to certain systems on offshore production platforms. So there’s already a familiarity with the technology, even though it hasn’t reached the same scale as wind.
And if the U.S. develops law governing greenhouse gas emissions, as is widely expected, the city could take a leading role in the development of the carbon-trading markets that likely would follow. Houston is already home to many energy trading businesses that are heavy players in existing markets in which industries and speculators buy and sell emissions permits.
Vestas considered sites in 35 states in its search for a research office location, Engel said. It recently chose Colorado for two manufacturing facilities, but Houston’s high concentration of engineers, relatively low cost of doing business, critical mass of wind developers and other major energy companies were the main drivers for landing the research and development site.
Emerging Technology Fund "It was important to be part of this kind of cluster of energy businesses," Engel said.
Finn Strom Madsen, president of Vestas, said the company has already signed formal research agreements with the University of Texas and Texas A&M.
The research will focus on areas including mechanics, control systems, advanced materials and aerodynamics, although all of the company’s wind tunnel-based research will continue to be done in Denmark.
The city isn’t providing tax incentives to Vestas for the new facility, but the state’s Emerging Technology Fund will provide a $2.5 million grant to recruit researchers from around the country to come to Houston, said Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson.
A Texas Workforce Commission grant may be used later to provide technical training for other jobs.
tom.fowler@chron.com
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