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Originally Posted by Tron_fdc
In the case of Enmax their deal was with Visionquest, who they just hppened to own. It's pretty easy to sign contracts with yourself......
So yes, indirectly the C-train contract is responsible for the turbines. What they do however, is have other large generation sites that supply power, and allow the wind turbines to bid into the grid at a much higher profit level than the contract is for, when both generators (say coal and wind) are running.
We have been working on a wind-gen site for 4 years now, and the semantics are extremely complicated. Large retailers have the upper hand on us small guys for a number of reasons, and one of them is the generation capacity they already have, and the marketing budgets they can utilize. The average Calgarian seems to think they are subsidizing green power by getting into Greenmax, when in reality it's the same as saying we're subsidizing federal road building in Alberta by paying federal income tax. Indirectly yes, it contributes. Directly, I would say you're better off buying stock in Canadian Hydro or Visionquest wit the money you would spend on a subsidy for Enmax. Even though Visionquest is owned by Enmax, at least you know you're directly subsidizing wind generation.
edit for clarity, although I've had 2 pints and still make no sense
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I think it's TransAlta who owns VisionQuest, not EnMax. At least that's whose name appears on the VisionQuest website. Not sure if investing in TransAlta would help with wind generation initiaves, though, as they mostly burn an assload of Coal to keep the lights on.
Also found this on the VisionQuest Site:
http://www.visionquestwind.com/produ...21&id=products
Sounds like there is a direct relationship between green energy purchased and that produced. (Well at least from a marketing stand point, the reality of the situation might be different).
Doing a Google, I also see a "VisionQuest Enterprises" who are building something called the "speed ball", a mini windmill for use in residential and commercial sites, as well as to recapture wind energy from large trucks and RV's while in motion.
(Perhaps they are also working on a new model, on a stick, that little kids can run around with. Always figured that, if you could capture the energy of a three year old for one day, you could probably power a washing machine for, like, 10 years.)
The two companies operate in Western Canada, in windpower, but don't seem to have anything to do with one another?? (at least not as far as I can tell). I thought trade name registration existed to stop stuff like this from happening.