Wind Farms

Renewable energy production and demand growth is gaining momentum in many ways across the world. There is a booming demand of wind power today and all wind energy equipment manufacturers are gearing up to meet the demand and take advantage of it. Wind power capacity growth will be reaching 447GW in the next five years and by year 2014 end, Asia will lead the world in installed wind capacity. Enercon is amongst the other manufacturers who are focusing on 3MV-class wind turbines based on E-82/2.0. Without increasing the component sizes, there are new designs to operate at 3MW power. There will be a 3-6% increased yield because of these innovative designs as claimed by the Enercon. 1 Comment

A fresh-water wind farm is taking shape at Lake Erie and when completed will provide 20 megawatts and get on to about one gigawatt power by 2020. Huge individual turbines 300 feet tall, to be built by GE will be erected off Ohio, Cleveland. Better designs: These are special gearless super-efficient turbines, with three 176-foot long blades, which run with the help of a giant ring of magnets. The blades are longer due to strategically placed carbon fibre, and lighter too. Many moving parts like gearbox, coils and starter brushes are eliminated with resultant reduced maintenance. The giant magnetic ring array helps the turbine generate power even at very low speed. Rejuvenating wind energy industry: As land-based turbines are facing a lack of interest and demand, wind energy industry is facing a setback. This new-design turbines to tap ... 5 Comments

Presently Fluid Dynamics Expert, John Dabiri, is very much on the quest of improving designs of wind turbines. Spotting behaviours that may throw light on energy-related practices in biological system and trying to implement that in real-life situations is part of that quest and Mr.Dabiri is jubilant that he is learning lessons from a school of fish! Water-energy, and wind energy are both studied. 2 Comments

Now big companies are going green and proudly proclaiming it too from rooftops. Google Inc. has invested $38.8 million in two North Dakota wind farms. This is the first direct investment by Google in utility-scale renewable energy generation. These two wind farms produce 169.5 megawatts of power. These two wind farms can light up around 55,000 homes. These wind farms are designed by General Electric Co and created by NextEra Energy Resources. They generate power from one of the world's richest wind resources in the North Dakota plains. There is no need to lay down extra infrastructure for the two wind farms. Current transmission facilities are able to transmit power to the nearby areas. Google's official blog claims, "Through this $38.8 million investment, we're aiming to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy — in a way that makes good business sense, too." 15 Comments

Scientists believe that natural resources can meet the energy needs of the entire human population. Wind energy too has huge potential to generate power for us. Researchers are trying to trap offshore wind power. But there are still many hiccups that are preventing us from utilizing natural resources for our needs. Wind turbines produce intermittent power because the direction and strength of the wind varies. Scientists are trying to generate more or less consistent power from offshore winds. 5 Comments

With all the talk of going green, the question had been thrown out many times if there will ever be a time that we can use nothing but renewable energy to power our world. A small island in Denmark is trying answer that question with a resounding yes as they power up every single day via nothing but wind power. The Danish island is the ideal setting as the wind literally never stops blowing. The North Sea offers the perfect opportunity to capitalize on the winds that come off of the sea and for them to use wind power as their primary source of power. As a matter of fact, the wind power that they are using is their ONLY source of power. 18 Comments

GE, the US industrial group, is promoting and showing confidence in offshore wind technology by buying ScanWind, which makes direct-drive turbine components. This move will help in generating thousands of new jobs in the field of designing and manufacturing turbines. This move will affirm the confidence of investors in the fledgling offshore wind industry, which has been weighed down by concerns about costs and reliability. GE is moving ahead with establishing turbine manufacturing facilities to serve the European markets at first. They have to make up their mind about the size of the investment and location. 14 Comments

Off shore wind is steady and blows harder. If a country is densely populated it is hard to find open space to install wind farms. That is why there are more and more offshore wind farms in densely populated Europe where there is limited space on land and relatively large offshore areas with shallow water. Scientists of the Geesthacht GKSS Research Centre are interested in offshore winds and mechanics of sea waves. They are working on a radar system to study the behavior of the sea waves. This technology will be available for utilization on the North Sea on the FINO3 research platform. This technology will help in finding out the details of the interactions between offshore wind power machines and swells. 1 Comment

Some of the African regions are so hot that unless you're are accustomed to that climate it is not possible for your to survive. Extreme temperatures also generate extreme winds and perhaps this is the reason wind farms have great potential in Africa. Some 365 giant wind turbines will be installed in desert around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya to create the biggest wind farm in Africa. Once completed -- tentatively in 2012 -- the £533m project, backed by the African Development Bank, will have a capacity of 300MW, a quarter of Kenya's current installed power and one of the highest proportions of wind energy to be fed in a national grid anywhere in the world. 10 Comments

