“Developing America’s vast renewable energy resources is an important part of the Energy Department’s all-of-the-above strategy to pave the way to a cleaner and more diverse domestic energy portfolio,” said Jose Zayas, director of the Energy Department’s Wind and Water Power Technologies Office. “The Castine offshore wind project represents a critical investment to ensure America leads in this fast-growing global industry, helping to bring tremendous untapped energy resources to market and create new jobs across the country.”

With such enormous untapped wind resources offered through offshore wind production the potential power that may be harnessed will quadruple. To best maximise that potential the offshore rigs will be located in deeper waters and this means the more conventional turbine technology will not be practical for use. This is where the floating platform turbine technology becomes very important.

Prototype Goals

This particular prototype is the result of the work done by the University of Maine and its project partners and deployed a 65-foot-tall VoturnUS prototype turbine. The size of the turbine is 1:8 scale to the size of a commercial installation. While it is its present operation it will be used to gather data to help improve the design of future floating turbines. The aim is to address technical problems that may be faced as well as reducing costs of future installations.

The goal of the program is to reduce the cost of offshore wind to 10 cents / kWh by 2020. This will enable the electricity production to compete with other types of electricity generation without subsidies.

The DeepCwind Consortium

The large scale research and development program that has brought the project to this point has been performed under the name DeepCwind Consortium Research Program. It is a public-private partnership that has been funded by the Department of Energy, The National Science Foundation – Partnerships for Innovation, the Maine Technology Institute, the State of Maine as well as 30 industrial partners.

The aim of the DeepCwind Consortium is to establish Maine as the leader in deepwater offshore wind technology. The various partners offer expertise in areas such as wind project siting, environmental analysis, environmental law, composite materials which are necessary to combat corrosion, energy investment.

Offshore Advantages Over Onshore Wind

According to Habib J. Dagher, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Maine the big advantage with offshore wind power over the onshore creation is that the majority of onshore wind energy production occurs overnight when it is least valuable to power utilities. An offshore wind turbine will generate the majority of its power in the afternoon when strong onshore breezes form. These breezes are far more predictable too because the land heats up more than the sea which is how the breezes are formed.

Further Reading

Follow the links provided below to find out more about the Castine Project and the DeepCwind Consortium.

University of Maine – one of the joint venture partners
DeepCwind Consortium – the name of the collaboration
Department of Energy – funding provider
National Science Foundation – read about the Partnerships for Innovation incentive
Maine Technology Institute – another DeepCwind partner

A new $710 million (£465m) wood fuelled biomass power plant has been approved by the Scottish government to be sited at the port of Grangemouth on the River Forth. The plant will responsibly source the fuel according to the Energy Minister Fergus Ewing. This means the wood will be supplied from environmentally certified sources and not through deforestation.

The power plant will be capable of producing a maximum capacity of 120 MW of electricity and this will be enough to supply power to 130,000 homes. The expected completion date of the construction of the power plant is 2017 and is seen as a benefit to the community for the jobs that will be created, 500 construction jobs and then 50 permanent jobs when the plant comes online.

As well as producing power it will also be capable of producing a maximum of 200 MW of heat. The project is part of reaching Scotland’s target of supplying all of the country’s electricity from clean sources by 2020.

The project is one of four biomass developments that are being undertaken by a joint venture between Forth Ports and SSE PLC. The joint venture is known by the name Forth Energy.

There have been objections by environmentalists over the prospect of the plant being built with the main grounds being the effects of large-scale biomass generators on shrinking global biodiversity, international deforestation, air pollution, human rights and other concerns. The underlying concern comes from the fact that the green groups do not believe that large scale biomass power plants that are reliant on imported wood chips will produce the required carbon savings.

The Energy Minister had this to say about the decision, “In consenting [to] this application I have put in place a series of conditions to protect local residents from inconvenience, safeguard the appearance of the area, and protect the environment and air quality. The conditions to the consent also ensure that the fuel used in the biomass is from sustainable and responsible sources.”

Further Reading

Follow the links provided below to find out more about the Grangemouth Biomass Power Plant project.

