Today, the BC Government announced another in a series of many energy plans and strategies. The 2012 Natural Gas Strategy actually puts energy front and centre for economic development in the Province. The policy is big on ideas, but short on details. According to the Government, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is to be the key driver for the provincial economy for decades to come.  The global demand for liquefied natural gas is strong and BC's estimated natural gas reserves are substantial. Local First Nations have expressed support for LNG facilities and the pipelines that will bring the natural gas from the North. Nominating LNG as a pillar of the BC economy makes good sense. How the new energy plan is implemented is of course, critical. For the BC renewable energy industry, growing the demand for electricity in the Province is a good thing. The important decision is how much of the new LNG development will be powered by ...

The IPP Sea Breeze Power is launching a $300 million shovel-ready wind farm at the northern end of Vancouver Island, BC. The Cape Scott project will feature 55 Vestas turbines that will generate close to 100MW. It took ten years to develop in partnership with three First Nations and will be the first wind farm on the coast of British Columbia. It is expected to come on line in early 2013. Two other plants are already in operation in the north-east of the province. “The wind resource on Vancouver Island is one of the most economic in the world”, said Sea Breeze President and CEO, Paul Manson. “We collected four years of wind data, had twelve sites on an investigative use permit and ended up one of three bidders out of 19 to be approved by BC Hydro,” ...

  Most of you reading this are already inclined toward green-type technology, whether that’s clean power generation, electric transportation, or more efficient ways to do things. Today, I’m going to give you one more reason to stop supporting – or at least vocally dislike – big gas and big oil. Yes, We’ve All Heard About This There are a number of people who will happily speak at length about dependence on foreign oil and how it leads to American troops being sent over to oil-rich hotspots to make sure we can still get affordable gas at the pump. There was a pun a while back about how Operation: Iraqi Freedom should have been called Operation: Iraqi Liberation (or O.I.L.), for example. I’m not really one of those people, but I listen when they talk. Oil is not cheap; from the ...

Principle Power is a Seattle, Washington-based renewable energy technology company that developed WindFloat, an offshore wind power turbine and platform. The platform can be assembled on shore and then towed to a site offshore where it is moored and connected to a power station. Principle Power recently deployed its first WindFloat system off the coast of Portugal, the first offshore turbine to be located in open Atlantic waters (read more about the first deployment here and here). The WindFloat technology is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0037264, entitled “Column-stabilized offshore platform with water-entrapment plates and asymmetric mooring system for support of offshore wind turbines” (’264 Application). The platform comprises columns (102, 103) interconnected with a truss structure composed of main beams (115), bracing beams (116), and cross beams (117). A wind tower (111) is ...

April 3, 2012 8:00 am

to

April 4, 2012 6:00 pm

We are pleased to announce that the Ontario Feed-In Tariff Forum will take place on
April 3rd and 4th, 2012 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Following sold-out conferences in 2010 and 2011, the third Forum will bring together FIT contract holders, developers, manufacturers, suppliers, service providers and government representatives to provide critical and timely insight into the impacts of the FIT review and the new landscape for renewable energy in Ontario.

 

This focal point for the Ontario FIT industry will provide:

• Networking with all the key industry players, policymakers and infrastructure experts involved in FIT

• In-depth analysis on the outcomes of the FIT review and new market dynamics in Ontario

• 120+ speakers with dedicated streams on solar, wind, hydro and bioenergy sectors

• Critical updates on key topics including: grid connection, REA, contract rules, pricing, …

An Australian company called Renewable Energy Solutions Australia Holdings Ltd. (RESA) has created what it says is a super quiet and efficient wind energy turbine. Suggestively called Eco Whisper, the wind turbine employs 30 smaller ones capped with a specially designed cowl ring that keeps them silent in most meteorological conditions. A cone shape allows the blades to automatically rotate into the direction of the wind, with no need for a heavy tail structure. Besides being more silent, the blades are more efficient, too. RESA says the turbines increase efficiency by 30 per cent at average wind speeds, and will keep rotating even when winds are very slow. Main features: .20kW horizontal axis wind turbine .Virtually silent operation .6.5m blade diameter .21.1m height .30 blades extending outwards .Dynamic slew drive .Solid, lightweight structure .High performance in all wind conditions The manufacturer says EcoWhisper is suitable for commercial, manufacturing and ...

 

Middelgrunden Wind Farm off Copenhagen.

Under Europe’s Upwind project, a feasibility study was conducted and it concluded that 20-MW (20,000-kW) wind turbines are likely by 2020. If you’re not familiar with wind turbine sizes, this is HUGE. The standard wind turbine these days is probably 3 to 5 MW, and the ‘tremendously large’ wind turbines companies like GE, Siemens, and Vestas are working on or offering are 6 to 10 MW.

Large-scale wind turbines produce electricity far more economically than small, residential turbines for multiple reasons, but the main one is the fact that the average wind speed at a given location usually increases with altitude.

While larger turbines are more expensive to build, transport, and install, the altitude-related benefits make the trouble and expense of installing large-scale turbines worth it, because they generate ...

These containers hold 1.3 million batteries

One of the biggest challenges facing wind energy is intermittency. Wind often blows strongest when power demand is lowest, and weakest when electricity is needed the most. Because today’s power grid needs electricity to be consumed the moment it’s generated, that means wind turbines send energy to the grid half as often as an average coal plant.

But what if wind farms could store the power that isn’t needed right away and sell it later when demand is high? energyNOW! correspondent Patty Kim recently visited a monumental new energy storage system recently built alongside a wind farm in the heart of coal country. The full video is available below:

Wind energy has come a long way in the United States. ...

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project.

While Americans transition their electricity system to the 21st century, they should ask this question: Does it make sense to pursue strategies such as accelerating the development of new high-voltage power lines that reinforce an outdated paradigm of electricity delivery, or should scarce energy dollars be spent on adding new, clean, local energy to the grid in the most cost-effective manner?

Fossil fuel power lends itself to centralized power systems, requiring long supply lines (rail or pipeline) to provide a constant supply of fuel and significant economies of scale in thermal energy production. These supply lines and huge power plants require enormous concentrations of capital, concentrating not only power generation but control of the grid. This explains the 20th century electricity system.

Renewable energy is fundamentally different. Wind, solar, and geothermal ...

Small wind turbines have been booming, as we’ve reported a few times this year. But, up to now, there hasn’t been much independent evaluation of how well these small turbines perform, or how safe they are. Apparently, that’s changing.

10 kW Bergey Excel 10 Wind Turbine for Homes, Farms, and Small Businesses (Photo: Business Wire)

Bergey Windpower, “the nation’s oldest manufacturer of small wind turbines,” announced this week that its “best-selling” BWC Excel 10 wind turbine has now received full “AWEA Small Wind Turbine Performance and Safety Standard” certification — it’s the first to get this certification.

“This new standard is the most significant milestone in the history of the small wind industry because it provides, for the first time, third-party verification of real world performance and a highly technical ...