July 28, 2010
A sycamore seed design may be set to revolutionize the wind power industry.
British engineers have designed a giant wind turbine called the Aerogenerator that would rotate on its axis mimicking the way sycamore seeds fly.
The Aerogenerator has two arms coming out of its base to form a V-shape, with rigid “sails” mounted along their length. The arms act like aerofoils as the wind passes over, helping to generate lift.
It would measure nearly 900 feet from tip to tip and could generate 20MW or more of power.
Engineering firm Wind Power Limited is developing the Aerogenerator, along with architects at Grimshaw, academics at Cranfield University and Rolls Royce, Arup, BP and Shell.
The first Aerogenerator could be up and running by 2013.
Feargal Brennan, head of offshore engineering at Cranfield University, says “Upsizing conventional onshore wind turbine technology to overcome cost barriers has significant challenges, not least the weight of the blades, which experience a fully reversed fatigue cycle on each rotation.”
“As the blades turn, their weight always pulls downwards, putting a changing stress on the structure, in a cycle that repeats with every rotation – up to 20 times a minute.”
“In order to reduce the fatigue stress, the blade sections and thicknesses are increased which further increases the blade self-weight. These issues continue throughout the device.”
“Drive-train mountings must be stiff enough to support the heavier components inside the nacelle on top of the tower, otherwise the systems can become misaligned and the support structure is also exposed to extremely large dynamic thrust and bending stresses, which are amplified significantly with any increase in water depth.’”
July 21, 2010
Wind power is now generating 2% of global electricity demand, according to the World Wind Energy Association.
The countries with the highest shares of wind energy generated electricity: Denmark 20%, Portugal 15%, Spain 14%, Germany 9%. Wind power employed 550,000 people in 2009 and is expected to employ 1,000,000 by 2012.
Globally 38,025 MW of capacity were added in 2009, bringing the total to 159,213 MW, a 31% increase. The graph shows the top 10 producers (with the exceptions of Denmark and Portugal) and includes Japan (which is 13th).
From 2005 to 2009 the global installed wind power capacity increased 170% from 59,033 megawatts to 159,213 megawatts.
Over the 4 year period the capacity in the USA increased 284% and in China increased 1,954%. China grew 113% in 2009, the 4th year in a row it more than doubled capacity. In 2007, Europe had for 61% of installed capacity and the USA 18%. At the end of 2009 Europe had 48% of installed capacity, Asia 25% and North America 24%.
June 9, 2010
Australia:
Small wind-energy companies fear privatisations of power stations and retailers in New South Wales and Queensland could weaken competition in the electricity market, hindering their capacity to contribute to the federal government’s 20 per cent renewable energy target.
Under the renewable energy target, retailers are required to buy or create enough renewable energy certificates (RECs), each representing one megawatt-hour of emissions-free electricity, to meet an annual target.
But because they are generators as well as retailers, AGL Energy and Origin Energy have tended to get the certificates through wind farms they have built themselves, according to The Australian Financial Review.
As a result, independent wind power companies such as Infigen Energy, Pacific Hydro and Canberra-based Windlab, can have difficulty locking in long-term supply contracts for the certificates they produce. Without a long-term contract, banks will not provide finance for a wind project.
“The reality is you need competition in the market place at a retailer level,” Windlab chairman Roger Price said. “I’d rather see four or five major retailers that are looking to purchase RECs rather than just two which are extremely vertically integrated.”.
June 4, 2010
One of the largest offshore windfarms in the world, is to be built off the coast of Wales in the UK.
The £2bn Gwynt y Mor windfarm will have 160 wind turbines around 10 miles off the north Wales coast near Colwyn Bay and Llandudno.
Gwynt y Mor will be Wales’ largest wind farm, capable of powering around 400,000 homes, and preventing the release of 1.7m tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
The RWE Innogy-led project is expected to be completed in 2014.
It is claimed some 1,000 jobs could be created in relation to construction and the supply of components.
Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan said: “This is excellent news. Gwynt y Mor will be one of the single biggest private investment projects ever seen in Wales, creating up to 1,000 quality jobs and contributing many millions of pounds to the regional economy of north Wales.
“It will also become one of the largest offshore windfarm projects in Europe, able to provide enough clean, green electricity to power the equivalent of around 400,000 homes.
“In Wales we are ideally located to embrace the economic benefits of green technologies.
“Surrounded by wind, wave and tidal resources, we are in a prime position to be able to benefit from investment in the green economy whilst making a significant contribution to the [UK] government’s carbon reduction targets through safe, clean renewable means.”
May 30, 2010
Wind is the number one source of new electricity-generation installations in both Europe and the U.S. and has been for the last year or two, according to green energy analysts.
“Wind is the one renewable energy source that, currently, is competing directly with coal and natural gas for electricity from new power installations.” says GreenTech Opportunies analyst Peter Cox.
Wind and natural gas combined accounted for about 80% of new capacity added to the U.S. electrical grid.
“Wind energy is now so cheap that residential customers in Germany and Texas are receiving rebates on their utility bills because such a large proportion of their power is coming from wind.”
