News on Large Wind – WIND WORKS

This is an update of an article I first posted in 10 November 2018. It follows on a series of articles about historical films of wind turbines. In 1980 the Department of Energy published a short film titled Wind: An Energy Alternative. The 12-minute film was produced by the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) probably in 1979.

I’ve updated a post from May 19, 2022 of three videos of historic wind turbines in operation: Ulrich Hütter’s StGW-34, … Read more

I had this video digitized for its historical content from a video cassette provided by Mark Haller from his collection … Read more

This is a 23 second video of NedWind wind turbines operating on the Whitewater Wash near Palm Springs, California in … Read more

This is a nearly 30-minute video of a Danish Wincon wind turbine running away in the San Gorgonio Pass some … Read more

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This is a 33-minute video of an Enertech E44 running in overspeed in the Altamont Pass in the late 1980s. … Read more

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This combination created atypically low wholesale electricity prices, with significant amounts of renewable energy being curtailed, but the blackout was not a renewable-energy-driven event.

Rather, it was the result of multiple layers of insufficient planning, inadequate voltage management, and poorly managed grid dynamics. 50% of the allocation of responsibility was to human failures in planning, 30% to legacy generation not performing as it was designed to do, and 20% to renewables exiting the system because they weren’t configured to deal with the scenario, once again a human failure more than a technology failure.

A cyclist was killed by falling wind turbine blade in Japan. To my knowledge this is the first case of … Read more

While archiving articles I’d written for the American Wind Energy Association’s newsletter, Wind Energy Weekly, I came across this one about Fayette’s restructuring in 1990. At the time I was the west coast representative for AWEA in Tehachapi. There’s not a lot on my web site about Fayette. (I do mention them in my books and in articles on capacity factor and how this figure of merit can be so misleading.) Consequently, for historical reference I am posting the article with the original date that I submitted it to AWEA. See Fayette Reborn in Major Restructuring.

Renewables will make up more than of Danish 100% electricity in a couple of years time and just wind and solar not long after that. On the other hand a new study concludes that, around the world, nuclear power projects have cost overruns that are over 100%. Solar and wind have very low, if any cost overruns.