Large wind turbines are those used to generate commercial quantities of electricity. This category includes single turbines used in distributed applications as well as arrays of multiple wind turbines used in a wind power plant.
A few decades ago a theme--or meme in today's parlance--among wind energy aficionados was movies or TV shows that included scenes of wind turbines. We dubbed the theme Movie Madness.[more]
The World Wind Energy Association was formed because existing organizations were narrowly focused on the often arcane and specialized needs of the commercial wind industry. There was no organization...[more]
Makani was still being touted as the leader in the space for the 2019 Airborne Wind Energy Conference, held in Scotland in August. And now, it’s dead. Alphabet pulled the plug a couple of days ago....
The Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club will lead a hike among the wind turbines on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at 9:00 am on Saturday May 16, 2020 near Tehachapi, California. [more]
A key gatekeeper with the U.S. Navy says they are ready to move forward on plans for offshore wind along the Central Coast — particularly efforts to install floating turbines off of Morro Bay.
The primary reason, let’s be clear, has been the global trend towards support schemes which favour large investors; in particular, auctions have caused such results. Looking at the frightening...
On a 4-0-1 vote, with 4th District Supervisor Peter Adam absent, the board denied the appeals and granted de novo approval of the project southwest of Lompoc but added a new condition and expanded...
Researchers, including Dr. Julia Ponder, executive director of the Raptor Center, want to learn what frequencies and levels of sound can be heard by the birds, and their reactions to them.
When a trench partially collapsed on a coworker at the Skookumchuck Wind Project outside of Rainier on the morning of Thursday, Jan. 9, 24-year-old Chehalis man Jonathan Stringer didn’t hesitate....
One person working at the Skookumchuck Wind Project construction site is dead and another is critically injured after a trench collapsed on the two workers Thursday morning.
The International Energy Agency said in a report in November that by 2040, offshore wind power alone has the potential to meet Japan’s total power demand by over ninefold and the world’s total...
America's foremost scholar on the power-generating prowess of wind turbines has been challenged by a lesser expert from Bakersfield. That foremost scholar, according to President Trump, is President...
Tasmania’s Musselroe Wind Farm will undertake an Australian first trial of new radar technology that the operators hope will help reduce instances of collisions with wedge-tailed eagles.
THE EU’S COURT of Justice has fined the State €5m over its failure to comply with EU legislation that might have prevented landslides linked to the construction of a wind farm in the west of Ireland...
Don’t believe everything you hear about the green-energy revolution. It’s coming, but more slowly than advertised. Fossil fuels, in absolute terms, are still on the rise because of population and...
Commissioners approved the Strauss Wind Energy Project that will bring 29 wind turbines mounted to towers more than 260 feet tall and capable of generating 98 megawatts of electricity per year to the...
The global climate crisis could lead to more renewable electricity being generated by spurring faster wind speeds for the world’s growing number of windfarms, according to research.
One of the reasons is the failed policy of leaving the working feed-in tariff in favor of an experiment with auctions. Said experiment has failed in a spectacular way. As a part of my job I follow...
Wind energy was found not guilty of health impacts 48 times in 5 countries
"It’s bullshit," said Paul Gipe, who has published five books on wind energy since 1995 and who has closely studied California’s wind farms. (Now the American Wind Energy Association does that.)
Preliminary results from a study involving a wind turbine at Heartland Community College in Normal indicate that using software that turns off turbine blades at lower wind speeds can cut bat...
While most of a turbine can be recycled or find a second life on another wind farm, researchers estimate the U.S. will have more than 720,000 tons of blade material to dispose of over the next 20...
Donald Trump’s family firm is refusing to accept a legal bill worth tens of thousands of pounds after he lost a lengthy court battle against a windfarm near his Aberdeenshire golf course, according...
A fatal, work-related incident this past weekend at Arcosa, a wind tower manufacturing plant in Newton, has resulted in one person dead and another critically injured, the Newton Fire Department...
One wind farm in Glenrock and two from the Saratoga area have partnered with the Casper Regional Landfill to dispose of their old wind turbine blades. More than 900 blades will be brought to the...
We find that most wind project developers, sponsors and long-term owners have increased project-life assumptions over time, from a typical term of ~20 years in the early 2000s to ~25 years by the...
Good news — neither the president nor anyone else will lose their wealth because of wind energy. On the contrary. A green energy system is cheaper, cleaner and safer than most systems dependent on...
. . . supply that would be sufficient to cover the global all-sector energy demand from now through to 2050.
I don't often comment or link to news about offshore wind projects or technology. There's plenty of land available for wind energy. In most cases we don't need to go offshore. [more]
Christopher Booker had campaigned vociferously against wind turbines for over a decade, describing them as 'one of the most dangerous political delusions of our time'
A worker at the site of a wind farm under construction in north-central Iowa has died after being run over by a semitrailer.
We find that average all-in lifetime OpEx has declined from approximately $80/kW-yr (~$35/MWh) for projects built in the late 1990s to a level that is approaching $40/kW-yr (~$11/MWh) for projects...
Davis was CEO of Dragonfly Industries International, LLC, which sought to build a wind farm on 300 acres near in Elm Springs for electric power generation in 2015.
Seventeen intrepid hikers crossed the Cameron Canyon segment of the Pacific Crest Trail Saturday on the 33rd annual Windmill-Wildflower hike near Tehachapi, California. [more]
On 26 April 2019 the alumni association of the Natural Resources and Environmental Management Department at my alma mater, Ball State University, presented me with its Award of Distinction, the...[more]
Massive pods of 700-foot floating wind turbines off the coast of California are edging closer to becoming a reality, now that the state has firm applications from several companies hoping to realize...
The Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club will lead a hike among the wind turbines on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at 9:00 am on Saturday May 18, 2019 near Tehachapi, California. [more]
No, Mr. President, windmills don’t cause cancer. What they do cause is the creation of thousands of jobs and businesses in Kern County, and technical innovations that help keep America energy...
Thank you, Mr. President, for the timely attention. My recent book about windmills, or what we call wind turbines, has been languishing in a New York warehouse not far from Trump Tower--until now,...[more]
Thank you, Mr. President, for the timely attention. My recent book about windmills, or what we call wind turbines, has been languishing in a New York warehouse not far from Trump Tower — until now,...
