The world’s first silent wind turbine, they say

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Excerpt: Renewable Energy Solutions Australia (RESA) is the owner of what it calls the world's most advanced silent wind turbine for mid-sized applications, about 20kW. The turbine features a 30-blade design that is almost silent and up to 30% more efficient than traditional 3-bladed designs. The Eco Whi …

73.5-m blades fly on the largest offshore wind turbine in the world

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Excerpt: LM Wind Power’s 73.5-m blades became the first 70+ meter working blades to be installed when Alstom inaugurated the largest offshore wind turbine in the world on March 19 at Carnet in the Loire-Atlantique region of France. The impressive composite structures have been developed specifically …

Coating developer wins best-practices award

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Excerpt: Hempel’s accomplishments in the protective-coatings market for wind turbines have won the company the 2011 Frost & Sullivan Product Line Strategy Award. Business research and consulting firm  Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Award recognises outstanding achievement and superior perform …

Software efficiently, realistically simulates composite wind turbine blades

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Excerpt: Allan Wood, President and CEO of AnalySwift As wind-turbine manufacturers seek additional ways to reduce costs and improve performance, greater focus has turned to improving modeling techniques as a way to reliably predict wind-turbine behavior prior to expensive prototyping and testing. In parti …

U.S. turbine OEM doing well in Germany

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Excerpt: A major U.S. turbine OEM says it has a contract with a leading German project developer, Energiekontor AG, for four wind-power generating projects comprised of 41, 2.75 MW-103 wind turbines. Using a proprietary 50.2-m blade GE’s 2.75-103 wind turbine provides a larger blade swept area giving w …

Dallas O&M Conference Recap

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Excerpt: I don't always get a chance to do much site seeing at these shows, but I did get to see a fair share of Dallas while here for Wind Energy Update's O&M Summit. On the way to my hotel, the taxi driver informed me that this was where Kennedy was shot (I know, but give me a break. It was before my t …

Blade manufacturer readies production

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Excerpt:                   Wind turbine blade manufacturer GBT USA (Global Blade Technology) announced in mid-September 2011 it would be opening a production plant in the U.S. has seen quite a bit of growth in the last four months. I …

High-performance fiberglass allows longer and lighter blades

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Excerpt: Developer 3B-the fibreglass company is launching HiPer-tex W2020 high performance roving to satisfy OEMs’ needs for longer and lighter rotor blades to meet the challenging offshore and bigger onshore multi-megawatt wind turbines. Building upon the recently developed sizing technology applied to …

Software assists designing with composites

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Excerpt:   Fibersim software version 2012 reduces risk throughout the wind energy, aerospace, and automotive industries by optimizing design and manufacture of innovative, durable, and lightweight composite structures. The software, developed by Vistagy, was acquired by Siemens on December, 2011. …

Thin-film coating protects wind-turbine blades

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Excerpt: An advanced “thin-film” HSP-7401 Polyurethane Primer and AUE-50000 Series Polyurethane Topcoat are available for wind-turbine blades. The coating uses a thinner to reduce labor, material use, and weight while providing unparalleled adhesion, erosion resistance, and flexibility protection propert …