Wind Power - News & Development thread

[nomarandlee]

I feel this may be a redundant thread but I couldn't find a prior one.

http://www.economist.com/sciencetech...=hptextfeature

Smarting from the wind
Turbines can now “see” the wind before it arrives, and take appropriate action
Jan 26th 2010 | From The Economist online

- .......Wind generators are, necessarily, erected in places where powerful winds are common. If they are not properly angled towards the more howling of these gales, they can be damaged or destroyed. Tweaking and adjusting turbines so that their blades can harness the strongest air currents rather than be harmed by them is a normal part of turbine management. But technology being developed by Torben Mikkelsen, of Risoe DTU National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy in Denmark, and his colleagues looks set to make the process easier. Dr Mikkelsen is working on a way for individual generators to scan the air upwind and adjust the position of their blades in anticipation.
The basic technology, called lidar (short for light detection and ranging) has been around since the 1970s. It is similar to radar in that it sends out electromagnetic waves and then analyses those waves that bounce back, to determine what they bounced off..............


- .......The result is a system than can improve electricity production by 5%. This may not sound much, but for a single 4-megawatt turbine it is worth around $38,000 a year. Further economic benefits come from lengthening the life of the blades and the generator itself..........

More in link

[nomarandlee]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ear...nds-study.html

Wind farms can cause noise problems finds study
The noise caused by wind farms can make some people ill, according to experts.

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 7:30AM GMT 28 Jan 2010

The study by a panel of independent experts found that the irritation caused by the noise around wind farms can effect certain individuals.

Scientists dismissed the idea of a "wind turbine syndrome" where the vibrations in the air or the particular sound waves from wind turbines cause headaches, nausea and panic attacks.
However, they did concede that the swishing sound caused by wind turbines can "annoy" some people, keeping them awake at night and even causing psychological problems because of the stress............

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[hkskyline]

So I guess these turbines should be some distance away from residential areas.

[Stainless]

Originally Posted by hkskyline

So I guess these turbines should be some distance away from residential areas.

It is good then that wind power is currently growing mainly offshore, where there are no noise issues.

[nomarandlee]

http://www.greendiary.com/entry/norw...-wind-turbine/

Norway plans to build the world's most powerful wind turbine

World’s most powerful wind turbine will be seen erecting in Norway. The country plans to increase profitability of costly offshore wind farms with the new technology. Under the project that was announced yesterday, a 162.5 meters tall wind turbine will be constructed by Norwegian company Sway. Claimed to be the world’s largest wind turbine, the main aim behind developing the technology is to obtain higher energy generation for offshore wind power.

The 10-megawatt prototype with a rotor diameter of 145 meters is expected to be nearly three times more powerful than conventional wind turbines. The prototype costing 400 million Norwegian kroner is expected to power nearly 2,000 homes. Aimed to be installed in 2011, this wind turbine will be tested for two years on land in Oeygarden, southwestern Norway.

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[nomarandlee]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...obref=obinsite

Vestas Wind Systems gets order for 139 turbines for wind farm on eastern Colorado plains

By Associated Press

12:52 p.m. CDT, June 30, 2010

DENVER (AP) — Vestas Wind Systems has received an order for 139 turbines from Renewable Energy Systems Americas for a wind farm RES Americas is building on the eastern plains of Colorado.

Representatives for Vestas and RES Americas weren't immediately available to comment Wednesday on the value of the order. Vestas said the order wouldn't change its financial expectations for the year.

The 250-megawatt wind farm at Cedar Point, about 75 miles east of Denver, is slated to be the second-largest in Colorado, Vestas said. It is scheduled to be substantially complete in late 2011.

Broomfield-based RES Americas will build the wind farm, and a U.S. affiliate of the Canadian firm Enbridge Inc. will own it, with the electricity being sold to Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc. under a 20-year contract. The companies expect the project to create about 250 construction jobs.

RES Americas also will build a 42-mile transmission line to connect the wind farm to Xcel's power grid.

Xcel is the largest power utility in Colorado.

A law signed this year by Gov. Bill Ritter requires major utilities to get 30 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

Vestas, based in Denmark, has three Colorado plants that make turbine components. It plans to add a fourth next year.

A factory in Windsor builds blades, another in Pueblo manufactures towers, and a factory in Brighton assembles nacelles that hold the turbine's generator, transformer and gearbox. Vestas plans to build another blades factory in Brighton in 2011.