U.S. President Donald Trump mocked renewable energy at yesterday's campaign rally in Michigan. Implicating Hillary Clinton as part of Big Wind, Trump said, "If Hillary got in...you'd be doing wind....
The dream of Morro Bay as a new hub of offshore renewable energy production in California could be over before it even gets its sea legs — or it could just be ramping up.
While there is ample land area for both wind and solar power plants, there is also ample area offshore of major metropolitan areas to power the world's major cities.[more]
World-renowned wind energy expert Paul Gipe of Bakersfield joined The Californian's Robert Price for his weekly "One on One" webcast to talk about California's energy future. Gipe said PG&E's...
Japan’s nascent offshore wind industry is expected to increase dramatically over the next ten years, according to energy analysts Wood Mackenzie, who predict that by 2028 the island country will...
Peddling green works. After watching Budweiser's 2019 Superbowl commercial-- the Clydesdales racing through wheat fields on Tejon Ranch, with wind turbines turning serenely in the background--I...[more]
Peddling green works. After watching Budweiser's 2019 Superbowl commercial-- the Clydesdales racing through wheat fields on Tejon Ranch, with wind turbines turning serenely in the background--I...
Up in the Air is a short film about the wind turbine project in Prince Edward County. For nearly two decades, a group of County residents have been supporting wind energy initiatives. The White Pines...
Nine years after the first was built beside Falmouth’s waste treatment plant, both turbines now stand idle, no longer producing a kilowatt of electricity, totems of good intentions gone awry.
The Associated Press circulated a news item on 14 January 2019 about a field hand killed near Visalia when the blade of a "wind machine" fell off. See California orchard worker dies after 600-pound...[more]
Hundreds of wind turbines could pop up along the coast off Los Osos and Cambria — but before they do,the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Managment wants to know if you think that’d be a good idea.
Texas now produces four times as much wind energy as California, which has fallen to No. 4 in the United States — not a promising trend, given the state’s ambitious goal of switching to 100 percent...
Windustrious Cleveland's Sara Taylor calls for opponents of offshore wind in the Great Lakes to evolve, as others have done in past, to avoid technological stagnation.[more]
In 1980 the Department of Energy published a short film titled Wind: An Energy Alternative. The 12-minute film was produced by the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) probably in 1979.[more]
New technology to detect and prevent eagles from colliding with rotating wind turbine blades will be applied in Australia for the first time – at Goldwind Australia’s Cattle Hill Wind Farm in the...
The findings indicate an overall positive attitude toward the nearby turbines, including for those living even as close as ½ mile. Roughly 8% of the population had negative attitudes within 5 miles.
In the mountains 20 miles west of Willcox, 15 wind turbines stand 450 feet tall, spinning with the wind. This is the Red Horse II Wind Farm, the only wind farm operating in southern Arizona.
In an Aug. 30 rally in Evansville, Indiana, President Donald Trump made three unsubstantiated claims about wind turbines, which he calls “windmills”.
Efforts to build fields of floating wind turbines off the coast of California are gaining momentum, and Morro Bay might be at the front of the line.
Christopher Bruce lost his automotive job, sulked, then reinvented himself
What struck my eye is the quote, "Indiana is a better location for the use of windpower than many eastern states, since most wind speeds are higher, the terrain flatter, and most of the trees cut...[more]
The growing excitement for offshore wind development on the Great Lakes is great to see. William Friedman, of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, has announced that they have identified the...[more]
Green Energy Act allowed province to ignore local concerns, but election gives opponents new optimism.
Tubs of Strawberry Breeze-cake, Cherry Gale-cia and other wind-themed ice-creams will feature in a campaign by Ben & Jerry’s to persuade the government to rethink its opposition to onshore windfarms.
The digital version of Paul Gipe's Wind Energy for the Rest of Us has been re-launched on several platforms at $19.99, 33% off the previous e-book price.[more]
The United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) has gone live according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) press release.[more]
4 April the transfer of remaining copies of Wind Energy for the Rest of Us to a new distributor was completed.[more]
Cleveland has been a city of innovation, right from the very beginning. In 1796 Moses Cleaveland, in his westward journey from Connecticut, discovered the area around the mouth of the Cuyahoga River,...[more]
Bosnia’s maiden wind farm began producing electricity on Wednesday as part of the country’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and meet the renewable energy standards of the European Union it...
Wind power prices have plummeted in recent years since Germany switched to auctions. Now, a study has found what readers of this blog already knew: the prices only look low because they are reported...
The family of a security guard who died after becoming trapped in heavy snow on a remote wind farm are demanding answers about his death.
Additionally, the sound-level drivers (modeled wind turbine sound level and background sound level) are poor predictors of very annoyed responses; one’s prior support for or opposition to a local...
A similar mean level of annoyance to sound is found in European results. In the U.S. sample, the mean levels of annoyance to lighting, shadow flicker, and landscape change are similar but slightly...
Attitudes were significantly correlated with compensation, sensory perceptions of the nearby turbines, planning process perceptions, and attitudes toward wind turbines in general. It was also found...
In 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to lead a 4-year project collecting data from a broad-based and representative sample of individuals...
A manufacturer and exporter of wind turbines based in the People’s Republic of China was convicted today of stealing trade secrets from AMSC, a U.S.-based company formerly known as American...
The Unite union has called on the UK government and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to toughen the laws governing the construction and maintenance of wind farms, following the death of a worker at...
UK: A 74-year-old man has died at a wind farm in southeast Scotland after becoming stranded without heat or power.
The Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) has been reviewing the application by Icebreaker Windpower Inc., regarding its proposal to install six turbines on Lake Erie, a few miles offshore from Cleveland....
French wind historien Etienne Rogier has published an article on French post war wind turbines in the latest issue of the house organ for the Fédération des Moulins de France.[more]
But after 16 years — and $100 million of his own money — that dream is, well, gone with the wind. Mr. Gordon has pulled the plug, stymied by endless litigation and a series of financial and political...
The Interior Department has quietly rolled back an Obama-era policy aimed at protecting migratory birds, stating in a solicitor’s opinion that it will no longer prosecute oil and gas, wind, and solar...
