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.

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.

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.

SeaTwirl has created a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) that is both direct-drive and stores energy using seawater. It also uses water as a bearing, which has the advantage of low friction.

The generator is of the permanent magnet type. This means that it partially utilizes magnets (magnetic materials such as neodymium) to turn the rotor. The other type of generator (induction) utilizes electromagnets (coils of copper wire) completely.

When the wind speed decreases, the seawater that was drawn into the structure through the shaft and into the torus by centrifugal force is used to maintain turning momentum, acting as a flywheel. The turbine actually collapses its blades to reduce drag so it can spin as a flywheel  and then generate as much electricity as possible.

To tow the new gigantic off-shore wind turbines now being developed in Europe far out to sea, a Norwegian company has devised a clever and simple mechanism. Their WindFlip tows the turbine out almost horizontal – and then when it gets to the site, tilts it up into position – using only the weight of seawater to do it.

The structure contains 29 air filled compartments. Once at the site each of the compartments inside the Windflip is sequentially filled with water, causing the stern to slowly submerge, so that both the Windflip barge and the turbine it is holding flip up 90°. Then it releases the turbine for connection with a pre-installed mooring spread, and then tips the barge back to horizontal by clearing the ballast tanks of seawater with compressed air.

The project consists of the installation of two 1.5-megawatt GE wind turbines which will provide clean electricity to the Air Force Center for Engineering. MMR’s main goal is to obtain all of its energy from renewables.

“This highly visible project was delivered safely, with high quality and ahead of schedule through the collective efforts of the entire AFCEE/ECC team. Each time I cross the Sagamore Bridge and see the turbines spinning, I am reminded of ECC’s contribution in bringing alternative energy to Cape Cod,” said Brian LaMont, program manager for ECC.

This week, Statoil has an application for a pilot demonstration of their Hywind floating wind turbine 12 miles off the coast of Maine before the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for approval. The demo would be the fruition of a project begun in 2009, and funded by the Department of Energy.

Then Maine Governor John Baldacci had visited Norway to inspect Statoil’s Hywind floating turbine project with state and university officials and business leaders and encouraged Statoil to consider his state for deep-water testing of the commercial floating wind turbine technology in the Gulf of Maine. A return visit introduced Norway’s Statoil to turbine construction expertise in Maine, visiting the Vinalhaven wind turbines on the Fox Islands constructed by Cianbro.