In less than seven years, solar and wind power will be able to meet over a third of the electricity demand of a large Western area of the USA
According to a report by NREL, in 2017 solar and wind energy could meet in 2017, 35% of electricity demand in five states Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada
Moreover this can be achieved without any further investment in new infrastructure.
Specifically, wind turbines could satisfy 30% and solar power 5% of the demand, according to the report entitled Western Wind and Solar Integration Study, compiled by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the leading research agency of the US Department of Energy.
According to the study, in order to achieve this result in such a short time, the investment already made in wind farm and solar infrastructure will be sufficient. Nevertheless, the latter must undergo a structural reorganization and, specifically, improved coordination on a great number of issues among the various energy companies and more frequent update of energy supply planning.
“Research shows that, with these key changes, wind and solar power could be incorporated onto the grid without a lot of backup generation. Coordinating operations between utilities on a large area decreases the effect of variability of wind and solar energy resources”, said Dr. Debra Lew, NREL project manager for the study.
Of this target is met it would result in lower carbon dioxide emissions of almost 50%.
Biomass power plants fuelled by organic matter such as food waste, wood chips and sewage could be more lucrative than wind farms says the accountancy firm KPMG in their annual renewable energy survey .
“Biomass looks set to be the ‘new wind’,” said Andy Cox, energy partner at KPMG who led the research. “Biomass plants have the potential to yield much higher returns than other renewable sources. A well-executed plant can deliver substantially greater economies of scale than wind. And the heat generated from incineration can supply neighbouring buildings, creating another revenue stream.”
The new UK government has recently announced an energy policy that places emphasis on technologies such as anaerobic digestion, which captures gas from decomposing food and human waste, and other biomass generation methods. Conspicuously absent was any specific mention of onshore wind farms.
This shift toward biomass mirrors a surge in interest from utilities and City investors, according. One major attraction of biomass power plants is the stability such projects give compared with wind, which is intermittent.
May 27, 2010
The US government is committed to supporting Indonesia in developing renewable energy resources by providing both technological expertise and competitive financing scheme, says a minister.
“We stand ready to partner and create win-win opportunities to help both Indonesian government and companies not only achieve their energy efficiency targets but also create jobs,” visiting US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke told journalists yesterday during his two-day visit to Jakarta.
“We are eager to do more businesses in Indonesia because it’s a place, a country that has the potential to be one of the world’s leading producers and users of clean energy,” he said.
He said that in the list of global pressing challenges, energy was certainly at the top because it would shape the fate of the planet, its economies and nations.
He said that by mid-century, global energy use would double, theoretically needing two new 1,000 MW power plants every week for the next 30 years to meet the increasing energy demand.
“The new energy generation has to be clean to avoid catastrophic climate change. It should also be affordable to keep our economy growing,” he said.
He said the Obama administration had done more in mitigate climate change by investing more in clean energy than any other US president in history.
“It has allocated US$30 billion in clean energy investment and established top new efficiency standards for automobile, appliances and customer electronics,” he said, while praising Indonesia’s efforts in developing clean energy.
Indonesia, he said, had set greatly desirous energy efficiency targets in terms of reducing its greenhouse gas emission by 26 percent by 2020, even 41 percent reduction with foreign assistance, and would double its renewable energy from the current 7 percent to 15 percent by 2025.
May 26, 2010
Google 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.
Utilising one of the world’s richest wind resources – the winds of the North Dakota plains, the two wind farms produce 169.5 megawatts of power and can light up around 55,000 homes.
In an official statement Google says “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.”
May 24, 2010
Almost every item of data sent on the internet is stored in a server farm somewhere in the world. Demand for these data centres seems almost infinite.
An increasing number of data centres are being powered by green energy solar panels and wind farms but now one of the world’s biggest technology companies is working on plans to power its data centres using energy generated from cow manure.
Researchers at Hewlett-Packard (HP) want to build computer warehouses on dairy farms where they would be hooked up to power plants fuelled by waste.
Just one cow produces enough waste every day to power the televisions in three typical households. A large dairy farm, with about 10,000 cows, produces enough to run one of the firm’s typical data centres and meet the energy needs of the farmer, the HP scientists believe.
If it works, the scheme could potentially solve two of the world’s looming environmental problems at a stroke.
Cow manure has long been seen as a threat because of the methane gas it produces. Methane is about 20 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. Global meat and dairy consumption is expected to soar in the next 10 years as countries such as China and India move towards a more western diet.
The amount of data stored online, meanwhile, is increasing and, to hold it, technology firms are building vast computer complexes that consume large quantities of power and generate heat. This heat can be piped away and used as an energy source.
Tom Christian, principal research scientist at HP, said: “The idea of using waste to generate energy has been around for centuries, with manure being used every day in remote villages to generate heat for cooking. The new idea that we are presenting in this research is to create a symbiotic relationship between farms and the IT ecosystem that can benefit the farm, the data centre and the environment.”
The HP plans were unveiled at a conference last week in Arizona. Initially, the research is focused on America, which has the biggest demand in the world for data centres as well as large-scale dairy farms.
HP believes a farmer who signed up to the scheme could earn as much as $2m (£1.4m) a year by selling waste-derived power to a data centre.
The world’s big technology firms are all working on plans to cut the environmental impact of their data centres.