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[nomarandlee]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...&csp=obnetwork

Lake Erie may get the world's first freshwater wind farm

Posted 5/24/2010 12:27 PM

CLEVELAND (AP) — General Electric and a regional development group say they plan to create the world's first freshwater wind farm in Lake Erie near Cleveland.
GE and the nonprofit Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., or LEEDCo, on Monday announced a partnership to develop five wind turbines in the lake to generate 20 megawatts of power by 2012. The project aims generate 1,000 megawatts by 2020.
GE, based in Fairfield, Conn., will build the turbines and provide maintenance, the partners said in a statement released from the annual conference of the American Wind Energy Association in Dallas. In 2009, GE had 44% of the U.S. wind turbine manufacturing market.

The first cluster of towers will be built about 6 miles north of Cleveland Browns stadium and stand about 200 feet tall. The wind will turn blades up to 150 feet long, producing enough electricity to power up to 7,000 homes, said Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, who chaired a local task force that established LEEDCo.

"Obviously, the wind is free, there's no emissions, so it also helps clean up the environment," Mason said.

The initial phase will cost $80 million to $100 million, with at least 60% of that paid for through the sale of the electricity generated, Mason said. The costs also will be subsidized through government loans and other public sources, he said.

Monday's announcement came a few weeks after Ohio officials outlined plans to put Lake Erie at the forefront of offshore wind power development through a combination of tax-cut and regulatory measures. Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, a factor seen as an advantage for constructing towers to produce wind power.

New York state in December said it was looking for developers for similar wind turbine projects, in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Canada also has considered wind farm development in its Great Lakes waters.

Although wind power accounts for less than 1% of the nation's energy consumption, according to the Energy Department, it has gained appeal with some utilities and local governments as stiffer government regulations for carbon emissions loom.

While many environmentalists have hailed wind power as a clean energy source, residents in some areas have objected to the huge turbines as unsightly and noisy when operating in strong winds.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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[nomarandlee]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...m?csp=obinsite

China doubles wind power in 1 year

2/3/2010

By Gretchen Mahan, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS — China has doubled the amount of energy generated from windmills last year, a report from the global wind industry said Wednesday.
The Global Wind Energy Council, which represents companies that make and manage wind power stations, said the sector grew rapidly last year — with total wind capacity up 31% — despite the economic downturn.

The market for new wind turbines was worth $63 billion in 2009, it said.

China became the biggest market for new wind turbines last year, as it doubled power capacity from 12 gigawatts to 25 gigawatts. The world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is turning to renewables as well as coal as its growing economy calls for more power.

China is aiming to increase that sixfold — to 150 gigawatts — by 2020. The Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association says it could hit that target far earlier. But wind power still accounts for only 1% of China's total electricity consumption.

The United States still ranks as the world's largest user of wind power — with 35 gigawatts of capacity — although only 2% of its total electricity consumption comes from wind, the Global Wind Energy Council said. The European Union depends on wind for 9% of its power.

Steve Sawyer, the group's secretary general, said wind energy is growing mainly because governments have made it a priority in economic stimulus programs.

"Wind power is now often the most attractive option for new power generation, both in economic and environmental terms, and for improved supply security," he said.

The world had some 158 gigawatts of wind capacity in place by the end of 2009. Sawyer said this avoided some 204 million tons of carbon dioxide that would have been released from burning fossil fuels to produce the same amount of electricity.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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[nomarandlee]

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/resear...er-than-nuclea
Japanese breakthrough will make wind power cheaper than nuclear

Aug 29 2011

A surprising aerodynamic innovation in wind turbine design called the 'wind lens' could triple the output of a typical wind turbine, making it less costly than nuclear power.

NOTE: Some major wind projects like the proposed TWE Carbon Valley project in Wyoming are already pricing in significantly lower than coal power -- $80 per MWh for wind versus $90 per MWh for coal -- and that is without government subsidies using today's wind turbine technology.

Now what if a breakthrough came along that potentially tripled the energy output of those turbines? You see where I'm going. We could in theory supply the TOTAL annual energy needs of the U.S. simply by exploiting 20 percent of our available wind resources. Well such a breakthrough has been made, and it's called the "wind lens."

- Imagine: no more dirty coal power, no more mining deaths, no more nuclear disasters, no more polluted aquifers as a result of fracking. Our entire society powered by the quiet "woosh" of a wind turbine. Kyushu University's wind lens turbine is one example of the many innovations happening right now that could in the near future make this utopian vision a reality.........

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[Vaud]

that sounds very good! unfortunately I'm rather skeptic with those kinds of news as every year there's something new that's going to revolutionalize the way we produce energy and then nothing changes or it is discovered after a while that it was a hoax.

[SamuraiBlue]

Originally Posted by Vaud

that sounds very good! unfortunately I'm rather skeptic with those kinds of news as every year there's something new that's going to revolutionalize the way we produce energy and then nothing changes or it is discovered after a while that it was a hoax.

