Renewable Revolution

Securing the World’s Largest Wind Turbine

Jim Bell, Managing Director, FoundOcean


At 7 megawatts (MW), Samsung Heavy Industries' S7.0-171 is the world's largest offshore wind turbine. The 196-metre tall structure is being installed 20 metres offshore in Fife, Scotland, with a connecting walkway to enable visitors to get up close to the structure.


Fife, Scotland

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/10/securing-the-worlds-largest-wind-turbine?cmpid=WindNL-Thursday-October3-2013

GE Wants To "Power Up" Older Wind Turbines

Bringing the "brilliant" abilities of GE's newer wind turbines to its existing fleet means more output and profitability per turbine. Here's how.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/10/ge-wants-to-power-up-older-wind-turbines?cmpid=WindNL-Thursday-October17-2013

I looked up the average wind speed at Chicago (I'm certain it is much higher a hundred stories up in any of their many skyscrapers that could easily be fitted with wind turbines).

It turns out that, over a century ago, Chicago earned that nickname, not because of high wind speeds, but because:

Chicago has been called the “windy” city, the term being used metaphorically to make out that Chicagoans were braggarts. 

While Chicago is widely known as the "Windy City", it is not the windiest city in the United States: Milton, Massachusetts is.[2] Chicago is not significantly windier than any other U.S. city. For example, the average annual wind speed of

Chicago is: 10.3 mph (16.6 km/h);
Milton is: 15.4 mph (24.8 km/h);
Boston: 12.4 mph (20.0 km/h);
New York City, Central Park: 9.3 mph (15.0 km/h); and
Los Angeles: 7.5 mph (12.1 km/h).[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_name_%22Windy_City%22
 
Many cities have higher average wind speeds BUT Chicago has skyscrapers. I have always wondered why they haven't started putting wind turbines on top of them. Yes, a structural engineering firm would have to do some beefing up of the building to handle the extra stresses and load but it would be worth it. If the average wind speeds are 20 mph or better a skyscraper height, you have a 24/7 continuous city power source built in to a metropolitan area (a high energy use area).

!Let's harvest that free energy

Top 101 cities with the highest average wind speeds (population 50,000+)
 
1. Brockton, MA (housing, pop. 94,191): 14.3 mph

2. Framingham, MA (housing, pop. 66,910): 13.6 mph

3. Amarillo, TX (housing, pop. 185,525): 13.3 mph

4. Weymouth, MA (housing, pop. 53,988): 13.2 mph

5. Fort Collins, CO (housing, pop. 129,467): 12.8 mph

6. Newton, MA (housing, pop. 82,819): 12.7 mph

7. Waltham, MA (housing, pop. 59,352): 12.6 mph

8. Loveland, CO (housing, pop. 61,122): 12.6 mph

9. Quincy, MA (housing, pop. 91,058): 12.5 mph

10. Greeley, CO (housing, pop. 89,046): 12.5 mph

11. Rochester, MN (housing, pop. 96,975): 12.5 mph

For the rest go here:

http://www.city-data.com/top2/c467.html

Siemens*, or at least the company it has commissioned to make the video above, knows how to make a wind power advertisement.

One of the key takeaway impressions people seem to have after visiting a wind turbine up close (or even going to the top of one) is how entirely awesome and majestic these giant machines are. They’re staggering in their height and power.

And I’m sure offshore wind turbines are even more impressive, especially the 6-megawatt ones and 7-megawatt ones.

In this new Siemens video, all of this is excellently portrayed in cinematic style — not your typical “green” or cleantech advertisement.

Since Siemens is the company behind this excellent contribution to cleantech messaging and wind turbine branding, I thought I’d share more about what it has been up to in this space. Here are a few of the company’s recent wind power highlights:

1.Siemens To Fullfil 267 MW Wind Order In Washington

2.Largest Federal Wind Farm In US Contract Awarded To Siemens

3.Siemens Opens World’s Largest R&D Test Center For Wind Turbine Technology

4.Siemens To Provide 80 Wind Turbines For Giant German Offshore Wind Power Plant

5.Siemens CEO: Cleantech Is A “Vital Part Of Our Business” (VIDEO)

6.World’s Largest Wind Turbine Rotor Goes Online

Together with other wind power leaders, it should be noted that the cost of wind power has come down tremendously in recent years, from over 30¢/kWh 10 years ago to as low as 4¢/kWh today.  Notably, this cost dropped has largely been brought on by making wind turbines larger and larger, more and more majestic.



wind turbines getting bigger and bigger




While the cost optimization from making onshore wind turbines larger and larger seems to be hitting a limit, larger offshore wind turbines may provide useful benefits for the quite different offshore wind environment. Hence the 6- and 7-MW wind turbines. Simply look above at how a 7-MW wind turbine compares to an Airbus A380 with a wingspan of 80 meters to get an idea of how humungous these machines are.