Forth Ports – one of the joint venture partners
SSE PLC – the other joint venture partner
Biomass – read more about biomass on our page dedicated to the form of renewable energy development

The facility will also be equipped with an integral thermal energy storage system and will consist of sun-tracking heliostats that will direct the sunlight onto a central receiver. The receiver will hold liquid salt which will circulate as a means of collecting the energy. The storage process takes place when the molten salt is then routed to an insulated storage tank where minimal energy loss takes place.

Benefits of the Quartzsite Solar Power Project

According to Quartzsite there are three key benefits met by the facility:

• It will help meet the need for clean, renewable energy sources.
• It will incorporate energy storage to enable the facility to meet peak electricity demands and provide operational stability.
• It will boost the local economy thanks to the creation of 450 construction jobs and then up to 50 permanent jobs. It will also generate significant tax revenues that will be retained by the local region.

On the point of the economic impact the project will have on the area, it is expected to create local economic stimulus in the form of $15.7 million in sales tax during the construction period, with construction spending injecting another $46.3 million into the local and regional economy.

More Approvals Required

Although this latest approval by the DOI is a positive step towards the proposed project becoming a reality there are further steps still to be taken.

Accorder to SolarReserve’s director of development Andrew Wang, the project will come online in late 2015 at the earliest, even if the purchase agreements were secured tomorrow.

According to the Bureau of Land Management estimates can power over 300,000 homes. The site is perfect because of the flatness of the terrain as well as the amount of sunlight that it routinely gets. It is also close to existing power transmission lines.

There are a couple of factors about the siting of the project that has ensured the agreement from environmental advocates. The project will be put on land that is old agricultural and previously developed. Also the process of cooling the solar panels will involve “dry cooling” rather than “wet cooling”. This is seen to be a positive due to the scarcity of water in Arizona.

Further Reading

Follow the links provided below to find out more about the Quartzsite Solar Energy Project

Quartzsite Solar – The official website of the project
SolarReserve – Developer of the Quartzsite Solar Project
BLM – Bureau of Land Management
DOI Announcement – The press release in which the Quartzsite project is mentioned

The original planed size of the wind farm was going to be 200 MW but with significant opposition from various parties, most notably the proponents of the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, which lies two miles to the east of the wind center, the size was downgraded.

Of the total capacity of electricity that is produced by the wind farm, 27.6MW has been purchased by a Power Purchase Agreement by Alliant Energy with more purchased by Madison Gas & Electric.

When the wind project was originally proposed in 2004 the application was initially approved by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC). This approval was for the larger sized project but the public opposition saw the decision appealed based on the environmental impact. A second problem related to the Federal Aviation Administration and a moratorium put on large wind farms while as study was conducted on the impacts on military radar systems also held up the start of construction of the site.

It wasn’t until 2007 that the decision by the PSC was affirmed and construction commenced. The wind farm began producing electricity in mid-2008.

There has been an outstanding paper written titled Wind Energy – Visual Impacts and Public Perceptions that is posted on the Macalester College website that is well worth a read. The article examines the timeline along which the Forward Wind Energy Center was created. It analyses the opposition that was put in place during the application and certification process as well as the support that the project won.

The state of Wisconsin has one of the best profiles for the production of utility-scale wind power and there are a number of large facilities already commissioned. The state is already home to over 600MW of wind power generated electricity with further plans continually being explored.

Find out more about wind power and the benefits it brings to the wider community on our Wind Power page.

There are a number of commercial wind developers collecting wind data in Arkansas for potential wind-farm projects. Two of these companies include TradeWind Energy in Benton County and Invenergy LLC in Washington County. A projection has been made by the US Department of Energy that there could be as much as 1,000MW of installed wind capacity in Arkansas by 2030.

Although wind power may not yet be generated within the state lines of Arkansas at this point, that doesn’t mean that electricity sourced from the wind isn’t used. In April 2012, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation (AECC) announced a long-term purchase power agreement for 51 megawatts of wind energy from the Flat Ridge 2 South Wind Farm in Kansas.

Arkansas is making its contribution to the wind industry with major companies such as LM Wind Power, the world’s leading supplier of rotor blades for wind turbines, based in the state. The German wind turbine components manufacturer Nordex  located its North American headquarters in Little Rock in 2008.

