L.A. Looks To Move Beyond Coal With Wind

The article features remarks made by LADWP Senior Consultant James Caldwell, Jr. at the recent GreenXchange Global Marketplace Conference in Los Angeles:

"...today, wind produces roughly 1.5 percent of the U.S.’s electricity. I’m here to argue the proposition that we can and should generate roughly 20 percent of U.S. electricity with wind, within the planning horizon."

"the utility itself has a much more difficult role of aggregating all of these loads on the customer’s side, and aggregating all of these energy sources on the supply side, and somehow making those meld in a way that keeps the lights on, keeps the clocks running at 60 cycles a second, and keeps the reliability that we know today. That’s not going to be any easy transition."

"...the U.S. content of wind turbines is going to have to increase. We can’t continue to import the cells from Europe, the blades from South America, towers from China, and expect to have the sort of economic development potential that we’re going to need in order to get the political will to do this here and to contain the price pressures, given things like the Euro versus the dollar."