While solar power remains more costly than other traditional energy sources,
AEP recognizes the potential of this abundant and free fuel resource as an increasingly
attractive energy for the future.
AEP’s activities in solar energy have focused primarily on education and outreach.
More than 125 schools participate in AEP’s
Learning From Light and
Watts on Schools programs. Through these programs, AEP partners with
learning institutions to install solar photovoltaic systems, and uses these systems
to track energy use and demonstrate how solar energy is a part of the total energy
mix.
AEP has an active wind development program and has been monitoring wind resources since the mid-1990s. The company has studied many sites in Texas and neighboring states to measure wind resources and evaluate the potential costs of producing and delivering electricity at those sites in the western area of AEP's footprint. In the east, Indiana Michigan Power (I&M), a unit of AEP, is currently exploring the feasibility of developing a wind farm in east central Indiana.
AEP owns 310.5 megawatts of wind generation capacity in Texas. AEP also has
agreements to purchase 742 megawatts from several wind power facilities in Illinois, Indiana, Oklahoma
and Texas.
AEP's Trent Mesa Wind Farm
– located near Abilene in Nolan and Taylor County, Texas – was completed
in 2001 and has a capacity of 150 megawatts. All of the energy produced from this
project is sold to TXU under a wholesale energy supply contract. The 160-megawatt
Desert Sky Wind Farm
– located near Iraan in Pecos County, Texas – also was completed in
2001. All of the energy produced from this project is sold to CPS Energy of San
Antonio under wholesale energy supply contracts.
In addition to owning and operating its own facilities, AEP also is a major purchaser
of wind power:
- AEP purchases 75 megawatts from FPL Energy’s
Southwest Mesa wind project near McCamey, Texas. AEP identified the site and
owns the majority of the land where the project is located. FPL Energy owns and
operates the turbines.
- In 2005, Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO), a unit of AEP, became the largest
purchaser of wind energy in Oklahoma with agreements for 147 megawatts from FPL
Energy’s
Weatherford Wind Energy Center near Weatherford, and 151.2 megawatts from
the Horizon Wind Energy’s
Blue Canyon II facility near Lawton.
- In 2006, PSO announced it will purchase an additional 94.5 MW
from the
Sleeping Bear wind project, also located in Oklahoma. The project, which is owned and operated by an affiliate of the Edison Mission Group, began deliveries to PSO in late 2007.
AEP led in the development of the e8’s
San Cristobal Wind Project in the Galapagos Archipelago, dedicated in March
2008. The 2.4-MW project, completed in collaboration with e8, the United Nations and Ecuador, is the first large-scale
wind project in Ecuador and is one of the largest wind-diesel hybrid systems in
the world. With major AEP funding and project leadership, this project underscores
AEP’s vision to lead in technical innovation of power systems and environmental
technology, and in building strong communities.
AEP’s 17 hydroelectric facilities
in Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan generate more than 800 megawatts
of electricity.
Smith Mountain Hydro Project, on the Roanoke River southeast of Roanoke, Virginia,
was the nation’s first major development combining run-of-the-river hydro
with pumped storage generation. Water held in the lower reservoir (Leesville) is
pumped back into the upper reservoir (Smith Mountain) during off-peak hours, for
use in generating electricity during times of peak demand. The Smith Mountain and
Leesville facilities have a combined generating capacity of more than 600 megawatts.
The Claytor Hydro facility, located on the New River in Virginia, is AEP’s
next-largest hydro project with a generating capacity of 76 megawatts.
Our hydro plant section
provides more information.
Biomass represents a potentially carbon-neutral energy source, in that the carbon
released during the conversion of plants and trees into electricity is the same
carbon that is taken out of the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Until the company
sold the Fiddler’s Ferry and Ferry Bridge power plants in 2004, AEP co-fired
biomass in 4,000 MW of coal-based power generation in the United Kingdom. AEP also
has conducted biomass co-firing tests and analyses at several of its power plants
in the U.S. The company continues to investigate biomass fuels and views biomass
co-firing as an effective means of meeting possible renewable energy requirements
in the future.