A big reason Dow chose wind energy in gas-rich Texas, is that wind power has a completely predictable fuel cost (zero), which budget planners like. They don't have to guess what their costs will be a...
Renewable energy and electric vehicle fan Bob Tregilus was out and about in rural Nevada when he came across an odd wind turbine powering a well pump in the Reese River Valley. So he sent along his...[more]
Contrary to the ideas promulgated by some opponents of wind generation, most of the substantial investment in wind farms in South Australia is not being paid for by taxpayers or electricity consumers...
At first I resented the way they blocked the view. But now the towers look like part of a brighter future.
Permitting for the project dragged on for more than ten years and the 30-megawatt project is expected to go online in 2018. A contract worker died on the site in April after he was electrocuted.
Science deniers needlessly killing animals, in order to needlessly kill more animals. Appalled but not surprised. People who don’t care about the massive extinctions brought on by climate change...
David Sprague, of Windham, Maine, was 59 years old when he was electrocuted at the Putnam Road construction site on April 18.
Anxiety over “wind-turbine syndrome” stems from a decades-old misunderstanding of inaudible noise. (Jun 19, 2017)
At £57.50 per megawatt-hour (MWh), it is far cheaper than the state-backed price of £92.50 awarded in 2016 to Hinkley nuclear power station. The speed of wind’s progress is extreme and inarguable.
One of Victoria’s best-known wind farms, Waubra, 35km north-west of Ballarat, has been shot at several times in recent years, police have revealed.
Given that this is offshore wind, it stands to reason that lenders and investors will work from what they know (offshore wind using fixed-bottom foundations), and try to understand how different FOW...
The world’s first ever offshore wind farm has finally been dismantled, with DONG Energy announcing this week that it had completed decommissioning the 4.95 megawatt Vindeby Offshore Wind Farm.
The Snickers, Twix, Milky Way and Skittles maker has also revealed plans to champion renewable energy through its M&M’s brand, featuring images of things such as wind turbines alongside its red and...
In response to my review of Energy Democracy, a new book on Germany’s energy revolution by Craig Morris and Arne Jungjohann, long-time colleague Bernard Saulnier contacted me with his thoughts.[more]
Rightwing Poles have raised the old canard that wind turbines and, hence, wind energy, is the detestable spoor of Nazi racial ideology. Nothing could be further from the truth.[more]
Tom Gray, former executive director of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) died Wednesday.[more]
Is one of the most powerful books on the renewable energy revolution in decades. It’s a chronicle of the remarkable transformation underway in the world’s fourth-largest industrial economy.[more]
When was the Energiewende born? Lots of dates are tossed around, but one German press report argues that it all started today 30 years ago, when a test wind farm was connected to the grid.
Germany’s Network Agency has announced the results of the second round of onshore wind auctions. The new price is 4.29 cents/kWh, a quarter lower than the 5.71 cents from the first round.
We find cumulative wind and solar air-quality benefits of 2015 US$29.7–112.8 billion mostly from 3,000 to 12,700 avoided premature mortalities, and cumulative climate benefits of 2015 US$5.3–106.8...
$13 billion was invested in new wind power plants in 2016. In 2016, wind energy contributed 5.6% of the nation’s electricity supply, more than 10% of total electricity generation in fourteen states,...
Yes, I’ve written about this subject once before, Everything You Need to Know about Wind Energy Was Written in 1957!, but I am moving the date back thirty years in the light of more research. The...[more]
A wind-turbine-blade factory in Southwestern Ontario that Siemens Wind Power Ltd.’s former parent company called “a key part of our global supply chain” just last September is winding down...
York University’s International Renewable Energy Academy designated 29 June as the “wind day” on their week-long program. [more]
(1) North American support for wind has been consistently high. (2) The NIMBY explanation for resistance to wind development is invalid. (3) Socioeconomic impacts of wind development are strongly...
Right-wing media find a new renewable energy bogeyman.
Presentation by Paul Gipe for York University's International Renewable Academy on 22 June 2017. Check against delivery.
"Wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fuelled power stations are responsible for about...
While thumbing through German renewables magazine, Sonne Wind&Wärme, a table jumped out at me. The table confirmed that the Silent Wind Revolution that French renewables expert Bernard Chabot first...[more]
Dr. Alt is a journalist who has been promoting the vision of a renewable energy world for more than two decades. As head and presenter of important political tv magazines, he became one of the most...
It is no wonder that a modern wind turbine looks so beautiful.[more]
Recently a Dutch wind farm developer’s home was firebombed. Dutch Wind Developer Fire Bombed What other instances of violence against wind industry staff have occurred?
Sometime around midnight 10-11 April the home of Bob Jans was firebombed in Assen, the Netherlands. Both Jans and his wife were home, asleep at the time.[more]
When she's not climbing in Patagonia, Jessica Kilroy hangs off wind turbines
"Als die Gemeindevertreter der drei Gemeinden mit diesem Konzept auf die Bürger zugingen, war das Vorhaben schnell akzeptiert“, erinnert sich Schäfer.
As wind energy achieves a historic milestone – surpassing the total capacity of hydropower dams to become the nation’s largest renewable energy resource – many of California’s pioneer wind projects...
A poll published in the Sunday Times shows more than half of Conservative voters think the government should do more to encourage onshore wind power. 52% of those surveyed said the building of wind...
Nova Scotia policy on wind farms makes them 3 times more popular than in Ontario, study says.
Presentation before the Distributed Wind Energy Association in Washington, DC February 28, 2017[more]
A stark, but somewhat expected finding is the high degree of support for wind energy in Nova Scotia compared to Ontario. Local support of their own nearby turbine development was three times higher...
With a month to go this fiscal year, Japan's installation of new wind power capacity in 2016-17 is set to come in almost double that of the previous 12 months, propelled by higher tariffs guaranteed...
The Canadian province of Ontario generated a higher percentage of its electricity with wind energy than California in 2015. [more]
No, that’s not mere click bait. That’s the argument Geoff Henderson makes in a provocative paper on wind turbine size and the landscape impact of wind turbines.[more]
The Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club will lead a hike among the wind turbines on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at 9:00 am on Saturday May 20, 2017 near Tehachapi, California. [more]
Last week, we got a peek at Trump’s infrastructure plan, which included infrastructure projects that he considers a priority. Three of those are wind-related projects.