Plans were in place by TradeWind Energy to construct the Honey Creek Wind Farm on a location that would straddle the Oklahoma and Arkansas border. The Arkansas section of the wind farm was to be located in Benton County.

According to the 50-meter wind map that has been produced by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (Energy Department’s) Wind Program and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the wind resources that are produced in the state of Arkansas is suitable for community scale production. Exposed ridges and high terrain provides the best opportunity for any type of wind development, mainly in the western part of the state. The map has been displayed to the right (click to enlarge).

The Ouachita Mountains provide the best opportunity for wind resources to be utilized around the Mena area as well as and the Boston Mountains of northwestern Arkansas.

As far as wind power generation goes, there is more contribution to the creation of wind generated electricity than the mere existence of wind farms. Arkansas is still pulling its weight in the wind industry thanks to the strong components manufacturing industry that has been established.

Construction is expected to begin towards the end of 2014 with the project producing power by 2019. At this stage it has not been announced what the capacity of the wind project will be but with the project boasting 1,000 wind turbines it is expected that it will produce somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 megawatts.

The estimated cost of the project will be between $4 billion and $6 billion. The turbines will be placed on both private land and federal land on virtually an even 50-50 split.

The project will be located near Rawlins in Carbon County and the developer in Power Co. of Wyoming. With all of the necessary federal permits taken care of and

the project passing before the Industrial Siting Council the project must now go through the process of analysing each individual site where each turbine will be located.

Each turbine must be individually approved by the federal Bureau of Land Management, whose record of decision in favor of the project is basically an approval of an overall plan, not specific details.

“What we’re doing now is developing building plans for each turbine — or house,” Miller, the company’s vice president of land and environmental affairs, said in April. “They will be submitted to the BLM and county for approval and final review.”

The Project Is Already Five Years Old

The planning process for the project began in 2008 with a conceptual plan being developed for the 1,000 wind turbines of the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre project. At that time application for the first of the government permits was made. The planning process which involves mapping out the components of the wind farm lasted for 4 years, finishing in late 2012.

The next phase of the project involved the work of scientists hired by the Power Co. of Wyoming to study the site to ensure the construction of a wind farm would not cause any cultural or environmental problems. A team of engineers must then determine whether road access and drainage issues have been properly addressed. The effects on animal and vegetable habitat also had to be studied.

The results of all of the studies and analysis must be documented and lodged with the BLM for final approval.

With the expected commissioning date taking place in 2019 it is expected that the planning and development process of this project will have spanned 11 years.

Over 1,00 Jobs Will Be Created

The project is expected to generate 300-400 construction jobs during the first 2 years of construction. That number will increase to over 1,200 job in subsequent years as the wind turbines are installed. When the project becomes fully operational it will create around 114 jobs on an ongoing basis. This will make the project one of Carbon County’s largest employers. The tax revenue that will be generated by the project will run into the hundreds of millions.

This wind project will join two other large wind farms that are supplying wind generated electricity to the state of Wyoming in the form of the Dunlap Wind Farm and the Simpson Ridge Wind Farm.

To read more about the project the Final EIS is available on the BLM website at http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/info/NEPA/documents/rfo/Chokecherry.html

The table displayed below lists the wind power projects that are developments that are either already in commissioned status and are operating, are currently being constructed or have been planned. All efforts are being made to keep the page updated with the latest developments and new information as it becomes available.

Where possible links have been provided for each project to provide further information, simply click on the project name you are interested in.

As can be seen by the table above there is now just over 50MW of electricity produced in the state of Alaska and a good proportion of it was only added in 2012.

At the start of 2011 the Small Wind Working Group was launched in Alaska which is a working focus group for small wind issues dealing with wind turbines less than 50 kilowatts. The group deals with overcoming hurdles to small wind development in the state as well as permitting requirements and possible effects from severe weather.

The construction and installation of 34 wind turbines in the Beebe Community Wind Farm was completed in December 2012 to provide 81MW of electricity. This wind farm is located in Emerson, North Star and Hamilton townships and is referred to as phase 1A. A second phase (referred to as phase 1B) will add a further 18 more turbines to bring the capacity up to 125MW.