*Full Disclosure: This post was supported by Siemens through Be On media. That said, I wouldn’t have covered it if I didn’t think it was worth covering, and nobody from Siemens or Be On had any influence over what I wrote above.

About the Author:
Zachary Shahan is the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave, a world-leading green and science news site. He has been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and he has been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, and wind energy for the past four years or so. Aside from his work on CleanTechnica and Planetsave, he's the Network Manager for their parent organization – Important Media – and he's the Owner/Founder of Solar Love, EV Obsession, and Bikocity. To connect with Zach on some of your favorite social networks, go to ZacharyShahan.com and click on the relevant buttons.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/11/wind-power-awesomeness/#H9rCY8HX0DBMWMck.99

I, A. G. Gelbert, am convinced Zachary Shahan is a trustworty man of high integrity. 

UK Offshore Wind Capacity Rises 80 Percent in One Year

Kelvin Ross, Deputy Editor, Power Engineering International

November 08, 2013


LONDON -- The installed capacity of the UK’s offshore wind sector has risen by 79 percent in a year. In the period from July 2012 to June 2013, capacity increased from 1,858 MW to 3,321 MW, boosted by four huge wind farms becoming operational – Greater Gabbard, Gunfleet Sands III, Sheringham Shoal, and London Array, which at 630 MW is currently the biggest offshore wind farm in the world 
.





The increase is revealed in a new report, Wind Energy in the UK, compiled by trade group RenewableUK, and it marks the first time in a 12-month period that installed offshore capacity has outstripped onshore, which stood at 1258 MW.

Nevertheless, onshore also saw an increase of new capacity by 25 per cent, bringing its total capacity to 6,389 MW.

Onshore and offshore, a total of 2,721 MW were installed between July 2012 and June 2013, taking the UK’s total wind capacity up from 6,856 to 9,710 MW — a 40 percent increase. 

RenewableUK says that onshore, project sizes are declining overall, “due partly to the growth of the vibrant sub-5-MW market under the feed-in tariff, with projects at this scale now making up two-thirds of new onshore submissions. Other factors include a reduction in the availability of larger sites, and developers’ responses to changes in the planning system.”

However, the report notes that there are concerns within the wind industry about levels of political support and the government’s ambition for the sector, leading to a decline in confidence.
But it points out that despite this, “there is a substantial pipeline of projects under construction, approved but not yet built, and in planning”.

RenewableUK’s chief executive Maria McCaffery said: “We’ve smashed another record in the past year with more offshore wind installed than ever before — the 79 percent increase in capacity within 12 months is a terrific achievement. With onshore expanding by 25 percent, the wind industry as a whole has proved that it has the tenacity to achieve substantial growth.”


Anumakonda Jagadeesh

November 8, 2013

Yes. UK is leader of Offshore wind energy in the world. Though India is 5th in the world in Wind not even a KW Offshore wind turbine is erected! It is indeed a pity. In almost every field, we follow west. The time has come we should be INNOVATORS rather than remain as IMITATORS.I have been advocating Offshore Wind Farms for over a decade in India.




Also Wind Farm Co-operatives on the lines of those in Denmark, Germany etc. in India. A Wind Fund can be created and contributions to it can be exempted by Government of India under Section 80C. This way there will be mass participation in Wind Sector. Hitherto incentives are provided to big wind farm owners like Depreciation. When Private participation in the Renewables is given a big push, India can be a leading country in the Renewables especially WIND.

What is needed are sound policies and political will to push this clean energy. A Good R &D Effort in the Private Industry will help to improve the quality of the Wind Turbines and also accurate micro siting.

