CleanTechnica

Mass Megawatts Wind Power, Inc., is testing new wind turbine equipment that could help boost the efficiency of the company’s Multi-Axis Turbosystem wind power generators.  The tests are under way at a wind power installation in Hunter, New York.

If successful, the technology could start appearing soon at ski resorts in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.  Last spring the principal owner of one major ski facility in the region, Camelback Mountain Resort, took an equity position in a licensed manufacturer of the Multi-Axis Turbosystem.  It appears to be a first step toward introducing sustainable wind power to ski resorts on an industry-wide scale.

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The London Array, the world’s largest wind farm now being installed in the Thames Estuary, is taking another major step closer to completion.  The project has just signed a 100 million euro contract with global cable leader Nexans to supply the high voltage undersea power cables that will transmit power from the array to the U.K. grid.

Once online, the London Array will house up to 341 turbines and generate up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity.  That is enough wind power to supply 750,00 homes or about a quarter of Greater London, adding a big chunk of sustainable energy to the U.K. government’s current goal of achieving 15.4% renewable energy by 2015.

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A new comprehensive study — The Impact of Wind Power Projects on Residential Property Values in the United States: A Multi-Site Hedonic Analysis — conclusively shows that property values are not harmed by wind turbines and wind power facilities.

The study, conducted by Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory shows that neither views of wind facilities nor proximity to wind facilities have any significant effect on property values.

The study examined “7,500 sales of single-family homes situated within 10 miles of 24 existing wind facilities in nine different U.S. states.”
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Utilities got a boost last year, when the new investment tax credits from the federal government were extended to allow public utilities to qualify for the full credit, to help utilities invest in renewable power. Since utilities must get more renewable power onto the grid (in all of the states with Renewable Portfolio Standards), extending the ITC to them, too, is the right means to help them do just that.

PG&E in California has to get 20% of its renewable power on grid by 2010 to meet the California RPS, and has just announced that it has contracted with Iberdrola Renewables, Inc., the U.S. arm of the world’s largest provider of wind power, to purchase and operate a major wind generating plant, to send clean electrons from Kern County’s Tehachapi region to Northern California PG&E customers.
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In one of the renewable energy sector’s largest IPO’s ever, China’s Longyuan Power Group Corp, Asia’s largest wind power generator is raising money in a share offering this month that is expected to raise $2.2 billion,  with trading scheduled to begin on Dec. 10.

Who’s buying? Billionaire Wilbur L. Ross for one; is getting $100 million in shares for W.L. Ross & Co. This $2.2 billion Chinese wind power IPO may be the beginning of regular investment activity in renewable energy, regardless of climate considerations.
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A new initiative by New York City, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACENY) is making it possible for residents of New York to buy Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) through three easy steps on a simple, new website. The website is called Green Power NYC.

The program is starting off fairly limited, but is clearly helpful to consumers and the environment and is looking to grow.
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A wind turbine efficiency breakthrough by Dr Markus Mueller and Dr Alasdair McDonald of the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Energy Systems has the potential to revolutionize the wind energy industry by making large turbines more failure-proof by cutting their weight in half.

It is expensive and hazardous sending workers out to off-shore wind farms for repairs when there is a mechanical failure. By reducing the weight, the researchers reduce mechanical failures, caused by the sheer stresses in these very large turbines.
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New research by leading alternative energy research firm New Energy Finance finds that solar power will cost less by about 50% at the end of 2009 compared to the end of 2008.

The costs are pre-subsidy, so they could be much lower if you take better government subsidies into account.

But it isn’t only solar that’s down in cost. It’s other renewable energy sources, too.
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In its largest single award ever; Clemson University has received a $45 million grant from the Department of Energy (and an additional $53 million in matching funds) to construct and operate a large-scale facility that will test wind energy drive train components at the research campus. This places one of the most important sites for US wind energy research and development in South Carolina.

The funds will develop a high-tech facility at the campus to test the next generation of wind turbines in the US. Now that state-of-the-art turbine sizes have increased with each new turbine, existing drive train testing facilities have become obsolete.

The five-year DOE grant will pay to help develop large-scale turbines that don’t yet exist in the United States, according to Clemson officials. The facility will be able to test advanced drive train systems for wind turbines in the 5 to 15 MW range.
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Pacific Gas & Electricity has won one of the Obama Administration’s 16 advanced grid awards totaling $620 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds, aimed at making more renewable energy available to the grid. PG&E’s $25 million award will fund initial work to see if California can store its excess night time wind – in air.

The utility planned (previous story) to build 300 MW of compressed-air energy storage that will enable Californians to get more clean power out of the wind energy that is currently on their grid, but goes to waste in the wee hours while they sleep. To make that change happen, night wind storage is key.

PG&E’s Jonathan Marshall told me “There have been times that wind turbines at Tehachapi have actually had to be turned off at night, because power going into the grid causes damage if it’s not used.”

If the tests of this technology pan out, then air in porous rock in Kern County will be able to store and release 300 megawatts of wind every night that would otherwise go to waste, for a total cost of $365 million.
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