Wind Power
Student develops low-cost wind turbine for the developing world
A student from the University of Portsmouth in the UK has created a wind turbine made totally from recycled matter. Aimed at servicing the renewable energy needs of some of the word’s poorest countries, the low cost wind turbine is designed to be built by unskilled workers in less than a day using locally sourced scrap materials. Read More
Burj Al-Taqa: self-sufficient skyscraper design
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This concept eco-skyscraper from German-based architects Gerber Architekten combines traditional building ventilation techniques with the ability to generate 100% of its energy needs using wind and solar power. And the likely location for the "Burj Al-Taqa" or "Energy Tower” - you guessed it - Dubai.
StatoilHydro to build 2.3MW offshore floating wind turbine
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The world desperately needs viable sources of renewable energy and wind power is among the most promising solutions, but one downside is that turbines can be considered a blight on otherwise picturesque landscapes. The solution seems obvious enough - move the towers far out to sea where not only are they out of sight, but where the wind is at its strongest and most consistent. We first encountered this idea back in 2006 when we examined the efforts of MIT researchers to integrate a turbine with a floating platform similar to those used by offshore oil rigs. Now news that Norwegian oil and gas company StatoilHydro plans to invest around US$80 million to build a full scale offshore floating wind turbine. Read More
World's largest offshore wind farm
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May 15, 2008 Texas based engineering and construction giant Fluor Corporation has been engaged to to design and construct the 500 megawatt (MW) Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm. Read More
AeroVironment awarded patents for wind-power system
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April 14, 2008 A name familiar to Gizmag readers through its achievements in the field of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, AeroVironment is also a developer of efficient electric energy systems, an area in which it has been awarded a series of patents relating to its "Architectural Wind® Building-Integrated Energy Generation System" - a system which takes a new approach to harnessing wind power using low-profile turbines designed to maximize electricity generation by taking advantage of the way wind flows over certain types of buildings. Read More
Bumpy whale fins set to spark a revolution in aerodynamics
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March 21, 2008 It seems despite man's endless ingenuity and the incredible modeling power available to inventors through CAD systems, we keep looking to nature to find ever more effective ways of doing things. Millions of years of evolution's trial and error approach have resulted in some incredibly effective designs that are ready to be incorporated into human constructions if we can only identify, understand and replicate them. The random-looking bumps on the humpback whale's flippers have just inspired a breakthrough in aerodynamic design that seems likely to dramatically increase the efficiency and performance of wind turbines, fans, flippers and even wings and airfoils. WhalePower's tubercle technology seems like nothing less than a revolution in fluid dynamics. Read More
Largest wind power transmission project in U.S. underway
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March 12, 2008 Generating power from clean energy sources is one thing, but green energy still needs to find its way to the consumer. In a boost for the State's wind power transmission infrastructure, California’s biggest electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE), has begun construction of the largest project of its type in the United States. Once complete, the project will have the capacity to transmit 4,500 megawatts of electricity from wind farms and other generating companies in the State. Read More
Energy Island: unlocking the potential of the ocean as a renewable power source
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January 29, 2008 Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion uses the temperature difference between surface and deep-sea water to generate electricity – and though it has an efficiency of just 1-3% - researchers believe an OTEC power plant could deliver up to 250MW of clean power, equivalent to one eighth of a large nuclear power plant, or one quarter of an average fossil fuel power plant. Architect and engineer Dominic Michaelis and his son Alex, along with Trevor Cooper-Chadwick of Southampton University are developing the concept with plans of putting the theory to the test on an unprecedented scale by building a floating, hexagonal Energy Island that will harness energy from OTEC, as well as from winds, sea currents, waves, and the sun. Read More
Wind power blows into Texas
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November 7, 2007 Known for oil and gas production, Texas seems an unlikely leader in the field of wind power. Construction has begun on the new Stanton Wind farm in Texas, USA that will employ 80 1.5-megawatt wind turbines and commence operation by April 2008. Read More
Magnetic levitation promises huge efficiency gains in wind power generation