There is also a planned phase 2 to the project that will see an additional 50 more turbines added to the Lafayette Township and this will create an additional 120MW of electricity. Beebe wind has 35,000 acres under contract.

The final aim is to commission a wind farm that has an operating capacity of 300MW and the entire project will be furnished by Nordex wind turbines. The turbines are the Nordex N117-2.4 MW turbines and they have been specifically designed for low wind sites. The N117 has the longest rotor blade in its category and this gives it an average 15% yield increase over the previous similar turbines.

The Beebe Community Wind Farm has been developed while taking a community-based approach to all aspects of its design and management. The economic benefit has been spread among local land owners using leasing arrangements that benefit all landowners and tax revenue from the project will benefit the entire community.

The project has interconnection positions on a 345 kV line, and has been granted its Special Use Permit from the county. A 20-year power purchase agreement has been reached between Exelon and Consumers Energy.

With the completion of phase 1A in 2012 the second phase (1B) has been slated for completion in 2013 and the final phase is expected to be completed in 2014.

The Beebe Community wind farm is the second wind farm to be located in Gratiot County joining the 212.8MW Gratiot County Wind Farm which was completed in June 2012. The Gratiot County Wind Farm is located on approximately 30,000 acres of private land near the town of Breckenridge in the townships of Wheeler, Bethany, Emerson, and Lafayette.

For a complete list of the wind farms that are either completed, under construction or planned for the state of Michigan you can visit the Wind Power In Michigan page.

There are two different groups of wind turbines: horizontal axis turbines and vertical axis turbines. The horizontal axis wind turbines are the type that we are most used to seeing in commercial scale wind farms, they are the turbines that look like windmills. Vertical axis wind turbines are more reminiscent of an egg beater and for the most part operate at a lower capacity.

There are many wind turbine manufacturers supplying geared system turbines to the wind industry including Gamesa, Clipper, GE and Vestas. Some manufacturers also provide direct drive systems such as Enercon, M-Torres and Northern Power Systems.

As well as the materials need to construct the rotor blades of the turbines there are turbine towers, footings, foundations and small parts required for every single installation. Each turbine consists of more than 8,000 components. Rather than examine every small piece we are going to take a look at the major components of a wind turbine.

Displayed below is an illustration of the major components of a standard wind turbine. To get a better look you can click the image for a larger view.

Source: NREL

Rotor

When looking at a utility-scale wind turbine the rotor consists of three turbine blades, a hub and a spinner. The blades are constructed to a variety of lengths and will be used on a particular wind turbine depending on the prevailing wind conditions for the area. They are made from high-tech materials such as carbon fiber and fibreglass and have high strength-to-weight ratios. The shape of the blades are molded into airfoils to generate lift and this causes the rotor to turn.

The hub section of the rotor is a heavier component and is usually made of ductile cast iron. The hub must be rigid but capable of absorbing a lot of vibration. Around the hub is usually a covering known as a nose cone. This nose cone is also made of lighter materials and is used for two purposes, the first is to protect the hub and the second is for the aesthetic value it gives the turbine.

Nacelle

The nacelle is the outer body of the turbine that contains and protects the majority of the small components of the turbine. The nacelle is connected to the rotor and is made of a material such as fibreglass to ensure protection from the elements. It is attached to the main frame of the turbine and surrounds the working parts that make up the turbine engine.

Drive Train

When the turbine blades catch the wind they begin to turn the rotor and this drives the large shaft that turns the gears in the gearbox. The large shaft and gearbox work together with a generator to generate electricity and this sequence of components are known as the drive train.

Yaw

One of the features that is necessary for all efficient wind turbines is the yaw drive which is required to keep the rotor facing properly into the wind. The yaw drive is essentially an electric or hydraulic motor and it is mounted on the nacelle where it drives a pinion mounted on a vertical shaft. Another job performed by the yaw drive is to apply a brake when it is necessary to stop a turbine from turning.

Control System

During the regular operation of a wind farm it is necessary to be able to control the operation of the turbines. This control is performed by an automated system of sensors that is able to track the speed and direction of the wind as well as the power generation that is being carried out. The blade’s pitch angle, vibration levels and lubrication factors are also measured to determine what changes need to be made to increase the turbine’s efficiency. This system also protects the turbines against dangerous operating conditions and makes changes accordingly.

