The evolution of wind power: kites

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Excerpt: Developer for SkySails Power, a kite-based wind generator system, says it consists of five main components: a free flying kite with rope, a launch and recosystem, an automated control system, a generator for producing electrical power and a support platform. SkySails Power operates at altitud …

Forget the towers. Let helium do the lifting.

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Excerpt: A wind energy company formed out of MIT has announced that it has demonstrated high altitude power production from an automated prototype of its airborne wind turbine. The company recently completed testing of a 35-ft scale prototype of the Altaeros Airborne Wind Turbine (AWT) at the Loring Comm …

Hawaii’s largest wind project begins

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Excerpt:   First Wind, an independent U.S.-based wind energy company, has celebrated the start of construction of its 69-MW Kawailoa Wind project on Kamehameha Schools’ Kawailoa Plantation lands on Oahu’s North Shore. Once complete, Kawailoa Wind will be the largest wind energy facility in Ha …

407 MW more headed to Iowa

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Excerpt: MidAmerican Energy and Siemens have entered into a turbine supply agreement for 176 wind turbines to be constructed at three sites in Iowa. Each turbine is capable of producing 2.3 megawatts of energy. The OEM will provide its SWT-2.3-108 wind turbines for the developer’s recently announced 103 …

AWEA Seminar: Financing, Investment and My First Time in NY

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Excerpt: I spent four months in Ireland in college. The local girls there weren't so familiar with Ohio (they asked if it was close to where Paris Hilton lived), but they had been to New York. I'd traveled my way around Paris, London, Berlin and more, but I could not say the same. Four years later, I know I' …

The excessive and essential in the world of risk management: Project Construction

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Excerpt: The most volatile timeframe for something “bad” to happen in a project’s lifecycle is during construction, which makes securing proper builder’s risk coverage extremely important. Builder’s risk coverage is protection for equipment and materials that will become part of a final project up …

Safety: Making MET towers more visible

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Excerpt: Meteorological Evaluation Towers (MET) are placed in remote locations to gather wind resource data for one or two years. These MET towers vary in height from 60 to 100m (197 to 328 ft) above ground level (AGL) and are getting taller to provide the best wind data. Typically, towers under 200-ft AGL r …

Steel Winds II expansion complete

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Excerpt:   First Wind, an independent U.S.-based wind energy company, has celebrated completion of its Steel Winds II expansion. Local leaders joined First Wind officials for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the project site, which was built on the shores of Lake Erie on the abandoned Bethlehem Steel …

To be precise, the FAA has no 500-ft limit on turbine towers

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Excerpt: The FAA’s alleged 500-ft height limit for wind turbines often comes up in discussions. The figure is of greater interest lately because turbines with rotors of at least 105-m diameters on 100-m towers (frequently referred to as the new norm) will exceed the 500-ft mark. So how will the FAA hand …

NREL supercomputer reveals invisible rotor wakes

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Excerpt: A supercomputer that quickly runs complex airflow models promises to provide insight into harnessing energy from the wind, sun, and other renewable sources. Red Mesa, a 180-teraflop computer (180 trillion floating-point operations/sec) is operating at Sandia National Laboratories in …