Panasonic recently announced the company has established Panasonic Eco Solutions North America. The new business unit of Panasonic Corporation of North America will put focus on renewable energy projects, with activities involving everything from design and implementation to financing of RE project as well as energy efficiency projects. Activities will cover the US and Canada as the primary markets.
Mitsubishi Corporation, as part of its strategy to grow its presence in the field of renewable energy, is acquiring a 34% stake in the Mareña Renovables wind project in Mexico, which is to have 396 MW of installed capacity, becoming one of, if not the largest wind energy project in Latin America.
Iberdrola and National Grid (transmission system operator in Great Britain) have awarded the EUR 1 billion contract for building the first ever subsea transmission link between Scotland and England to Siemens. The new subsea link will increase the available transmission capacity by about 2 GW, and create conditions for the development of more renewable energy projects in Scotland.
Mitsubishi Corporation has purchased a 49% stake in two German offshore cable transmission projects from TenneT Holding BV. The two projects are BorWin1 and BorWin2. Total costs of both projects is about EUR 1.2 billion. Two grid connections will be developed by TenneT, with 1.2 GW of capacity. TenneT and Mitsubishi will maintain and operate about 400 km of cables and tranformers for 20 years, as regulated under German laws.
The US Department of Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management have announced the progress of the department's renewable energy initiative, having successully passed an important environmental review. This means the offshore wind energy leases planned for waters near Maryland, Virgina, New Jersey and Delaware can now move forward.
ABB, 4R Energy, Nissan NA and the Sumitomo Corporation of America have found a way to extend the life of old Nissan LEAF batteries by using them for energy storage in future local community smart grids. The partners are evaluating and testing ways of reusing the Li-ion batteries in residential and commercial energy storage applications.
Vestas announced a reorganization of the company's activities in order to reduce fixed costs by more than EUR 150 million, which is to reach full effect near the end of 2012. Most of the cost cutting measures include streamlining of support functions in the company, but also through closing of factories in accordance with the state of demand in the wind energy market in the coming months.
MPX (Brazil) and E.ON have entered into an agreement to form an equally owned joint venture for energy development and supply and trade activities in Brazil and Chile. The new partnership will aim to develop 20 GW of new power generating capacity in the two South American countries. This figure represents about 20% of the total current capacity in Brazil. The new JV will be responsible for developing both thermal energy and renewable energy sources.
ABB has received an order for USD 50 million worth of electrical equipment and services for the improvement of reliability and strength of the existing power transmission grid in Texas. The improvements will allow greater integration of wind capacity into the state's power grid.
Vestas has closed 2011 with several orders for its wind turbines, amounting to about 560 MW of capacity. The orders from from various markets, including Pakistan, the company's first in this Asian country. Still, even though the company has had a successful year in terms of order intake, totalling about 7.4 GW, the revenue for 2011 still had to be downgraded by about EUR 400 million to be about EUR 6 billion. The company also encountered some unexpected costs in its development activities involving the V112-3.0 MW and the GridStreamer technology for the 2 MW family of turbines.
