Rivian’s 2.8 MW wind turbine at its Normal, Illinois, plant is officially online and, along with solar, is charging every new EV with clean energy.
Rivian announced it would install the wind turbine in June 2022, and Charlottesville, Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy began construction of the turbine in May.
Now it’s up and running and capable of generating nearly 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year – enough to power 890 average US homes.
So offshore wind has become, almost unexpectedly, a significant part of the picture when future renewable energy systems are considered – at least in OECD countries. It provides diversification, opportunities to Big Energy to go green, possibly less public hostility and potentially reasonable economics. But it’s worth remembering that even in Europe, it’s just 10% of the overall wind capacity installed (and a bit more of actual generation, thanks to higher capacity factors).
The Great California Wind Rush (1980-1985) was on and like gold had done before it, the lure of riches drew … Read more
One worker has been killed, and three injured, in an explosion at a factory run by Danish wind sector supplier Welcon, according to media reports in Denmark.
The accident occurred at the company’s recently-expanded factory in the Give area of Denmark, and resulted in the death of a 41-year old Portuguese national, according to a report by Danish news website Vejile Amts Folkeblad, which quoted Stig Simonsen, a deputy police inspector at South East Jutland Police.
The fits and starts for a wind energy project in the hills east of Lompoc arrived at an unexpected finish line when current operator BayWa obtained a letter from U.S. Fish & Wildlife on September 25 stating that the agency expected to issue a golden eagle take authorization to the Strauss Wind Energy Project by next March.
The Great California Wind Rush was the Wild West of wind energy. So it’s fitting that one of the songs … Read more
Sunflower Wind is the first in the state to feature an Aircraft Detection Lighting System (ADLS) that uses radar to scan for aircraft. When ADLS is installed on a wind farm, the nighttime lights on the turbines blink only when aircraft are detected, thus reducing light pollution for residents who live close enough to be able to see them.
Approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is required to install ADLS, and the FAA reviews every turbine individually. The FAA requires that the ADLS activate and flash if an aircraft is at or below 1,000 feet above the tallest wind turbine and is approaching a three-nautical mile (3.45-mile) perimeter around the wind farm.
Denmark’s Energimuseet (the Energy Museum), a “must see” for anyone working in the energy field, especially those of us in … Read more
Thilo Wirth visited the Grevenbroich test site west of Cologne 24 September 2023. He found that Agile Wind Power’s test … Read more
But I would ask country dwellers still inclined to block them to see that they are in fact beautiful. They are prettier than power stations, less destructive than fracking, certainly lovelier than floods, fires, droughts and other effects of climate change. They enrich the nation with the help of its abundant wind, and make us less dependent on fossil-fuel despots. Wind turbines are in a long rural tradition of robust practical structures that also includes barns, mills, viaducts, canals and others that have become beloved and protected. On those same drives I was always happy to see an old windmill. It shouldn’t be too hard to love their modern equivalents.
2023 © Wind-Works by Paul Gipe