NEXTERA IN BIG ON NEW ENERGY

NextEra to Spend Up to $5.8 Billion on Wind, Solar Power by 2014
Ehren Goosens, July 27, 2011 (Bloomberg News)

"NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, plans to spend as much as $5.8 billion in the next three years to build wind and solar projects…The company’s NextEra Energy Resources LLC unit plans to spend from $2.3 billion to $2.7 billion through 2014 on solar projects, and $2.7 billion to $3.1 billion on wind farms, Lewis Hay, [chief executive officer, said]…

"The projects will supply electricity for power purchase contracts it has already completed or expects to complete in the coming years…[The company has] signed more long-term power purchase agreements for new wind projects…in the first seven months of 2011… [than] in all of 2010… "

NextEra's Blue Sky project would add 200 megawatts to California's grid -- if it gets past local wind opponents (click to enlarge)

"NextEra signed 632 megawatts of contracts for wind farms since the first quarter, including 469 megawatts for projects in Canada that received contracts from the Ontario Power Authority and are expected to enter service in 2013 and 2014.

""The company has power contracts totaling more than 1.1 gigawatts of wind projects in the U.S. and Canada that entered service this year or are expected to do so by 2012…[and] expects to add by the end of next year as much as 2 gigawatts of wind power to the 8.3 gigawatts it has in operation now."