Sources of alternative energy are still in infancy stage and taking nascent steps towards the future. So there are ample scopes for scientists to improve upon the various aspects of existing models of alternative sources of energy. There is so much untapped, and so much to explore in this sector. That’s why we are daily flooded with information in the alternative energy field. But sometimes we hear about the improvement in the existing models itself. Researchers from the University of Alcala (UAH) and the Complutense University in Madrid (UCM) have devised a new method for predicting the wind speed of wind farm aerogenerators. 9 Comments

The new Peñascal wind farm in Texas hopes to become a model for responsible development by installing new radar technology to protect migratory birds and wildlife. According to recent studies, wind farms kill about 7,000 birds a year, although actual numbers are thought to be much higher. The new 202MW wind farm, operated by Spanish firm Iberdrola Renewables, uses radar technology developed by Florida based DeTect, Inc. 9 Comments

As soaring oil prices and greenhouse gas emissions fuel the search for cheaper and cleaner sources of energy, a Japanese aerospace manufacturer may have found the right stuff for a solution. It’s a windmill you can call your very own. Yokohama-based aerospace manufacturer, Nippi Corporation, has developed a revolutionary 20 kW wind turbine power generation system that’s turning heads everywhere. 19 Comments

While very small wind energy projects are not normally viable due to the cost and effort involved, a small wind farm in the Clay County could easily start generating power as early as 2010. If this project, called The Romar wind project, starts generating power successfully it will certainly trigger a trend. 6 Comments

By generating 40% of the energy required by wind Spain set a world record last week. When high winds blew through north-west Spain on Thursday, a massive 11,180 MW was generated. Of course the wind energy farms were helped by one of the strongest spells of fierce winds experienced by the region recently. 6 Comments

We all know that the need of the hour is alternative energy so that future generations can still breathe fresh air and have enough energy for their industrial purposes and domestic use. Many states and countries are promoting wind energy as a clean and green energy. We all know the advantages and disadvantages of alternative energy. No doubt harvesting wind for energy purposes is a good move but maintenance of wind farms has its share of headaches. Wind turbine generators already mark the horizon for miles in every direction in many parts of the world. But maintenance of the windmills has been a strenuous task for human technicians. Rotor blade damage is a routine but irritating problem that demands many hours of maintenance. 1 Comment

Alternative energy giant Horizon Wind Energy wants to trap the immense potential of wind energy. They are planning to open an Indianapolis office for developing up to four new wind farms in Indiana. It will cost them more than $2 billion. Indiana wind farms will be the largest of the Horizon's farms and the proposed site will be at Meadow Lake in White County. The company will install up to 660 turbines spread over 100,000 acres. When the project is fully operational it could produce more than 1,000 megawatts per year - enough to power 300,000 houses. 2 Comments

GE Energy Financial Services, an investor in energy and water industries and a business unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), is investing $141 million into a wind farm. This wind farm is owned by a Spanish renewable energy developer and wind turbine manufacturer named Acciona. This Tatanka Wind Farm, on the North Dakota-South Dakota border, will power 60,000 homes. It is estimated that this $141-million-wind-farm will generate 180-megawatts of electricity. GE recently crossed the $4 billion mark with a $100 million investment in three wind farms in New York. No Comments

Much solar and wind power are generated far away from the real consumers. It’s a great problem to transport the generated power to its genuine users because vast amount of wind and solar resources are located in remote areas. Legislatures are paying attention to the time-consuming and somewhat costly process of building and upgrading transmission lines so that clean energy can be accessible by the consumers in populated areas. The Texas Legislature in 2005 directed the PUC to identify the most productive wind zones in the states and devise a plan to move power generated from these zones to the most populated areas in Texas. 1 Comment

The U.S. Department of Defence has released a report about the impact of wind farms on military radar installations. The report undermines previous U.S. Air Force report which stated that the impacts were minimal, and the new report calls more a more in-depth look at the risks. The report covers all aspects of risk, including the impact on military radar, commercial air radar and fishing and ocean navigation systems. The department would like to see radar 'red zones' implemented in order to appease national security concerns and maintain the credibility of current systems. 5 Comments

The Airtricity firm wants to build wind farms on 38 sites in the UK, two of which are in the Harborough district around Kibworth and the Langtons. The first plot runs from the Carlton Curlieu and Shangton villages in the north, down into Kibworth and Tur Langton. Part of the land is the former site of Kibworth Rifle Range. The second boundary is kidney-shaped and runs from Burton Overy down into Kibworth Harcourt. The land is owned or worked on by different farmers. No Comments