Business Briefs: wind, water, and carbon dioxide sales

A US-based subsidiary of the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas, has received an order for sixty-two 660 KW turbines, valued at DKK200 million (€27 million), from the Californian Cannon Power Corporation. The order, which will be delivered this year, is for a wind power project located near Palm Springs.

Meanwhile, in France, utility company, Vivendi Environment, is buying the UK utility, Southern Water, giving the company a 10% share of the English and Welsh water markets, worth €10 billion. According to Associated Press, the deal is subject to UK and European Union regulatory approval, and is expected to occur in the fourth quarter.

Trading news this week also includes carbon dioxide. Royal Dutch/Shell and Denmark’s largest electricity generator, Elsam, have established the first link between the only two national emission trading schemes in the world by swapping carbon emission permits, reports the Financial Times. Shell has bought allowances from Elsam, who has decided to turn its excess allowances into UK permits as the Danish scheme is due to end next year.

Shell has also announced that it has purchased an equity stake in Canada’s Iogen Energy Corporation, a world-leading bioethanol technology company, for US$29 million. Iogen will use the money to develop more rapidly the world’s first commercial-scale biomass to ethanol plant.

Back in the world of carbon dioxide, Australian-based CarbonSim, a developer of greenhouse gas emissions trading platforms and software, has announced that it is to hold a series of on-line greenhouse gas emissions trading simulations in Europe and the Nordic region from 28 May. According to CarbonSim, these simulations will be the first to combine trading in greenhouse gas emission allowances and renewable energy certificates.

And finally, in Germany, the Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants (UFOP) has announced that the biodiesel industry will create 19,000 jobs in agriculture, raw material processing and marketing. However, this good news is dependent on Germany’s 900,000 tonnes of biodiesel capacity being supplied by native rapeseed cultivation only.