Tower

All land-based wind turbines are connected to the ground by towers. These towers provide a stable base to hold the turbine properly in place and also increases the height of the turbine blades to take full advantage of the wind. It is most common for a turbine tower to measure around 80-100 meters tall.

Base

The entire wind turbine sits atop a solid base to keep it stable and solid. The base is made from poured concrete and reinforced by steel bars. There are commonly two ways in which the base is created. It is either a flat disk that sits around 40 feet in diameter and is around 3 feet thick or it is smaller and deeper at around 15 feet in diameter but 16 feet deep. There are obviously many other way in which the base of a wind turbine may be constructed. This is particularly true of off-shore wind projects where the base has to be a far more carefully thought out design.

There is one other category of wind power generation that is in the early developmental stages that use types of wind turbines and that is the high altitude wind power sector. Although the end result is the creation of wind energy the components of these devices will differ either slightly or drastically from the wind turbines that have been described on this page.

The latest news story surrounds Google’s acquisition of Makani Wind Power, the high altitude wind technology manufacturer. Makani has developed the Airborne Wind Turbine (AWT) which is a high altitude wind power-generating device that looks like a wing and has multiple turbines attached to it.

These AWTs are essentially unmanned ultralight planes that are tethered to a tall base where they will float like a kite at heights between 250 and 600 metres. At this height the wind is stronger and more consistent compared to the usual wind turbine height.

Infant Industry

The whole high altitude wind energy sector is still very much on the speculative side of the wind power production industry. There are a number of innovations that have been created and are largely still unproven. Although many of the new high altitude wind devices may generate electricity, the question remains whether the devices are going to be commercially viable in their construction and ongoing maintenance.

Those who support the concept of high altitude wind power argue that the cost of producing this form of energy could eventually become easier and cheaper to deploy. The towers that are required for the traditional wind turbines will no longer be necessary and the technology that goes into ensuring the turbines are facing into the prevailing winds will also be removed.

Reasons Why High-Altitude Wind Power Generation Is Sought

• Construction requires far less material
• Devices are smaller and lighter with less impact on the environment
• Wind speeds are higher and more consistent the further up into the atmosphere you go.
• There are fewer environment issues to deal with as you move higher into the sky.
• The NIMBY protests reduce greatly because the wind generation source will be out of sight and out of mind.
• The potential available space is almost unlimited.

Reasons Why High Altitude Wind Power Generation Is A Long Way Off

• The logistics of safely suspending turbines in the air are enormous and costly.
• Bringing any high altitude wind project to scale is going to be difficult considering today’s technology.
• The cost of maintenance would be prohibitive.
• The cost of hooking the generated power into an electricity system is high.
• Possible aviation hazard

Listed below are 7 high altitude wind power devices that have been developed and are currently being tested or are still in the early planning stages.

Makani Wind Power Airborne Wind Turbine

Makani Wind Power appears to be one of the closest companies to bringing the concept to a point where it might be deployed. The technology that is used to generate power involves a carbon fiber wing measuring almost 100 feet across that carries wind turbines. One of these wings would have the capacity to generate 600kW of power. The energy that is generated from the device could be transferred to the electrical grid through the tether line that holds the AWT in place. This tether might be attached to a ground-based substation or buoys out at sea.

In 2010 Makani was awarded a grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for the Department of Energy (ARPA-E) as a response to a call for proposals for what were known as “disruptive technologies”. Current testing has reached the stage where a model that is 30 feet in length is being trialed and is capable of generating 30kW of power.

The image to the right depicts the AWT on the runway before a test flight. The image is one of a number that were taken during testing and comes courtesy of Discover Magazine.

The AWT works under a similar principle as a wind turbine. Air moves across the turbine blades causes them to rotate which drives a generator for the production of electricity. The difference is the turbines are sent far higher than any tower-based turbine can reach with the flying height expected to be between 250 and 600 metres.

The goal of the company is to produce utility scale wind power using these AWTs in offshore wind farms.

