Wind

ALAMOSA, Colo.--The San Luis Valley in southern Colorado is an ideal location for capturing solar energy. But like so many communities, people of this mountain basin will only embrace a future of renewable energy if it fits comfortable with its past.

One of six counties in this high-desert valley surrounded by majestic mountains, Alamosa officials are eager to develop solar for much-needed revenue and to diversify the economy. The county welcomed a group of journalists earlier this month as part of a fellowship organized by the Institutes for Journalism & Natural Resources.

Even with a fabulous solar resource with … Read more

news analysis Google yesterday pulled the plug on an ambitious green-technology initiative, a casualty of the Internet giant's strategy to shed peripheral projects.

In a company blog, Google's senior vice president of operations and Google Fellow Urs Holzle listed "Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal" as one of seven projects that were being shut down because they didn't catch on as hoped.

Google had a team of engineers working on a sun-tracking mirror, or heliostat, that would be cheaper to manufacture and use less water than conventional concentrating solar products. Yesterday, the team published a number of technical recommendations … Read more

NAVAJO RESERVATION, N.M.--Power transmission lines run a few hundred yards behind the Johnson family home here, but it took an off-grid solar and wind generator to finally bring them electricity service.

The Johnsons, who live on a remote stretch of land on the Navajo Reservation west of Farmington, N.M., are among about 200 families on the Navajo Reservation who rent an off-grid renewable-energy system from the rural utility. They opened their home to visitors last week during a fellowship organized by Institutes for Journalism & Natural Resources.

The hybrid power generator, which was installed in February, combines … Read more

A huge battery bank connected to a wind farm was officially commissioned today in a project that makes wind power more closely resemble a traditional power plant.

Two divisions of energy project developer AES today said that the 98-megawatt Laurel Mountain wind facility in West Virginia is now connected to 32 megawatts worth of lithium ion batteries from A123 Systems. It's the largest project to couple wind power with lithium ion batteries, according to the company.

The shipping container-size batteries will allow AES to gradually adjust power delivery to the grid up and down, rather than have a more … Read more

A U.K. company plans to give airport radar systems the equivalent of better reading glasses, allowing them to distinguish between spinning wind turbine blades and aircraft flying nearby.

Cambridge Consultants announced on Tuesday that it is spinning out Aveillant as a separate company to develop a holographic radar system specifically built for wind farms. With it, airport or military radar will get an accurate picture of the location of planes near wind turbines, said Aveillant chief technology officer Gordon Oswald.

Conflict between air traffic control and wind turbines is blamed for derailing a number of wind projects and has … Read more

In a classic pairing of IT and renewable energy, an IBM supercomputer will optimize placement of wind turbines to improve performance.

IBM and Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas yesterday announced that the Firestorm supercomputer will analyze petabytes of data to maximize energy output of Vestas turbines.

The supercomputer crunches through weather reports, moon and tidal phase, sensor data, satellite images, and deforestation maps to generate the best placement of turbines, IBM said. Once installed, Vestas engineers will use the software to predict future performance and figure out the best time to do maintenance.

Predicting energy output of turbines is vitally … Read more

The small wind industry is about to enter a major growth spurt.

It is poised to grow from a $255 million industry in 2010 to $634 million industry in 2015, according to a recent Pike Research report.

The report attributes a growing interest and expected success in the coming years to the fact that small wind is currently more efficient and, therefore, cheaper on a cost-per-watt basis than solar photovoltaic cells. Because the return on investment can take as little as 5 years to 10 years, depending on area wind conditions, it offers an accessible option to small businesses, farms, … Read more

Google disclosed how much electricity it uses as a company for the first time today when the Internet giant described how it has cut carbon emissions.

Google said today that it consumes 2.26 kilowatt-hours per user per year, about the same amount of energy as running a 60-watt lightbulb for three hours. By investing in renewable-energy projects and purchasing carbon offsets, Google has cut the greenhouse gas impact of providing its services to zero, Google's vice president of technical infrastructure, Urs Hoelzle, said on the Google Green blog.

The total amount of electricity Google uses from its operations … Read more

Michigan-based start-up Danotek Motion Technologies has scored $15 million in Series B funding, the company announced yesterday.

Danotek, develops converters and permanent magnet generators (PMGs) for wind turbines. Investors include Khosla Ventures, CMEA Capital, GE Energy Financial Services, and Statoil Technology, among others. All four were also investors in the company's previous $50 million Series A funding.

The company claims the efficiency rate of its PMGs exceeds 98 percent, that they are half the weight of conventional generators, and that they contain no "wear-and-tear" parts, making them extremely durable.

"At Khosla Ventures we invest in technologies … Read more