Renewable energy

Solar
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.  

Wind
AEP is one of the largest owners of wind generation capacity in the United States with two facilities totaling 310.5 megawatts of capacity in Texas. AEP also has agreements to purchase 467 megawatts from several wind power facilities in Oklahoma and Texas. In addition, AEP’s Learning From Wind program installs small-scale wind turbines to provide wind power education and renewable energy research at educational institutions.

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 will be owned and operated by Edison Mission Group, is expected to be on-line in mid-2007.

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. Indiana Michigan Power (I&M), a unit of AEP, is currently exploring the feasibility of developing a wind farm in east central Indiana.

The company completed the six-megawatt Fort Davis Wind Farm in western Texas in 1995. Fort Davis has since been decommissioned, but it was the first wind farm in Texas utilizing utility-scale wind turbines, and the first constructed under the Wind Turbine Verification Program jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The research project provided valuable data and experience as AEP moved forward with participation in much larger projects.

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.

Hydroelectric
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
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.