We’ve been watching Calpine with interest these past few months as it has become apparent that the company is for sale. Today the company announced that it reached an agreement with Cleco Corp over Acadia Power Holdings. This comes on the heels of the settlement with bond holders of $12B for $0.33 on the dollar last week.

It’s clear the Street likes the news as buyers sent the stock up another 15% today. In January, Calpine was trading for just over $1 per share and today’s closing price was $3.75 per share, nearly a 4 bagger.

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Aerotecture horizontal turbine installation

Industrial designer Bil Becker has created a wind column design intended to be grafted into urban architecture and help to make buildings more sustainable from a power perspective. These turbines aren’t ultra-efficient, the horizontal model is rated at 1.8kw per module in a 13 meter per second wind (30mph) and the vertical model is rated at 1kw in the same conditions. The turbines aren’t yet price competitive either running at $21,000 per module for horizontal and $15,000 for vertical turbines. But, they are very visually interesting and as volumes increase, price should drop.

The good news about these turbines is that even with the high required wind velocity, they’re likely to be successful. Why? Because urban environments are notorious for “making their own wind” – or rather, large vertical structures act as sails on wind currents not available at ground level and these winds sail through streets (urban canyons) at a pretty good clip. The installation environment plus the design element have the makings of an interesting success story.

We’ll watch Aerotecture with interest as the product comes to market.

Condenser unit being transported to the site

U.S. Geothermal has entered the press release business too. But, they actually had some interesting things to share today about their Raft River project in Idaho:

* Power plant equipment and cooling tower foundations are complete
* The generator, main transformer, air compressors and pentane storage
tanks have been delivered to the site
* The cooling tower is under construction
* Industrial Builders of Ontario, Oregon was awarded the mechanical
construction contract by Ormat and began fabrication work in February
* The award of the electrical construction contract is anticipated in April
* The Ormat turbines, and Level One heat exchangers have been shipped
from the Ormat factory in Israel and are in transit
* Fabrication of the power plant condenser and demister is complete

New photos of the construction site and equipment are posted in the Gallery section on our website at www.usgeothermal.com.

In addition, Raft River Rural Electric Cooperative has finished construction of the 3.2-mile power transmission line that connects the power plant to the Bonneville Power Administration substation at Bridge, Idaho. Equipment upgrades to the substation including a breaker, relays, and communications systems are underway.

Read more…

This constitutes real progress for the company and shows that a new geothermal production area will be online shortly.