It's not a hoax, it works in a low wind velocity area since the lens magnifies the wind energy to the turbines.

Unfortunately in a higher wind velocity area you'll need to either use stronger blades meaning higher cost, smaller blades to decrease the total amount of stress on the blades or not utilize the technology to maintain integrity of the blades meaning no increase in power output.

[seattle92]

Floating offshore turbine

First WindFloat platform deployed with turbine off Portugal


Principle Power of the US and Portuguese group EDP have successfully deployed a full-scale WindFloat platform with a 2MW Vestas turbine off the coast of Aguçadoura, Portugal.

It is the first offshore turbine to be sited in open Atlantic waters, and the first deployment of a semi-submersible structure supporting a multi-megawatt unit, say the companies.

The project is also billed as the first offshore wind deployment that did not require the use of any heavy-lift equipment at sea. All final assembly, installation and pre-commissioning of the wind turbine took place on land.
The 1,200 tonne WindFloat is designed to float half-submerged when moored, with a draught of 13 metres in water depths of 40-200 metres.

Its legs measure 30 metres in height and eight metres in diameter, and are part-filled with 230 tonnes of static water ballast for stability.
They are fitted at each base with water entrapment plates that use a principle called “added mass” to increase hydrodynamic damping to steady the hull at sea.

Following pre-commissioning of the system onshore at the Lisnave facility near Setubal, Portugal, the WindFloat was loaded-out using a dry-dock and towed out to sea.

The offshore tow consisted of some 350km in open Atlantic waters – made possible by the stability performance that also permits the use of off-the-shelf wind turbines from any manufacturer, according to the companies.
Over the next few weeks a commissioning, testing and startup procedure will be completed. This will include trial operations and a phased ramp-up in power production to full capacity.

Principle Power chief executive Alla Weinstein claims: "In a way we are making a similar leap towards new energy resources as the oil and gas industry did in the 1970s when it began using floating structures.”

"The (deep) ocean is the next big energy frontier," adds António Vidigal, chief executive of EDP Inovação. Deep offshore wind technology, in particular the WindFloat, will allow developers to harness stronger and more stable winds, he adds.
Other members of the WindPlus consortium include A. Silva Matos, Vestas, InovCapital, and Fundo de Apoio à Inovação (FAI).

A video showing the WindFloat concept can be seen here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO7GXLR4YUo

Richard Kessler, Fort Worth & Darius Snieckus, Bristol
Published: Thursday, December 1 2011

http://www.rechargenews.com/business...icle291851.ece


Nice video of its construction: http://video.vestas.com/video/334719...g-vestas-first

[Kiboko]

In Holland you can find lots of DonQi windmills on rooftops of office buildings. Though they hardly produce any energy (most of the time they don't rotate at all), company's like to show they do something for the environment.

[nomarandlee]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...1.story?page=2

End of tax credit a blow for wind power industry
Up to 37,000 jobs, many in Illinois, could be lost as projects are halted or abandoned

By Julie Wernau, Chicago Tribune reporter

February 17, 2012

The wind power industry is predicting massive layoffs and stalled or abandoned projects after a deal to renew a tax credit failed Thursday in Washington.

The move is expected to have major ramifications in states such as Illinois, where 13,892 megawatts of planned wind projects — enough to power 3.3 million homes per year — are seeking to be connected to the electric grid. Many of those projects will be abandoned or significantly delayed without federal subsidies............

Wind proponents tried to tuck the tax credit extension, which provides an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the production of electricity from wind turbines, in legislation aimed at extending payroll tax cuts. But congressional leaders did not include it in that bill.

There is still a possibility the wind power tax credits could come through as a stand-alone bill or tied to other legislation. But Washington insiders say that is unlikely to happen before the election in November.

By then, the wind industry says, it will be too late to avoid massive layoffs and project delays, because wind projects slated for 2013 should already be far along.

In order for developers to receive the expiring tax credit, they must have turbines up and running before year's end. As a result, 2012 is shaping up to be a banner year as developers race to complete projects.

But few such projects are slated for 2013. Developers say they either accelerated projects to be completed this year or pulled back because of uncertainty about the tax credit. Contributing to the bleak outlook for 2013: competition from cheap natural gas and anemic demand for power as the economy struggles to pick up steam.........

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[Dorothy888]

So I guess these turbines should be some distance away from residential areas.

[burgess24]

thank you

[horlick97]

I read about the vertical axis wind turbine.

What's the latest development? Will the VAWT be the dominant technology for windmills?

[Groningen NL]

No, there are hardly any vawts at all