turbine

Siemens to open Colo. wind turbine R&D center

Siemens Energy plans to open its first U.S. wind turbine research and development facility in Boulder, Colo.

The energy sector of the German company made the announcement on Tuesday in Houston, Texas, at Windpower 2008, the American Wind Energy Association's annual conference.

The center will concentrate on everything from designing better wind turbine components such as aerodynamic blades to conducting atmospheric-science research.

As part of the plan, Siemens Energy will collaborate with the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to install a Siemens 2.3-megawatt (MW) wind turbine at the National Wind Technology Center located just outside of Boulder.… Read more

FloDesign's jet engine-inspired wind turbine wins prizes

The wind power business, dominated by international conglomerates deploying mature technology, is a tough nut to crack.

A small Massachusetts-based start-up, FloDesign Wind Turbine, this week won two clean-energy competitions with a "shrouded turbine" design that it says can generate three to four times more electricity than today's hulking wind turbines.

The company has gotten attention from Al Gore in his role as partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, according to news Web site Xconomy which cited an unnamed source.

FloDesign Wind Turbine CEO Stan Kowalski III, who is traveling in California, was … Read more

Wind turbines in short supply

Want some turbines to build a wind power park? Get in line.

High demand--coupled with the engineering challenges of building turbines that can extract hundreds of kilowatts or megawatts of power from the wind--has created a shortage. Wind park developers, thus, are being forced to jostle their plans and supply line relationships to keep projects on track.

If you order now, you might not get turbines until late 2009 or later.

"There has been a backlog for a significant period of time. The lead time is around a year to a year and a half," said Myke Clark, … Read more

Ireland: Where wind power is king

DUBLIN, Ireland--It's easier here than in most industrialized nations to green the electrical grid.

Peak demand for electricity in the Republic of Ireland comes to about 5,000 megawatts, Graham Brennan, program manager for renewable-energy research and development at Sustainable Energy Ireland, the government's green-technology arm, said in an interview in SEI's Dublin offices. The peak occurred last December, at 4,907 megawatts.

Studies show that onshore and offshore wind turbines located in the republic could deliver approximately 5,000 megawatts of power over both parts of the island, he added. This figure takes into account only … Read more

Second Wind crunches data for wind turbines

Erecting wind turbines requires a lot more work than finding a site and bringing in cranes to install them.

Before construction, wind developers need to test the wind resource, which will have a significant bearing on how much power--and money--a turbine will produce.

Second Wind is a small company that has carved out a niche in "wind profiling," or gathering data about wind resources.

The Somerville, Mass.-based company on Tuesday announced that it has raised $4 million in the second round of financing from Good Energies, a renewable energy investment company.

Earlier this year, Second Wind introduced … Read more

Britain proposes massive offshore wind power investment

The British government on Monday proposed the construction of up to 7,000 offshore wind turbines to accelerate the country's conversion to cleaner power.

The proposal, unveiled by U.K. business secretary John Hutton, is meant to help achieve the European Union's goal of producing 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, according to reports.

Britain will overtake Denmark next year as the country with the most offshore wind power, Hutton said at an energy conference in Berlin.

The country now gets about 2 percent of its energy from renewable sources. The plans call for … Read more

Solar refrigerator maker Promethean Power to get funding

Promethean Power, a company spun out of MIT to build a solar-powered refrigerator, has secured initial funding from an Indian conglomerate that will help manufacture and distribute the product.

The Solar Turbine Group is a nonprofit organization formed by students from the Massachusetts Institute of technology that developed the system Promethean Power intends to commercialize.

STG has already built some of its solar turbines in the African country of Lesotho which are used for creating hot water and electricity.

The system uses parabolic troughs to generate the heat from sunlight to heat a liquid, which creates steam to turn a … Read more

Fire truck with MiG engine: insanity defined

And here we thought the 727 jet limo was insane. The vehicle pictured here might seem like an ordinary fire engine at first look--until it's turned around. From that angle, it's a work of insanity.

Not only is it modded with a turbine engine, but it's one from a Russian MiG fighter jet--making it "the largest turbine motor in a land vehicle anywhere in the world," according to LifeOnTop. The size alone would seem to lend credence to that claim, at 27 feet long and 5.5 feet in diameter.

If they add one of … Read more

'Small wind' turbines blow onto rooftops

Although still in the shadow of its giant counterparts, small-scale wind turbines are slowly starting to reshape the wind industry.

AeroVironment last week said 18 of its Architectural Wind turbines are now installed at a new Kettle Foods Potato Chip factory in Beloit, Wisconsin.

The turbines are still in development, but the company has installed a number around the country. They were also used by students from Texas A&M University at the Solar Decathlon solar-home competition.

AeroVironment is targeting commercial customers rather than people's homes. But other companies have developed turbines suited for houses.

Southwest Windpower's Air Breeze … Read more