Maine Approves 800 MW Wind Farm, Ming Yang Lobbies UK

Allen covers Clearway’s 800 MW wind farm in Maine, the state’s largest ever, along with Suzlon’s $1.2 billion project in India and Masdar’s growing battery pipeline in the UK. Then Mingyang lobbies the UK’s new Prime Minister to reverse its ban from British waters.

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Up in Maine this week… they picked a spot for a wind farm. Eight hundred megawatts. The biggest the state has ever seen. Hold that thought. Halfway around the world… India broke ground on something even bigger. And in between… a Chinese company knocked on Britain’s door. Again.

Start in Aroostook County, Maine. The woods up there grow timber… and wind. The Maine Public Utilities Commission chose Clearway Energy to build eight hundred megawatts of turbines on commercial timberland in the rural north. Avangrid will string the power line to connect those turbines to the New England grid. Commission Chair Phil Bartlett says the project will save Maine ratepayers at least three hundred and eighty-seven million dollars. Two-point-four billion in economic output. Thousands of construction jobs. Six hundred megawatts stay in Maine. The rest goes to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont. Five states… one wind farm… one forest.

Now fly east across the Atlantic. In Rochdale, England… Abu Dhabi’s Masdar just flipped the switch on its second battery storage plant in Britain. Thirty-five megawatts. Seventy megawatt-hours. Enough to power thirty-five thousand homes a day. And it responds to grid swings in milliseconds. This is part of Masdar’s one-billion-pound pipeline of battery projects across the UK. Three gigawatt-hours planned. One of the largest storage buildouts in the country. Wind needs a partner. Batteries are volunteering.

Now south… to India. Suzlon just broke ground on thirteen hundred and twenty-five megawatts of wind in Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh. The investment… about one-point-two billion dollars. Sixteen hundred new jobs. Suzlon already has a blade factory in the region. Capacity… twelve hundred and sixty megawatts a year. And the company is training twelve thousand young people, including three thousand women, in green energy skills. India’s wind sector just crossed fifty-eight gig