In this connection DEWI Micrositing Experience and Research activities have helped to get maximum output at Wind Farms in Germany and elsewhere.

Reliable predictions of the energy yield of wind farms are only possible on the basis of accurate near-site wind speed measurements. The critical aspects are selection of where the tower is to be placed, selection and calibration of anemometers, the height of the met mast and the installation of the sensors on the met mast. DEWI has been specialised in this area for many years and also offers additional services such as site calibration or long-term wind measurements for wind farm monitoring.

Apart from the general economic conditions of a planned project, an accurate measurement of the wind speed is the decisive factor in determining the economic efficiency of a wind farm. An error of 3% in the wind speed measurement can lead to a discrepancy of about 10% in annual energy production. It is therefore absolutely necessary to calibrate an anemometer individually before a measurement campaign; this is offered by DEWI as an accredited service.

DEWI’s Micrositing Department, with its longstanding experience in services and research activities, offers investors, developers and owners a high-quality, reliable data basis for planning wind farm projects worldwide. DEWI offers the whole range of services, from site inspection and analysis of existing wind measurement data to calculation of energy yield and wind farm efficiency and creation and optimisation of the wind farm configuration taking into account all important parameters specific to the site. On request, DEWI experts can also assist in the installation of meteorological measuring equipment and the analysis and checking of existing measurements.

For the simulation of wind and turbulence conditions in complex terrain, DEWI Micrositing offers special 3D CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) calculations, which are becoming increasingly important in international projects. This complex, cutting-edge calculation method allows investors, developers and owners to obtain the best possible prediction of the real turbulence conditions at the site.Similar methods can be adopted in India as well and Private Wind Industry should take lead in adopting best technology.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/11/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-rises-80-percent-in-one-year?cmpid=rss

Agelbert NOTE: It appears India is getting on board with the wind band wagon. 



Will India Install Wind Farms off Their Shoreline?

Efforts to Protect Raptors from Colliding With Wind Turbines Make Progress


SustainableBusiness.com News

 
Wind developers have long struggled with how to prevent birds - especially eagles and hawks - from crashing into turbines, and a solution may be at hand thanks to efforts at Montana's largest wind farm.

 126 wind turbines comprise the 189 megawatt Rim Rock Wind Facility that's spread across 21,000 acres. By today's standards, the turbines are small at 1.5 megawatts each.

 When NaturEner USA developed the project, which at peak production supplies 60,000 homes, it worked with the local Audubon group to site turbines as far as possible from raptor nesting sites.

Wind Farm RimRock Montana

 But it's been a combination of human observers and radar tracking cameras that "provides the best kind of protections that have been deployed anywhere in the US," Greg Copeland, vice president of wind energy development told Associated Press.

Protecting raptors is being put to the test because the wind farm is near sandstone cliffs - prime habitat, where eagles and hawks nest in rocky outcroppings.

 Since Rim Rock started operating late last year, only two raptors have died - a tiny number compared to typical wind farms.

How They Do It

Human observers - trained avian biologists - scan the skies from three locations throughout the day using high resolution spotting scopes.

 Combined with radar tracking cameras, they can detect raptor flight patterns as far as 1200 miles away. When a likely collision is identified, they alert the San Francisco operations center to shut down turbines, which can be done in as little as 30 seconds.

That isn't a problem for power output because the wind farm is divided into zones, each with 4-8 turbines. When a shut down order is given, it applies to a particular zone, allowing the majority to keep operating. And shut down times range from 3- 30 minutes. 

Rim Rock has had much more success using radar because it places the detection system outside the wind farm instead of in the interior, as most other developers do (which causes interference). 

 If raptors somehow get past the radar and human "biomonitors," there's a last line of defense - cameras mounted on turbines. The cameras have software that visually tracks raptors and if a bird flies within 200 meters of a turbine, it  triggers a high frequency noise and flash of light that drives them away.

 Finally, during times of year when wind patterns tend to push birds toward certain turbines, the company proactively shuts them down ahead of time and keeps them that way until the wind shifts.

 Copeland calls this a "layered approach" and credits it as the key to successfully avoiding bird collisions.  Through all this monitoring they have found that raptors are on the wind farm's footprint only about 10% of the time.

