Wind power industry seeks stable policy, better forecasting
Wind power industry seeks stable policy, better forecasting
India Gazette
Tuesday 25th November, 2008
(IANS)
‘China has overtaken India to the fourth position in the world in terms of installed wind power capacity. There is a negative growth in wind energy projects this fiscal as compared to fiscal 2006-07,’ said D.V. Giri, chairman of industry lobby, the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association (IWTMA).
Addressing Wind India 2008, a conference-cum-exhibition on wind power organised by World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE) here Tuesday, he said the wind power capacity addition will be around 1,545 MW in India this fiscal.
‘Repowering or installing high-powered wind turbines in the place of old, lower capacity machines, intercropping of small wind mills amongst bigger machines, development of offshore wind farms and development of hybrid turbines are some of the important needs of the industry.’
According to Andrew Garrad, CEO of the UK-based Garrad Hassan and Partners, India needs better wind forecasting techniques so that predictability of the wind power generation is better.
‘Short term – hourly and daily basis – forecasting is important for the success of this sector.’
Proper estimates of wind potential and speed will enable investors in choosing appropriate turbine size so as to get optimum return on investment.
‘Hybrids and better wind power forecasting would address the one major complaint about wind power, that is intermittent power,’ said Chintan Shah, vice-president of Suzlon Energy Ltd.
With 18 more wind turbine manufacturers to start rolling out their turbines in India over the next one and half years, G.M.Pillai, director general of WISE, said, ‘By 2010 the total wind turbine production capacity in India will be 10,000MW. We have to look for overseas markets for the turbines.’
Add comment November 27, 2008
Giant Wind Turbines
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Giant Wind Turbines
Floating wind farms placed far offshore could lead to affordable electricity — without cluttering the view.By Kevin Bullis
Huge turbines mounted on floating platforms could make wind power competitive with fossil-fuel-generated electricity. These advanced wind turbines, which are in development, could be situated far from the shore, too, avoiding battles with onshore residents who object to the presence of large wind farms.
GE has announced a $27 million partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop 5-7 megawatt turbines by 2009, each of which could power well over 1,000 homes. Supplanting the company’s current 3.6 megawatt turbines, these giant energy factories should make wind power more economical, since the major cost of building and installing offshore wind farms does not depend primarily on a turbine’s size, but on the number of them that need to be erected. By 2015, GE could have even bigger, 10-megawatt turbines, according to Jim Lyons, leader of advanced technology for GE’s wind energy business.
[For images and illustrations of wind turbines, click here.]
Making the turbines larger, however, comes with technical challenges. The new turbines will be mounted to towers rising 90 to 95 meters and will have rotors measuring 140 meters in diameter. Imagine a structure larger than a football field rotating at a leisurely ten to twelve revolutions per minute. To decrease the weight of the massive rotor blades and tower, GE plans to use composite fibers, as well as alternatives to the weighty gearboxes now used to transfer energy from the rotor to the electrical generator.
The new turbines will also need to be more reliable than their onshore counterparts, because maintenance will be far more difficult and expensive. GE is developing new ways to deal with the extreme battering the turbines will receive from the wind.
Today’s turbines compensate for changes in wind speed by actively turning their blades to catch less wind. The new turbines will adapt to gusts by using sensor-based technology that will quickly angle the blades out of the wind to reduce the wear and tear on the turbine. These sensors could include basic accelerometers, embedded fiber-optic sensors that detect shape changes in the blades in response to gusts, and forward-looking, laser-based “radar” that allows the turbine to anticipate wind-speed changes.
None of these technological advances will make a difference, however, if erecting monstrous turbines is blocked by shoreline residents who see them as visual pollution. A potential solution is floating platforms that allow the turbines to be located farther out in the sea — and out of sight. Current projects locate wind turbines in waters less than 20 meters deep. Going farther out on the continental shelf, which extends several hundred kilometers from the U.S. East Coast, would mean locating them at depths up to 50 meters, which is probably too deep to build towers or trusses that support turbines standing on the sea floor, at least at an affordable cost.
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Add comment November 15, 2008
Wind Power Greed?
<a href=”http://www.ecofriendlymag.com/7/wind-power-greed-ny/”>Wind Power Greed NY | Eco Friendly Mag</a><p>Wind Power Greed NY by Timlynn Babitsky Suspicious shenanigans by wind developers in upstate New York has prompted the State’s Attorney General to develop a.</p>
Add comment November 14, 2008
<a href=”http://www.greenenergyforearth.com/2008/11/12/schott-solar-merck-to-participate-in-organic-photovoltaics-cluster-of-excellence/”>SCHOTT Solar & Merck to Participate in Organic Photovoltaics …</a><p>This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under GOVERNMENT, SOLAR POWER. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own …</p>
Add comment November 14, 2008
First U.S. Town Powered Completely by Wind
By Wind By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer posted: 15 July 2008 01:09 pm ET
Rock Port, Mo., has an unusual crop: wind turbines.
The four turbines that supply electricity to the small town of 1,300 residents make it the first community in the United States to operate solely on wind power.
“That’s something to be very proud of, especially in a rural area like this — that we’re doing our part for the environment,” said Jim Crawford, a natural resource engineer at the University of Missouri Extension in Columbia.
A map published by the U.S. Department of Energy indicates that northwest Missouri has the state’s highest concentrations of wind resources and contains a number of locations that are potentially suitable for utility-scale wind development. The four turbines that power Rock Port are part of a larger set of 75 turbines across three counties that are used to harvest the power of wind.
“We’re farming the wind, which is something that we have up here,” Crawford said. “The payback on a per-acre basis is generally quite good when compared to a lot of other crops, and it’s as simple as getting a cup of coffee and watching the blades spin.”
And the turbines have another benefit besides produces clean energy: MU Extension specialists said that the Missouri wind farms will bring in more than $1.1 million annually in county real estate taxes, to be paid by Wind Capital Group, a wind energy developer based in St. Louis.
“This is a unique situation because in rural areas it is quite uncommon to have this increase in taxation revenues,” said Jerry Baker, and MU Extension community development specialist.
Landowners can also benefit by leasing part of their property for wind turbines.
The turbines will also provide savings to rural electric companies and will provide electric service for at least 20 years, the anticipated lifetime of the turbines.
“Anybody who is currently using Rock Port utilities can expect no increase in rates for the next 15 to 20 years,” Crawford said.
Baker added that the turbines could also attract tourists to the area.
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