It seems to happen with every new technology. It wasn’t so long ago that some people were convinced a photograph could steal your soul. We may read about that now and have a little chuckle, but are...
"It is prohibited for any private actor, any renewable energy company to come into Newfoundland to build a renewable energy source or to sell or transmit it on the grid. It's essentially against the...
Messages sent before his White House campaign show US president-elect harassing Alex Salmond over windfarms
Levelised cost of electricity from wind farms in France stands at EUR 76 per MWh, says a joint study of Pöyry Managing Consultants and French wind industry body France Energie Eolienne published...
Some 73% of the British public polled by ComRes support onshore windfarms in contrast with government decisions to block them
Wind energy companies in Indiana are attempting to mitigate the deaths of bats during migration season by slowing or stopping their turbines at night.
But amid the gale-force havoc, the day also brought a critical milestone in a quiet energy revolution: For the first time ever, the army of spinning white turbines that has sprouted across the lush...
According to NEDO, about 0.18GW of wind power plants (86 plants) were newly installed in Japan in fiscal 2015. As of the end of the fiscal year, there were 2,102 wind power plants (total capacity:...
Photographer Bob Tregilus sent along a couple of pictures of some recycled US Windpower turbines in Nevada.[more]
The state's 25 largest wind farms generate $30.4 million in annual property taxes and $13.86 million in extra income each year for landowners who lease their land to wind farm developers, according...
The act against wind turbines imposes a number of restrictions on producers of wind energy (except for micro installations and offshore wind farms).
Commissioners decided that Greycliff can arrange a contract of up to 25 years at a price of $45.49 per megawatt hour. That price is less than consumers are paying NorthWestern for power from the...
What summary data tells us is that California wind farms generated 13.7 TWh from 6,200 MW of installed capacity in 2014. This results in a fleet-wide yield of 2,200 kWh/kW/yr. This is an important...[more]
No. That title isn’t click bate. Long ago, in a land far away, I had to give a speech on the future of wind energy. That’s not noteworthy; I do it all the time. What was noteworthy, though, was that...[more]
In early 2016 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) installed a large wind turbine at their headquarters in central England. The 100-meter (330-foot) tall turbine was installed at the...[more]
Work begins in Sandy, Bedfordshire on 25 January, and the 100-metre tall Enercon E-53 800kW turbine will generate around 2m units of green energy every year, equivalent to over half of the...
The U.S. Department of Energy is awarding $40 million to the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. to build a six-turbine pilot wind farm in Lake Erie by the end of 2018.
Up to now, public support for wind power has been very strong in Germany. But recent changes to German law have encouraged local groups that oppose wind farms. The relegation of competence from the...
“Some electricity utility companies in Canada will tell you all you’ll ever get from wind is 10 per cent of your electrical needs,” Carl Brothers, an engineer and wind energy consultant, said. “In...
The good news is that with a smaller font size and tighter leading (the space between lines) than in my previous books, Holm has been able to substantially reduce the number of printed pages from...[more]
The German manufacturer of direct-drive turbines has built a prototype of its 4.2 megawatt unit recently announced. But the important thing is not the generator size, but the 126-meter rotor. It is...
Today marks the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945 by the 6th armored division of the US Third Army. Buchenwald is significant for several reasons. 56,000 people died in the...[more]
On the left, we see turbine types for which permits were granted last year; on the right, those actually built in 2015. In other words, the ones on the left point into the future more than those on...
Big step in the long road to publishing my new book: Wind Energy for the Rest of Us. Today I assigned the ISBN numbers to the digital and print version. Each version of the book has its own distinct...[more]
France's National assembly defeats Senate measure to effectively ban wind turbines in France.
The proposed law on the cultural landscape in France is a Trojan Horse designed to ban wind turbines. Why do they hate windmills so much?
In the last few years of eligibility, feed-in tariffs for offshore wind power dropped to 3.9 cents. Today, guest author Philipp Schmagold explains that the rising cost of O&M at the end of the second...
I've finally taken the time to post some pictures from my career in renewable energy and energy policy. Some date from 1976, possibly earlier. My memory of those days is fuzzy as they say.[more]
When the Wildcat Wind Farm was constructed in Madison and Tipton counties, E-on Climate & Renewables agreed to provide a $1.2 million donation for economic development.
Today I updated my pages on cultural icons of wind turbines to include two murals and a sign board in Tehachapi, California.[more]
The Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club will lead a hike among the wind turbines on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at 9:00 am on Saturday May 21, 2016 near Tehachapi, California. The Sierra Club's...[more]
According to preliminary figures, the world has seen a new record in new wind installations, adding 63’690 MW within the year 2015. The total wind capacity of the world has reached 435 GW.
The good news is that just over 3.5 gigawatts was installed, putting 2015 in second position behind the roughly 4.4 gigawatts of 2014 and ahead of the previous record year of 2002 at 3.2 gigawatts.
Wind power generation plant AES Laurel Mountain LLC has pleaded guilty to two federal misdemeanors in the deaths of hundreds of migratory birds five years ago at its Barbour County facility.
Wind Energy for the Rest of Us by Paul Gipe straddles two—or more—worlds. The book is about wind energy. It’s not just about small wind turbines. It’s not just about large wind turbines. It’s about...[more]
There are 484 MW of wind in Ontario’s distribution system. CanWEA says that Ontario has 4,361 MW installed. So the IESO is missing 12% of Ontario’s wind production. If you add 12% to their number,...
2015 was another record year for wind power in Denmark, where turbines generated 42 percent of demand, topping the old record of 39 percent from the previous year. No other country has such a large...
Last year, wind power production in Germany increased by around 50 percent – and the country already had the third largest fleet of wind turbines worldwide.
Den Wind der Welt einfangen is part of series of retrospectives being issued by pioneers in the field of wind energy as they near retirement. Written by freelance journalist Dierk Jensen, Catching...[more]
Germany, as it happens, has a very strong culture of benefit sharing. I had a chat to my host about my experience on the outskirts of Ebersheim. She told me about a neighbour in the small town who...
