California is the nation’s most populous state, which helps make this landmark even more impressive: According to the LA Times, “Wind energy now supplies about 5% of California’s total electricity needs, or enough to power more than 400,000 households.”
That’s big news. California has effectively doubled its wind power capacity since 2002, and is now home to 4,000 MW. The state installed 921 MW last year alone, and is now ranked just behind Iowa and Texas in generating capacity.
The intermittent, yet often complementary, nature of wind and solar energy has long been observed and increasingly remarked upon of late. Minnesota’s Ecos Energy is looking to take advantage of that by building the state’s largest solar photovoltaic (PV) array on a 13-acre site in southwestern Minnesota, home to more wind farms than any other region state-wide, the StarTribune reports.
At 2-megawatts (MW), the solar power array can’t be considered large by any stretch, but it’s expected to provide enough electricity for 340 homes, about as much as a single wind turbine. Yet more significantly, Ecos Energy’s Slayton project will provide some trailblazing data as to whether or not intermittent solar energy and wind turbine arrays can be used in tandem to provide a more consistent supply of power to the grid.
As we know it
In the present era, the renewable energy realm has a share of about 19 percent in worldwide electricity generation. Now, for the uninitiated, this may seem to be a paltry figure, but if we go by statistical expansion, the ongoing phase is certainly propitious for sustainable output. As a matter of fact, total power capacity from renewable sources momentously exceeded the world capacity of nuclear power for the first time in 2011. In this regard, the major progression was actually witnessed in the case of wind power, with a whopping increment from 6.1 GW in 1996 to more than 200 GW by 2011.
Researchers from Georgia Tech University are working along two parallel tracks to develop energy-efficient robots based on the teamwork of ants and the movement of snakes. Envisioned for use in developing search-and-rescue robots, the technology could also be adapted to swell the ranks of robots with green jobs, for example in designing and fabricating solar cells, performing environmental monitoring or remediation, or subbing in for humans to perform potentially dangerous work such as wind turbine maintenance.
Four gigawatts (yes, 4,000 megawatts) of wind farm capacity have been held on lock-down and unable to move through the UK’s planning system due to Ministry of Defence (MoD) radar issues. However, it looks like that has all changed now.
At least 400 megawatts of electricity from wind projects in Gharo and Jhimpir will be added to national grid by the end of current year (2012) which is being observed as the year for wind energy.
This was stated by the chief executive officer of Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) Arif Alauddin while talking to media at a reception organised by National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) here the other day.
He said that investment commitments of $500 million have been made for energy projects. Four wind projects were at advanced stage, while 12 projects have completed their financial close. They included Zorlu of Turkey, CWE of China, Three Gorges, Fauji Fertilizers, Fauji Foundation, Arif Habib and Lucky Cement, he added. He was of the opinion that 1,200 MW will be added to the national grid every year from 2013.
The WindFlip barge concept was designed to simplify the installation of offshore wind turbines and in the process has managed to be a solution that also cuts cost. Installing offshore wind turbines can be an expensive task — the process requires skilled technicians to assemble turbines at sea, and to anchor them at great depths. Alternatively, the WindFlip barge allows turbines to be assembled completely on shore, towed to their location, and then simply tipped into place — thus minimizing the need for expensive work at sea. Check out a video of the WindFlip in action after the jump.
The construction of new renewable energy generation capacity has fallen dramatically, as the big six energy suppliers pursue a “dash for gas” policy that could put the UK’s climate change targets out of reach and leave households with higher bills.
The number of new wind turbines built this year is down by half on last year. To date, 540MW worth of new turbines, on land and offshore, have been built this year – 200 onshore and 50 offshore turbines. Across the UK last year, 1,192MW of wind capacity was added.
As indicated in the previous post by the American Wind Energy Association (Top 10 Wind Energy Stories of 2011), below the picture are 5 wind energy trends the association recommends we watch out for. I’ll just add that I think there will be more and more media attention on the cost-saving benefits of wind energy, but that I think the clean-energy-hating-misinformation campaign will increase its attacks on wind energy. We’ll see — let’s hope for the first and pray the second is avoided or is rightly squashed by everyone not involved in that super-minority campaign. Lastly, from me, I imagine that we will see a more massive global increase in wind energy than ever before, with Asian and South American countries, especially, increasing their installed wind energy capacity.
With the calendar year winding down, very nearly everyone, this site included, are putting out their year-in-review content—and the American Wind Energy Association is no different. It’s pretty easy to get down on US renewable energy policy if you’re just paying attention to the nonsense coming out of legislators bought and paid for by the polluting class, but there were some truly great milestones in US wind power in 2011.
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