Two of the world’s largest wind turbines, with blades 60 meters (196 feet) long, have been installed off the Yorkshire coast, a sign of a growing trend toward producing colossal wind turbines to boost generating capacity.
The 6-megawatt turbines, manufactured by Siemens, are so large that they had to be installed using a
As the sales of wind turbines increase, it is likely that the disputes between suppliers and purchasers will also increase. Wind turbines encompass a variety of tangible and intangible components, including the software necessary for operations and maintenance.
One contractual issue that turbine suppliers and
Wind Wire is a South Bend, Indiana, installer of residential wind turbines.
In August 2010 Roger and Patricia Finney sued Wind Wire in Indiana state court for alleged greenwashing in connection with a residential wind turbine system.
The Finneys’ central charge was that the company
Totaro & Associates has completed the second phase of a study which began in December 2010 on the patent landscape of the horizontal-axis, utility-scale wind industry. We have now read and classified over 23,100 global patents and applications, with over 3,200 issued patents in the US alone.
As we have highlighted in previous posts (here and
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) recently shut down an anti-wind power ad run by the Trump Organization and Communities Against Turbines Scotland on the grounds that the picture and text of the ad were misleading (see the Treehugger piece here).
The ad (reproduced below) said “Welcome to
Faced with growing opposition to land-based wind turbines in England, UK officials are looking to build hundreds of wind farms in Ireland that would generate electricity exclusively for the UK.
Government officials say the £8 billion proposal, which includes the construction of more than 700
Given the opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds in the cleantech industry who are creating everything from micro hydroturbines to small, lightweight, three-wheeled electric cars, I’ve learned that bigger is not always better. Yet in the case of a new wind power innovator, their approach has been to go big – in this case, tall – or go home.
Their innovation is made possible by combining ideas from the past with the design technology and capabilities of today.
In Hanover, Germany, a 100-meter wooden tower is rising that – when completed – will be crowned with a 1.5-megawatt wind turbine weighing 100 tons that will produce electricity for about 1000 households. The tower, currently more than 90 percent complete, will be the equivalent of a 30-story building and online by end of year.
The company responsible for this towering achievement is a German cleantech startup called TimberTower, who I briefly mentioned in an earlier post on renewable energy sources. This innovative company, headquartered in Hanover, has made it their mission to develop wooden towers that can be used as the base for wind turbines. (At its simplest, a wind turbine is composed of a tower, a drive train, and rotor blades. TimberTower is strictly focused on the towers, taking a vendor-neutral approach to the other components, “future-proofing” the base as technology advances).
While wood might not seem like the most cutting-edge material, it turns out that if you’re going to build a massive wind turbine tower—the large heights are necessary to increase yields—there are several compelling reasons to create them out of wood.
First of all, wind turbines with conventional steel towers cease to be financially viable at hub heights greater than 85 meters, largely owing to the rising price of steel.
Secondly, since TimberTower uses flat panels of laminated wood to construct its towers, the loads are easily stackable and transportable, in contrast to steel tower segments. The entire TimberTower kit can be transported using standard container vehicles, rather than having to be transported as an abnormally-sized load—a logistically challenging procedure that can be up to 10 times more expensive.
Third, building towers out of wood makes sense for a forest-rich region like Germany, where the raw materials can be easily sourced close to the point of use from woodlands given the stamp of approval by the largest sustainable forest certification system in the world.
Using a timber alternative for a 100-meter tower saves around 300 tons of sheet steel, which requires an enormous amount of energy to produce. And at end of its life, the wooden components that make up the towers can be easily disassembled and reused for construction purposes, or even transformed into wooden pellets (about 180 tons worth) for energy recovery.
Pretty nifty. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of TimberTower’s innovation is the way it borrows an idea from the past and reinvents it for the future: windmills, after all, have used wooden towers as the base for their turbines for centuries.
Just goes to show that cleantech—innovative and futuristic as it is—isn’t always about discarding the old ways of doing things. Sometimes it’s about taking an idea that’s been around for a long time and helping it reach new heights.
The wind turbines that increasingly dot the landscape peak at around 300 feet above ground, with the massive blades spinning a bit higher. The wind, however, does not peak at 300 feet. Winds are faster and more consistent the higher one climbs, maxing out in the jet streams at five miles and above.
The Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) recently published its Q1 2012 Results.
Although fuel cells are still in the top spot with 232 patents, they were down 18 relative to the first quarter of last year. The report shows large year on year gains for solar patents, up 50 at 188, and wind, which totaled 157 patents, up 71 from Q1 2011.
A previous post discussed the legal action brought by Brazilian developer Desenvix to compel Chinese wind turbine maker Sinovel to permit inspections of its turbines being imported into Brazil.
Due to the major copyright and trade secret lawsuits in China in which American Superconductor (AMSC)
Some people say that electric vehicles are as sustainable as the energy that feeds into them. The DuraStation does just that, provides electric power to EVs using wind as the source of that power.
The product of a partnership between General Electric (GE) and Urban Green Energy (UGE), from
My wife and I had dinner last night with fine friends, a married couple who never disappoint us with their conversation; they’re both extremely well-rounded and intelligent people who care deeply about the plight of their fellow travelers here on 21st Century Earth. But sure enough, the guy brought up a topic that I recalled from a previous conversation: wind turbines
In a previous post, I discussed some of the out of court business damage suffered by Sinovel as a result of the IP suits filed by American Superconductor (AMSC) against the Chinese wind turbine maker in China.
That post reported the news that Mainstream Renewable Power ditched Sinovel and was looking for
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) assessed the offshore wind capacity in Europe over the last six months. They found that at the end of the first half of 2012, the continent’s offshore wind capacity grew by at an astonishing rate from a year ago. A new report by the EWEA shows that there are 132 new offshore wind turbines, providing an additional