The expansive title of Vaughn Nelson’s Wind Energy is appropriate as Nelson delves into such taboo topics as population, exponential growth, and exhaustion of fossil fuels.[more]
Wind Power for the World tells an exciting tell of hope and promise—how a small band of activists, dreamers, and entrepreneurs built one of the world’s fastest growing and dynamic industries. It’s a...[more]
I am hosting the following spreadsheet file prepared by the Idaho National Laboratory that is no longer available or has been compromised. The xls file contains tabular power curve data for a number...[more]
Its goal is to create a wind farm off the shores of Lake Erie and use wind power to replace fossil fuels as a source of energy in this region.
This year, it will have closer to a third renewable power, close the new target for 2020, which now stands at 35 percent. Moreover, the level of 20 percent – once thought hard to reach by 2020 – has...
The answer is Denmark by a mile, followed by Germany then Spain. I'm pleased to see Canada in fourth spot, beating USA and the UK by a reasonable amount.
Wind power, which the transition needs the most, will suffer the most, especially on shore.
Chabot examines Denmark's 2012 policy to address climate change and finds, surprise, that the Danes are well on their way to meeting their objectives--ahead of schedule.[more]
Wind covers 3.7% and solar PV 1.3% of 462 TWh of consumption. Wind & solar are seasonally complimentary. With current policies France is unlikely to meet its 2020 targets of 27% renewable energy...
The most challenging hurdle that the Mexican wind sector faces is the engagement with the local populations that own the land where major wind parks are intended to be set up.
Two companies have been sentenced after a worker was killed and another seriously injured during construction of an offshore wind farm.
This document describes the up-to-date characteristics and performance of the reference wind turbines and wind farms using the principles and the design of the “Silent Wind Power Revolution” (SWR),...
State web site’s banner photo of a wind farm not shot in California.[more]
IRENA has come up with a truly amazing app for global renewable energy statistics and information. In addition, an Italian has released an app that helps you find wind farms worldwide.
Over the past few years, a dramatic shift has taken place in the type of wind turbine installed, as the US market shows. The focus is clearly on raising capacity factors by increasing tower height...
May 30th Danish wind pioneers are gathering at the Tvind school in northwest Jutland to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the start of construction for the world’s oldest operating wind...[more]
The Sierra Club was one of a number of groups that lobbied for the project, including the National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation and labor unions, when it was first proposed in 2009....
Providence-based Deepwater Wind recently secured financing for a long-planned 5-turbine, 30-megawatt pilot project three miles off Block Island. The turbines should be spinning by summer 2016....
Environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is supporting efforts to increase wind power allocation in the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme that gives incentives to renewable energy investments...
Make no mistake, though, it’s a real hike, not the cliché walk in the park. The six-mile trip is rated moderate by seasoned hikers, but it has steep uphill and downhill segments, organizers caution.
Yes, there’s a wind turbine in San Francisco Bay. It’s probably one of only two commercial wind turbines in all of Marin County. Yes, it’s in a state park too. It’s been there for more than three...[more]
Boston and the communities around Boston Harbor have more commercial wind turbines than the entire San Francisco Bay, including one 1.5 MW wind turbine within Boston's urban core. Yes, it's a real...[more]
According to data released yesterday by German wind power association BWE and German engineering association VDMA (PDF), the country installed 4,750 megawatts of onshore capacity last year, up more...
Tehachapi’s Windmill-Wildflower Hike is one of the longest-running such events anywhere in the world. Nearly a thousand people, from children to octogenarians, have taken the six-mile walk across...[more]
In 2014, Danish wind turbines supplied what corresponds to 39.1% of Danes’ electricity consumption. This is a new record. As in the previous five years, more power was covered by land-based wind...
German wind power production hit a new record level in 2014, though it only rose slightly – by around one percent to 52.4 TWh.
The Court dismissed all the appeals. In effect, the Court has confirmed the constitutional validity of the Ontario overnment’s system for approving and regulating wind turbines. The Court’s decision...
In this article, on page 118, text is missing the quotes and the reference to the page of book is incomplete and not in the correct location. Please see the revised paragraph with the changes.[more]
An ad in Die Zeit from 22 June 1990 posted by a German nuclear organization shows how greatly wind power was underestimated. And how nuclear never lived up to the dreams of its supporters.
Ontario’s build out of wind capacity continues to increase the output of Ontario’s wind farms. The output rose from 5.9 TWh to 7.7 TWh, an increase of 30%. Wind supplied about 5.5% of Ontario’s...
“It was clear from the Tribunals’ decisions … that they assessed and weighed the evidence of the post-turbine witnesses in light of the expert medical evidence which they heard,” the judges wrote.
Getting planning permission for a wind turbine can be a daunting task, however there are many post-planning and other issues to consider too, explains Tori Heaton, planning manager at installer and...
Residents in two South Dakota counties expressed satisfaction with the opportunities wind development brought to their communities by two very different wind projects. Of 238 respondents, divided...
The first cool thing that jumped out to me while using the app was: “Wow, there are a lot of wind farms around here!” I knew Poland wasn’t bad with regards to wind power, and that Germany had a good...
“Based on the concessions that we currently have, including Iloilo and the ones in Ilocos Norte, I think there’s a potential of about 550 MW,” EDC president Richard Tantoco told reporters Thursday...
The Pew Charitable Trust makes the same mistake, essentially conflating throwing money at a problem with policy support. The main purpose of feed-in tariffs (offered for all renewable electricity,...
Bernard Chabot is back today with a comparison of three scenarios published by GWEC and two of his own published by the WWEA. The scenarios show that one strategy would be best for the short term;...
The pocket bilingual dictionary is published by OffTEC, a leading provider of training courses for onshore and offshore wind industries. The dictionary is designed for trainee wind turbine service...[more]
Densely populated Japan is home to a mind-boggling number of golf courses. With so much land set aside for golf, how much wind power could be produced from the land area covered by golf courses in...
. . . support for onshore wind among the public is 67 per cent, with just 11 per cent opposed. Solar power is the most popular renewable fuel (82 per cent support) with offshore wind a bit ahead of...
In the short to medium term the fossil fuel interests and their supporters – both witting and unwitting — are fighting the battle of their corporate lives to preserve the privileged position they’ve...