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July 31, 2007 Sustainable generation of electric power is the key to realizing the vision of a world free from dependency on fossil fuels – the challenge is to ramp up the production of electricity to a level that can begin to approach the energy we get from burning coal and oil, without the perceived dangers of going nuclear. The combined threats of Peak Oil and global warming are spurring science into a furious new age of innovation. With almost daily breakthroughs in solar energy capture, battery technology and tidal energy harvesting, but the biggest contribution to green power thus far is coming from wind farming. The common windmill design used to capitalize on air currents, while centuries old, operates at around 1% efficiency in terms of the power it harvests from the wind, due to the deflective blade design and friction losses. But a new technology unveiled last year in China seeks to dramatically boost the output of wind-driven generators by using the virtually frictionless advantages of magnetically levitated turbines. Since there’s virtually no touching of moving parts, the Maglev wind turbine requires far less servicing than a traditional windmill – which dramatically lowers the operating costs to under five U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour. If projections are accurate, giant 1-gigawatt versions of these machines could have a 12-month ROI - a scenario sure to catch the eye of investors worldwide. Read More
Wind-powered mobile phone charger
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July 5, 2007 The problem of keeping your mobile phone fully charged when miles away from a conventional electricity source is being tackled by UK wind turbine specialists, Gotwind. The Orange wind charger prototype is a small, portable tent mounting mobile phone charger that uses stored kinetic energy to fully charge a mobile phone in up to two hours. Weighing only 150 grams, the wind generator may be a convenient answer for your next camping trip and adds another option to the growing number of ecologically friendly phone accessories such as solar powered phone chargers (which have limited functionality at night and in colder climates) and wind-up units. Read More
Wind farm technology goes sonic
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June 5, 2007 The pressing need for viable alternative energy sources that do more than just supplement coal fired power-stations is driving advances in the development of wind energy. One major hurdle in establishing successful wind farms is the difficulty in attaining accurate site evaluation data and it is this problem that the Triton Sonic Wind Profiler seeks to address. Designed to measure wind-speed at heights of up to 200m without the need for erecting costly and less effective masts, the wind profiler utilizes a technique known as Sodar (sound detection and ranging) that measures sound wave echoes in the atmosphere in a similar way to Sonar detection used by submarines underwater. Read More
Portable LiDAR unit boosts windfarm evaluation
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May 31, 2007 Wind farm planning and development will benefit from a deal just signed to market a portable LiDAR unit capable of accurately measuring wind speeds at heights of up to 150m. Designed and built by defense specialists QinetiQ, the unit will be brought to the market by Scottish consultancy Natural Power. It will be a key tool in the evaluation of prospective wind farm sites. Read More
The World’s largest wind farm receives UK government backing
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December 21, 2006 A plan to build the world’s largest wind farm 20 km off the Kent coast in the United Kingdom, has been given Government approval for its offshore planning applications. If built, the 1,000MW wind farm will include 341 turbines, cover 90 square miles and generate enough electricity to power 750,000 homes - a quarter of Greater London’s households. The consent for the onshore substation, necessary to connect the UKP1.5 billion London Array into the national grid, will now be subject to a Public Inquiry. When it becomes operational, the renewable energy project would displace 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year - enough to fill the bowl at the new Wembley Stadium 910 times. Read More
The first energy-autonomous vehicle
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October 2, 2006 There is no doubt that if you rated all the automotive companies in the world on their forward thinking and commitment to commercialising new concepts in sustainable mobility, Monaco-based Venturi would win by a country mile. The company which produced the world’s first available electric sportscar (see articles here here and here), recently announced it would partner with Intel to make energy sharing possible via the Venturi Fetish platform and now it has debuted the first energy-autonomous vehicle and despite its non-traditional appearance, production has already begun. The urban 3-seater electro-solar vehicle named the Eclectic goes well beyond anything previously offered by car manufacturers, being the first vehicle powered entirely by renewable energies, the first solar production vehicle and the first car that can be directly recharged with a personal wind turbine. A limited run of 200 vehicles will be available in June 2007 at a price of EUR24,000. The company is shooting for an even higher level of production from 2009 at an estimated base price of EUR15,000. Innovative and astonishing, Eclectic is much more than a simple vehicle ; it is a production and storage plant for renewable energies, either solar or wind based. Charging of these energies, which is intermittent in certain regions, can also be complemented by electrical recharging. Read More
MIT designs giant wind turbines for use at sea
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September 20, 2006 In a flash of the blinding obvious, MIT researchers have once again taken a simple concept and applied liberal lashings of leading edge science and common sense – take the wind turbines that everyone complains about and move them a hundred miles out to sea, where the winds are strong and steady and no-one can see them. The proposed deep water floater-mounted turbine design would be enable much larger turbines than currently in use by land or shallow-water turbines Read More