Ampyx Power – PowerPlane

The PowerPlane system developed by the Netherlands based company Ampyx Power converts wind power to electricity through the pulling action of an unmanned glider on the tether that has it anchored to the ground. The glider operates at a height of 300-600 meters and performs cross-wind patterns. The generation of electricity is at its maximum when the tether is fully extracted.

The problem of low wind or extreme weather conditions is handled by programming fully automated launch and landing processes into the system.

It is expected that the first commercial version of the PowerPlane will have a wingspan of around 16.5 meters and has the potential to produce as much electricity as an 850kW, 50-meter rotor diameter conventional wind turbine.

This concept will weigh significantly less than a traditional wind turbine, weighing only 120kg for the plane and 400kg for the tether.

Altaeros Energies Airborne Wind Turbines

Altaeros Energies is a wind company that was formed out of MIT and it is responsible for the design and development of the Altaeros Airborne Wind Turbine (AWT). The AWT is a helium-filled shell that supports a lightweight turbine which can be lifted up to 1,000 feet into the air. The lifting technology is adapted from aerostats: tethered blimps that have been used for decades to reliably lift telecom and surveillance equipment into the air for months at a time.

In 2012 the company completed testing of a 35 foot prototype version of its AWT at the Loring Commerce Center in Limestone, Maine. In this particlar test the device ascended to 350 feet where it produced (an unspecified amount of) electricity before descending again and landed in an automated cycle.

The Altaeros AWT prototype is fitted with a Southwest Skystream turbine which is surrounded by a fabric superstructure.

It is expected that this AWT will be able to be quickly and easily transported to its location on a docking trailer and that installation time would be performed in a matter of days rather than weeks.

In 2012 Altaeros Energies were the recipients of a Department of Agriculture Small Business Grant to develop its technologies up until 2014. The key research objective of this project is to develop and test a fully-functional AWT prototype that demonstrates its potential for commercial deployment.

Magenn Air Rotor System

The Magenn Air Rotor System (or M.A.R.S) is a floating wind turbine that uses a horizontal-axis turbine to produce electricity. The MARS device is kept airborne through the use of helium and with the help of a tether, is able to be raised or lowered to preferred heights as it captures the most ideal winds. The tether is also the means by which the electricity is transferred back down to the ground.

The rotation capabilities of the device creates the “Magus Effect” which is an aerodynamic phenomenon provides additional lift, keeps the MARS device
stabilized, positions MARS within a very controlled and restricted location. This effect also means that the MARS device will remain at maximum altitude rather than being allowed to drift downwind on its tether.

A more detailed explanation of the MARS Wind Power Anywhere™ solution along with many images and diagrams can be found by visiting the Nampet website.

KitePower LadderMill

The LadderMill Kite is an interesting departure from the other types of high altitude wind energy ideas in that it uses technology based around inflatable membrane wings with the energy produced through mechanical reel-out power. The infaltable membrane wing is connected to the ground by a traction tether and the power is produced by the reel-in, reel-out pumping action of the tether as the device is moved by the wind.

During reel-out the kite moves in a figure-eight pattern at high speed. The movement creates a high-traction force and this is converted to electricity by a drum and connected generator. At this point the kite is capable of producing 20kW.

When the kite reaches the end of its tether  the kite is depowered and it rotates and aligns with the wind. The drum/generator acts as a winch and the kite is then pulled back into its starting position for the cycle to start over again. The reel-in process only uses a fraction of the produced energy that was generated during the reel-out process.

Testing and improvement have been in constant process since 2010 with more than 160 completed pumping cycles. Prototype models have been tested using versions with kites of 14, 25 and 50 m2 surface areas.

More information about the technology, research and testing progress made on an ongoing basis can be found by visiting the KitePower website.

Other ideas that have been suggested include the Hovering Wind Turbine that was developed by Briza Technologies and Flying Electric Generators (FEGs) created by Sky Windpower. The methods of putting devices high into the air where they may capture the higher wind speeds and harvest the energy that they produce continue to spark a great deal of innovation and require many more hours of testing and research.

The chance to put wind power up and out of sight is a motivating reason to continue to push on with the development of this form of wind energy production and while it will not replace the existing ground-based wind power, it could become a valuable additional source of wind power.