Germany’s leading economics institute DIW has published a 36-page report in English on how the amendments to the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) will impact the cost of capital for wind power investors....
Eurogate wants to make seven million kWh available with the wind power farm and also its newly constructed combined heat and power plant (CHP). Eurogate also generates power from photovoltaic...
Nicely done map portraying the growth of wind energy worldwide from 1980 to the present sorted by country.
Smart people reinvent variations of these things fairly often. People get enthused about them, get people to invest, build prototypes which don’t work as hoped. The prototypes get abandoned and...
The former East German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern became the first German state to generate more electricity with renewable energy than its own domestic consumption. In 2013 the state on the...[more]
Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Kingston Environmental Committee in collaboration with Tourism Kingston and Tourism Wolfe Island.
Looks like the Wind Turbines won! Overall, supporters of renewable energy landed almost 70% of the vote, and the PC's, who made a big campaign issue of killing off renewable energy via the Green...
Vote Compass users overall say wind energy should be a significant source of Ontario’s electricity supply mix - but that view is not shared by respondents who identified as supporters of the...
A German startup launches a crowdfunding campaign tomorrow for its “wind kites,” and it is doing so by bad-mouthing the wonderful stuff we have. These folks resort to crowdfunding because people who...
Windpower Ownership in Sweden: Business models and motives, the new book by Tore Wizelius helps English-speakers understand how Swedes have taken a sizable ownership of wind energy in spite of their...[more]
I think windmills are beautiful. They harness the wind's power to supply us with heat and light. They provide local jobs. They help clean air and reduce climate change.
Daniel Wetzel at WELT reports on a new nationwide anti-wind organization recently founded in Germany. The name of the new lobby group is “Vernunftkraft” (reason power). I am not linking to them, but...
Tehachapi’s Windmill-Wildflower Hike is one of the longest-running annual walks among wind turbines worldwide. More than 800 people, from children to octogenarians, have taken the six-mile walk...[more]
GE's enclosed-lattice, five-legged space frame prototype, sited at the company's Tehachapi, California facility, is 97 meters tall . . .
In China, wind power is leaving nuclear behind. Electricity output from China’s wind farms exceeded that from its nuclear plants for the first time in 2012, by a narrow margin. Then in 2013, wind...
Japan hasn’t seen an appreciable increase in wind power in the past few years despite the start of the feed-in tariff system designed to boost renewable energy, but it still has potential and the...
Creation Care merges faith with proactive solutions to protect God’s creation. Next week, the season of Lent begins for millions of faithful people around the world. To mirror the 40 days of Lent,...
In a new study, researchers from Imperial College Business School carried out a comprehensive nationwide analysis of the UK fleet of wind turbines, using local wind speed data from NASA. They showed...
In solidarity with BWE, I’ve endorsed their campaign by taking the small step of including one of their themes in the banner of my web site. I’ve posted one banner in the original German and one...[more]
In a new study, researchers carried out an analysis using local wind speed data from NASA, and showed that the turbines will last their full life of about 25 years before they need to be upgraded.
The UBA study found 13.8% of land area suitable for wind energy; 49,000 km2, and that with contemporary wind turbines there is the astonishing 1,200,000 MW capable of generating 2,900 TWh/yr. This is...[more]
Of the wind turbines installed in 2012, only 28% were installed on green field sites in Niedersachsen and only 20% in Schleswig-Holstein. The rest were installed as replacements for existing turbines...[more]
German wind power organization Deutsche WindGuard has published its estimates for newly installed wind power capacity for the previous year, and the results are better than expected. 2013 turns out...
More than 80 percent of Icelanders support the construction of wind turbines for energy production, as indicated in a recent survey carried out by Capacent Gallup on behalf of Landsvirkjun, the...
Never before has Energinet.dk incorporated so much wind power in the Danish power system as in 2013, and never before did the wind turbines generate what corresponds to more than 50 per cent of the...
Wind power was the main source of energy in Spain last year for the first time ever and also for the first time ever in any country, according to the industry association AEE.
Archivists at the York County Heritage Trust have uncovered a treasure trove of records from the 1.25 MW Smith-Putnam turbine of the early 1940s. The museum archives records of the S. Morgan Smith...[more]
If you’re going to join the public debate on our climate and energy future, should you have to disclose who you work for? Or should you be allowed to create a front group out of thin air to attack...
It's hard to believe, but the tempest over wind energy may be losing speed. . . But now, in at least some parts of the province, particularly around Lake Erie, the statistics appear to show people...
A new survey finds that the wind turbines in Freiburg, Germany, are once again very popular after a brief concern over the impact on bats. The strangest thing was the timing of the bat issue.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything to say about the American Wind Energy Association. To my surprise AWEA published a few photos from my collection in their recent calendar. One is of a...[more]
I’d already marked up my version of Matthias Willenbacher’s book My Indecent Offer to the Chancellor in the faint hope of some day posting a review from the German—it’s difficult and time consuming...[more]
A new study reveals that more than three quarters of those surveyed in Switzerland support wind power, and roughly the same number say there is "no" or "only a minor" affect on people in surrounding...
The old canard of 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in California came up again recently in Australia of all places. A rabid anti-wind blogger—seems the Aussies have a good crop of them downunder—posted...[more]
I've added several new categories of cultural icons featuring wind turbines and updated some others. I've added categories for Book and Magazine Covers, Organic Chicken, Toys & Model Railroads, Pop...[more]
A dramatic fall in income, coupled with rising energy costs, is seeing increasing number of farmers turning to wind turbines as an additional source of revenue ahead of looming energy regulator...
The growth of wind power, if undertaken with reasonable care, should pose no risk to any particular bird species in Canada, according to a new peer-reviewed study. The study also suggests that highly...
We estimated impacts on birds from the development and operation of wind turbines in Canada considering both mortality due to collisions and loss of nesting habitat. We estimated collision mortality...
More than 80 percent of Icelanders support the construction of wind turbines for energy production, as indicated in a recent survey carried out by Capacent Gallup on behalf of Landsvirkjun, the...
Commercial availability of the new IEC3A wind turbine models, which have been specifically designed for high productivity in low and light wind conditions, opens new opportunities for onshore wind...
