In Palo Alto, CA, a medical foundation is putting their power where the need is. They are putting up a wind turbine from a new start-up company, and it will be installed at the foundation itself, which means it could…
Category: Wind Power
A Wind Power White Paper
At the University of Massachusetts Amherst Campus, wind power research has been going on for a long time, on campus, and with a test project on a nearby mountain top. In 2002, members of the Renewable Energy Research Lab and…
Wind Turbine Quiet
In order to get the opposition position out here quickly, today I’m offering a video, again from UK, in which footage is taken of an older generation wind turbine that generates no apparent noise. You’ll hear the narrator talking, you’ll…
More Wind Controversy
Sorry, but this issue does keep coming up. The problems that accompany industrial wind farm installations won’t go away quietly, and more areas are regretting ever letting big wind into their midst. The problems aren’t trivial. They range from a…
The Vertical Wind Turbine
A couple of days ago I had a post about large vs small wind turbine research. Today I have a video of one of the more well-engineered smaller-scale designs, the Helix Wind Turbine. As you can see the blades are…
Smart Wind Turbines
Going along with yesterday’s post where I talked about XCel Energy’s unique turbine control design and how it’s being used with large battery systems, today’s Wall Street Journal has an article that ties in one more company, GridPoint, Inc., who…
Better Batteries Bring Bigger Benefits
The photo at left is of a 1-Megawatt sodium-sulfur battery system which can power 500 homes for 7 hours. It’s part of a 11.5-Megawatt wind farm in Luverne, Minnesota. The company, MinWind Energy, is owned by 360 local investors from…
Another Mass. Wind Power Project
Kudos to another town in Massachusetts. Fred Hanson in the Patriot Ledger tells how the Milton, MA select board has received a recommendation from the town’s wind energy committee, detailing the potential use of the town’s former landfill. This makes…
Predicting the Future Of Wind Power – 10 Seconds at a Time
The bulk of discussion of wind turbines centers on blade design, turbine efficiency, and above all, siting constraints. Engineering that reduces objectionable low-frequency wind noise is making great strides, notably the Skystream and Swift designs, offer great incentive for community-…
Locally Generated Wind And Solar Power
In the past, I’ve been bothered by plans being developed in shoreline communities, particularly here in Massachusetts, for wind systems in the Berkshires 100 miles inland. It has seemed odd that these towns wouldn’t want to generate wind-based power nearer…