Copeland estimates the cost for buying and maintaining the radar units at about $750,000 over 5-10 years. That may seem like a lot of money, but it's worth it, he says, because they are a green company that cares about wildlife. And it also keeps potential regulation at bay.

 Wind turbines generally kill fewer birds these days than older versions of the technology because blades are much larger and move more slowly. Still, at their tips they can turn at 200 miles per hour. Raptors are looking down for food, they don't expect a huge airborne object to strike them, Steve Hoffman, Executive Director of Montana Audubon told Great Falls Tribune. 

More Difficult for Bats

 Because bats are so small and fly at night, it's much harder to protect them from collisions - which happen at just about all wind farms.

 In addition to colliding with turbine blades, they can be traumatized by changes in air pressure created as they turn.

 Well over 600,000 bats are killed by turbines every year, according to research by Mark Hayes at University of Colorado, Denver. Other researchers believe it's as high as 880,000 deaths. Bat deaths are highest in the Appalachian region, says Hayes.

He believes a solution will be found for bats. Research is underway on sounds that may deter bats from turbines; another solution could be closing down turbines during times when bats are found to be most active.

Both raptors and bats are of particular concern because of their low fertility rates, giving birth to just one offspring a year. And bats are being further decimated by white nose syndrome.

 The Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative has been working on ways to help bats for years. The alliance consists of Bat Conservation International, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and  National Renewable Energy Lab.

Studies are also underway to track the flight patterns of marine birds that could collide with offshore wind turbines.

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/25349?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SBGeneralNews+%28SustainableBusiness.com+General+News%29

Latin America Report: Wind Sweeps Brazil's A-3 Power Auctions



Brazil Wind energy resources Map

Renewable Energy World Editors 

November 21, 2013

New Hampshire, USA -- Brazil's latest A-3 auction, matching up developers and power purchasers to prepare renewable energy projects to meet the nation's electricity demand by 2016, was a landslide win for wind energy -- but a shutout for solar, which was included in the process for the first time.


More than 58 million MWh were sold for a total of U.S. $7.2 billion, according to the National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL). An extra feature of the A-3 auction: developers are responsible for hooking their projects to the grid. The pool of qualified participants had included 429 projects exceeding 10.4 GW, the vast majority of which were wind (381 projects totaling over 9.1 GW) but also some solar PV (31 projects, 813 MW capacity) and some small hydro and biomass.

The overwhelming winners were wind energy developers, who saw 39 wind projects approved totaling 867 MW of capacity, nearly half of them in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. Two-thirds of those purchases were backed by Electrobras subsidiaries Electrosul and Furnas. By the end of this year, Brazil could end up auctioning a record 3 GW of wind.

On the downside, no bids were offered for any solar PV projects,  which had been included for the first time. The low pricing (average 124.43 Brazilian reais/MWh, just under the ceiling price of R 126/MWh) had been roundly expected to be too low for solar projects which currently cost more than R 200/MWh. Two solar-friendlier alternatives reportedly are being explored: reducing the price of power on the market, or conduct solar-only auctions with a more applicable pricing structure.

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IN THE NEWS

Chilean Solar Plant Updates: SunEdison has closed $100.4 million in debt financing for its proposed 50.7 MWp; San Andres solar plant in Chile, said to become the largest merchant solar plant in Latin America when it comes online in early 2014. Lenders include the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC, $62.9 million), the IFC ($37.5 million), and Rabobank via a Chilean Peso VAT facility equivalent to $25.6 million. Also getting financing help from IFC and others is Saferay to help expand its solar PV plant in La Huayca, Northern Chile from current 1.4 MW to 30 MW. Meanwhile, solar project proposals filed for Chile's Atacama desert include SunEdison's proposed $160 million 80-MW Javiera solar project and a pair of 90-100 MW plants proposed by AustrianSolar totaling $380 million in investments.

IFC Mulling Support for Enel's Big Brazil Wind Plans: At its December 12 board meeting, the International Finance Corp. (IFC) will examine whether to provide up to $200 million in loans, plus possibly arrange another $220 million in bank financing, for Enel Green Power's proposed $600 million plans for 12 wind projects totaling 342 MW in Brazil: roughly 206 MW in Bahia state, 80 MW in Pernambuco, and 56 MW in Rio Grande do Norte.