Ten Mile Lagoon wind farm on the south coast of West Australia was commissioned 20-years ago. The pioneering wind-diesel system at the remote community of Esperance cost AUS$5.8 million in 1993 to...[more]
Long awaited, low specific capacity-high specific area turbines are the kind of technology needed to make wind energy an essential low-cost component of moving society toward 100% renewable energy.[more]
The question about what to do with wind turbines after they’ve reached the end of their useful lives is often raised out of fear that derelict wind turbines will litter the landscape. As I’ve...[more]
Because of a flood of misinformation about what it costs to dismantle wind turbines, I’ve chosen to post a section from my 1995 book on the topic. Note that this was written nearly two decades ago.[more]
I am posting this data for its historical context and because the question of specific capacity has come to the fore as wind turbine manufacturers are now offering IEC Class IIIA turbines with very...[more]
In my 1995 book, Wind Energy Comes of Age, I discuss various measures of wind turbine productivity, including the misleading expression capacity factor. This discussion follows an explanation of how...[more]
The capacity or size of wind turbines and what that means relative to how much electricity they will generate often confuses journalists, renewable energy advocates, policymakers, and even...[more]
Addition of wind generation to a large power system does not require construction of back-up generating capacity.
In a significant victory for the UK wind sector over anti-wind propagandists, the UK Advertising Standards Authority have banned a leaflet stating that a 5.4MW wind farm planned for Wiltshire would...
“It is erroneous to interpret the reasons as establishing a precedent for the degree of proof required to establish a decrease in property values in these circumstances,” wrote Justice Healey in her...
No other province in Canada has a longer history with wind energy than Alberta, which has 20 years of experience with utility-scale wind farms. Yet, unlike some parts of the country, we don’t tend to...
A group of landowners who unsuccessfully sued a wind power developer and the farm corporation that leased it land have been ordered to pay legal costs of $107,370.78. . . the proposed eight-turbine...
Wind energy is growing in Indiana. Now there are some wind turbines in Upland on the Taylor University campus and there are two commercial-scale turbines Union City as well. Wind farms have also...[more]
Renowned for its development of geothermal energy, Iceland has longed downplayed the potential of wind energy on the windy island nation in the middle of the North Atlantic. Until now....[more]
As fewer favourable high-wind speed sites are available, interest in effectively exploiting regions with lower wind speeds is growing worldwide. But in order to optimise results at these locations,...
13.8% of Germany is suitable for wind energy. This land area could hold 1,190,000 MW and could generate 2,900 TWh/yr. New turbines could reduce the land area required by 3/4 and still produce 2,400...
I've posted archival photos of one-bladed wind turbines in Germany and Italy under the section Large Wind Turbines.
It has been 10 years since the Nine Mile Beach wind farm was commissioned and 20 years since the Ten Mile Lagoon wind farm was commissioned. . .
Capacity factor is an indicator of how many hours a year a power generator runs. Today, guest author Bernard Chabot talks about how surprisingly high capacity factors are for wind turbines in areas...
Wine labels often celebrate the local landscape, the paysage in French. So it is fitting that vineyards add scenes depicting landscapes with wind turbines to their wine labels. . .
An ongoing area of enthusiasm and often fruitless investment is the area of high-altitude wind generation. Numerous companies have products which are hyped as replacing the iconic white tower with...
Just Because a Better Mousetrap is Known Doesn’t Mean it will be Used When There’s a Vested Financial Interest in the Status Quo . . .[more]
It seems as if every week, a new wind generator innovation is unveiled, sometimes in technology blogs, sometimes in TV segments, once even on TED Talks. They all claim to be better than the iconic,...
Wind has overtaken nuclear as an electricity source in China. In 2012, wind farms generated 2 percent more electricity than nuclear power plants did, a gap that will likely widen dramatically over...
Secretive funding network channelled millions to stop state governments moving towards renewable energy
Since the beginning of November, wind power has been the largest source of electricity within Spain – ahead of even nuclear and coal power – according to the Spanish wind power association's blog....
The government aims to triple the nation's supply capacity of electricity generated through wind power to 7.5 million kilowatts by developing transmission grids in Hokkaido and the Tohoku region, it...
On Wednesday, the official figures for new wind turbine installations in Germany were published, and the sector grew by around 20 percent. German wind energy association BWE emphasizes how reliable...
Danish release statistics on the growth of renewables and the continuing decline in Carbon emissions. . .[more]
Our firm needs 100 volunteers to attend and participate in a rally in front of the British Consulate/Embassy in Midtown Manhattan on the East Side on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 12 noon. The event...
The poll, conducted by ACORE in the days immediately following the US election, found that energy was an important part of an voter’s decision, on a par with foreign policy, and ahead of abortion....
This has left wind energy open to attack by those, for whatever reason, who don’t think wind turbines have a place in our electricity mix. Associated with those attacks is much misunderstanding about...
Opens Up New Possibility for Community Ownership Danish researchers have uncovered surprising results in a study of offshore wind energy. Contrary to expectations, research at the University of...[more]
Nearly Half of the Regions GDP is from Tourism Yet Nearly Two-Thirds of Schleswig-Holstein's Wind Capacity is also in the Region December 26, 2012 By Paul Gipe Attendees at the 2012 Husum wind...[more]
Nearly 2% of Land Area Set Aside for Wind Energy Not 100%, Not 200%, But 300% Renewable Energy by 2020 Says Government The German state of Schleswig-Holstein recently approved doubling the land...[more]
Henning Holst is one of Germany's pioneering community wind developers. Located in the center of the wind energy universe in Husum (the gray city by the sea) in northwestern Germany, he was there at...[more]
At the World Wind Energy Association conference in Bonn this past July there was a session on operations and maintenance and service providers. Carlo Reeker summarized the findings of annual survey...[more]
As part of the giant Husum wind conference held every two years, organizers this past fall launched an interactive map of wind projects in the region surrounding the "grey city by the sea". . . [more]
While traveling in Denmark this year I picked up a local newspaper (Dagbladet 13 September 2012, p 32) that had an article on the huge Anholt offshore project in the northern Kattegat--the straits...[more]
WNET: We want to ask you some questions about alternative energy. Gipe. Whoa. Stop right there. "Alternative energy?" Wind, solar, and biomass haven't been called "alternative energy" for three...[more]
Conclusive figures show that the sceptics who lobby against wind power simply have their facts wrong. . .
