Tag Archives | Wind
Installation of Pennine Community Power wind turbine

Unexpected Twists and Turns Before English Wind Energy Project Succeeds

There can be many unexpected twists and turns before an English wind energy project succeeds, as the Blackshaw Environmental Action Team discovered. Wind turbines are a proven and fast-maturing technology. Small wind turbines are relatively cheap. With feed-in tariff payments, they should provide an excellent return to investors. But… Building a sustainable community Local food schemes, […]

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Cape Town South Africa - Photo: stckxchng

South Africa Renewable Energy Program is Under Way

Round 1 of the renewable energy development program (REIPP)in South Africa is finally under way. The government will sign final agreements with 28 project developers in the next few days. They plan to build 1.4 GW of generation capacity and invest US$5.4 billion. The government has also announced plans for a major extension of the […]

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Community - diversity from Stckxchng

Community Ownership Best for Renewable Energy Development

Community ownership may be the best way to achieve rapid renewable energy development. Early wind power projects were often small-scale and based on cooperative principles where the governance and the benefits were evenly shared. That was somewhat swept aside in the 1990s, Industrial-scale renewable energy needs industrial-scale, efficient, market-based investment, it was argued.  As the […]

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Taj - Mahal - stckxchng

Investors in Indian Wind Energy want rapid depreciation not feed-in tariffs

Investors in Indian wind energy want rapid depreciation as an incentive not feed-in tariffs – choosing certain savings now over government incentives that are dependent on the performance of their wind turbines. Developers in India installed a record 2,827MW of wind energy capacity in 2011. China and the US were the only countries to install […]

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hydroelectric dam - stckxchng

Hydro and wind energy balancing

Hydro generation can balance wind energy and help solve the problem of wind power intermittency. Though, according to a report from the IEA’s Wind Task 24, Europe’s hydro generation has not been developed with balancing services in mind. Close to 50% of Europe’s hydro storage capacity is in Norway, which has 84 TWh of hydro […]

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Uruguay flag - stckxchng

Wind Is The Cheapest Power Source in Uruguay

Wind Is The Cheapest Power Source in Uruguay. Uruguay’s state utility UTE is purchasing wind-generated electricity at less than half the price per MW hour that it pays for power generated from fossil fuels. The average winning price in a recent Uruguayan auction for three 50MW wind power projects was US $63.70 per MWh. The cost […]

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Pakistan capital Islamabad. The country has offered a high feed in tariff for wind power - Photo: Umayr Sahlan Masud/stckxchng

Pakistan Looks to Wind Power in a Crisis

Pakistan’s national electric power regulatory authority has proposed a feed-in tariff for wind power projects of 14.66 US cents per kWh to run for 20 years. The tariff will be limited to projects of 5MW to 250MW that achieve financial close before the end of 2012. A tariff of almost 15 US cents is one […]

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Some wind turbine nacelles can weigh 300 tonnes - Photo: Hepburn Wind/flickr

Design Race in Wind Turbine Drivetrains

This article was first published on Leonardo Energy on 10th January 2011 The silhouettes of three-rotor offshore wind turbines on the horizon is familiar to millions of people in coastal regions around the world. But there is no universal design for the drivetrains within the wind turbines’ streamlined nacelles that sit on top of the turbine towers. […]

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Turkey has abundant wind resources - Photo: Ali AlEfain/stckxchng

Wind Power Sector in Turkey in Take-Off

Installed wind capacity in Turkey reached 2,000 MW by late 2011, according to Professor Tanay Sidki Uyar of Marmara University. There has been strong and accelerating growth in the sector since 2007, when capacity was just 147 MW. New supportive legislation and an increase in the feed-in tariff at the end of 2010 and a […]

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Rio de Janeiro in Brazil - Photo: Ruy Alexandre/stckxchng

Wind Power in Brazil is Cheaper than Gas

Wind power in Brazil can compete directly with natural gas and the price of Brazilian wind projects is showing a steady downward trajectory, according to Mauricio Tolmasquim, president of EPE, the Brazilian national energy agency. In August EPE had announced the winning bid prices in an auction to provide 1.5GW of wind capacity to come […]

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