Canada's Brookfield Investing in South America: Brookfield Asset Management's $7 billion Brookfield Infrastructure Fund II program, which closed at the end of October with over 60 investors (and $2.8 billion of the company's own money), is roughly 40 percent committed to projects in North America, but some of those funds will head to hydro and wind projects in South America. "We like the investment attributes" there, and Brazil's renewable energy industry is "one we know well and in which we can make future investments," Sam Pollock, CEO of Brookfield's infrastructure group, told Bloomberg.

ERB, Dow Team for Brazilian Sugarcane Biomass: Energias Renovaveis do Brasil and Dow Chemical are partnering for a 46-MW, R237 million sugarcane biomass plant at a Dow ethanol facility in Minas Gerais, expected to begin operations next year. The two previously teamed up for a R$210 million cogeneration project in the Bahia state.

IDB Backs Uruguayan Wind Project: The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $132 million loan to partly finance construction of the Carapé I and II wind farms in in the Sierra de Carapé, north of San Carlos in the Maldonado region. The combined 90-MW project using 31 Vestas turbines would generate approximately 364,700 MWh/year, and incorporate a 40-km 150-kV transmission line.

"White Gold" from Brazil's Yellow Sun: Energy Team Brasil plans to build a 40-MW rooftop solar PV array at a dairy farm in Rio Grande do Sul, online by the end of next year, said to be the region's first such agricultural application for solar PV. About three-quarters of available rooftop space will be used for the "Noa Ouro Branco" deployment; 30 MW is promised to be sent to the grid another 10 MW will be off-grid for on-site use.

Solar Partnership in Puerto Rico: Schneider Electric and Fonroche have agreed to develop a 40-MW solar field in Humacao, promised to be the Commonwealth's largest plant upon completion.

70-MW Solar PV Plant Coming to Argentina: Schmid and M+W, with state energy supplier Energia Provincial Sociedad del Estrado (EPSE), have committed to design and build a 70-MW solar PV production facility in San Juan to produce monocrystalline silicon ingots through glass/foil modules starting in mid-2015, targeting use in the region's gold and copper mines and irrigation systems. A second phase will expand into upstream polysilicon manufacturing.

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A DEEPER LOOK

The Untapped Potential of South American Geothermal: South America holds great potential for geothermal energy, but barriers to development have kept it largely unrealized. However some private investors and development banks are on the cusp of unlocking the abundant energy source. Our own Meg Cichon takes a closer look at this "open frontier" for geothermal energy development here on this lower end of the Ring of Fire horseshoe.

Tracking Latin America's Clean Energy Investment Climate: Latin America and the Caribbean captured six percent of the total $268 billion invested worldwide in clean energy in 2012, slightly more than the year before, thanks to strengthened government policy support and expanding supply chains, according to Climatescope 2013, a report from the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Their interactive deep-dive and infographics illustrate where each nation stands in four key areas: enabling framework, clean energy investment and climate financing, low-carbon business and clean energy value chains, and greenhouse gas management activities. Among the study's encouraging data points: retail power prices remain generally high across the region which makes deployment of renewables more attractive, and nearly all of identified "value chain" links are filled. There are 927 carbon offset projects across the region, more than half of which are for power generation. And eight countries now have net metering laws.

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ON THE HORIZON

Latin American Wind Capacity Doubling in a Decade: Latin America is the hottest growth market for wind energy, and installed capacity will roughly double by 2022 to 4.3 GW, according to a report from Navigant Consulting. Policy and macroeconomic challenges are slowing wind energy adoption in other regions, but Latin America will account for nearly 6 percent of global new wind power installations this year alone, and will "exhibit double-digit compound annual growth rates through the next 10 years," according to research director Feng Zhao. Brazil's latest wind power auctions led to 1.5 GW of new wind capacity and helped stabilize higher prices, he noted, and will provide the foundation for wind energy growth in the entire region.

Pricing Hydro Bids for Brazil's A-5 Auction: The second A-5 auction to be held Dec. 13 has been approved, contracting for renewable energy projects coming online in mid-2018. They include several hydropower projects bigger than 50 MW and priced at around $107-$139/MWh, with smaller ones priced at R 144/MWh.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/11/latin-america-report-wind-sweeps-brazils-a-3-power-auctions-whither-solar?cmpid=rss