The following text accompanies the brief presentation by Paul Gipe at 2012 Husum WindEnergy exhibition and conference in Husum, Germany. [more]
Japanese mobile phone group and prime proponent of Feed-in Tariffs, Softbank, is planning to build wind farms with up to 1GW of capacity on Hokkaido island, as the company expands its investments in...
Report from thinktank IPPR says wind power is an efficient and reliable energy source, contrary to claims made against it. . .
Note that the article below is out of date. See the most current database for the number of fatal accidents in the wind industry. Below is a summary table from the spreadsheet. Note that there are...[more]
Presentation on the costs of offshore wind energy relative to that onshore at the WWEC 3-5 July 2012 in Bonn. . .
Presentation at the WWEC 3-5 July 2012 Bonn. . .
Summarizes the German Leitstudie (2011) that found 60 TWh of storage would be needed to meet Germany's 2050 renewable targets.
Denmark and Germany provide evidence of a different kind: despite the presence of 30,000 wind turbines in these two countries, adverse health effects are not a significant issue in either country. . .
John Jackson, a local cattle rancher, owns 480 acres in the area and has wind turbines on his property. He's seen the wind farm change over the years and is a fan of the new turbines. . . "I like...
Finally, decades after being abandoned on South Point of Hawaii's Big Island the 37 Mitsubishi turbines have been removed. Long a source of embarassment in the wind industry and a source for right...[more]
Yes, anti-wind hysteria has made me sick. I got queasy in my stomach when I think of the 150,000 wind turbines operating worldwide and still no epidemic of death and disease had yet broken out...[more]
says Paul Gipe an exclusive interview with Renewable Energy Magazine . . .
(Warning: Satire) Car Concerns Ontario (CCO) today called for a moratorium on sale of new cars, citing their danger to the health of citizens. . .
THERE is much stronger public support for wind farms than media coverage of the issue would suggest, because a ''vocal minority'' who oppose wind farms secure the majority of media and political...
A prominent anti-wind-power group is under fire amid accusations it broke election financing by running a negative advertising campaign against Liberal candidates last fall.
The study of Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) technology at Sandia National Laboratories started in the 1970’s and concluded in the 1990’s. Initial studies at SNL investigated numerous VAWT...
Because of the rapidly growing demand for windsmiths (wind energy technicians) in North America, several community colleges have begun offering associate degree programs. Several of these programs,...[more]
Windflow Technology Newsletter Nº 31, June 2011 Some people use capacity factor as the basis for comparing wind farms and turbines. Capacity factor is the average kilowatts produced over a period,...[more]
Long-time renewable energy advocate Paul Gipe was selected by the Canadian Wind Energy Association for its Individual Leadership Award at its 2009 conference in Toronto September 22. The Canadian...[more]
This article explores the threats that wind farms pose to birds and bats before briefly surveying the recent literature on avian mortality and summarizing some of the problems with it. . .
There are a several sources of information for landowners on the typical terms and conditions for leasing land for wind energy development. The newest is by the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association...[more]
I thought I'd comment on the technical feasibility of the plan, and the underlying economics of such an endeavour. . .
Portion of a presentation made January 10, 2008 to Al Gore's Solutions Summit To significantly address the United State's contribution to climate change and to prepare for the diminishing supply of...[more]
Cleveland's Great Lakes Science Center installed a 225 kW Vestas V27 wind turbine in 2006 on the city's harbor front between the Cleveland Brown's football stadium and the science museum. The V27 is...[more]
Various estimates of the running costs of large wind turbines. . .[more]
The following worksheets were developed for the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association and the Toronto Renewable Energy Cooperative in 2007 for the report Renewables without Limits: Moving Toward...[more]
Le Grand Livre de l'Éolien est le livre de référence pour tous les acteurs du secteur et pour tous ceux qui souhaitent y prendre part à l'avenir. Il donne au lecteur une vue exhaustive sur une des...[more]
For a review of Wind Energy Handbook by Tony Burton and for ordering information see Wind Energy Handbook. [more]
Generator Size and Swept Area Newcomers to wind energy and even some old-timers who should know better often equate the size of a wind turbine to it's generator rating. A Vestas V80 for example...[more]
The Resource Management Act, plans developed under it, and RMA processes are capable of facilitating wind energy development and of dealing with the range of effects associated with a wind farm....
A much anticipated update on wind turbines and birds in California's Altamont Pass concludes that the problem is more severe than once believed. The report by biologists Carl Thelander and Sean...[more]
An edited version of this article appeared in the Summer 2003 (Vol. 16, No. 3) edition of WindStats. With 270 people--including New Zealand's minister for energy-- attending the dedication of...[more]
A description of the Profitability Index Method of setting feed-in tariff rates for wind energy. . .
Today Paul Gipe submitted his candidates biography to the American Wind Energy Association for re-election to AWEA's board of directors. In his biography Gipe calls for a dramatic change in AWEA's...[more]
The publisher of Windpower Monthly and WindStats Newsletter, Forlaget Vistoft, has published 1997 Glossary of Wind Energy Terms. The 100 page paperback by Paul Gipe and Bill Canter is the most...[more]
With the completion of this wind plant, events have come full circle. The flow of visitors seeking information about wind energy has reversed. The intellectual, technical, and may I say "moral"...[more]
Kenetech Windpower (U.S. Windpower), one of the world's largest wind companies, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 1996. Below is a list of references to U.S. Windpower (Kenetech Windpower) in...[more]
These comments were posted to awea-windnet and subsequently noise from the AWT 26 was abated. Eventually the turbines were removed when the manufacturer ceased operation. The installation of a...[more]
The book, Land of the Living, is based on Borish's study of the Danish folkehøjskol system in the early 1980s. His book is an articulate examination of Danish culture. His theme is that Denmark could...[more]
Comments by the American Wind Energy Association on Repowering California's Wind Industry for the California Energy Commission's 1994 Biennial Report[more]
Off-the-shelf parts and simple assembly produce 250 kW at low cost.
