Denmark’s Energimuseet (the Energy Museum), a “must see” for anyone working in the energy field, especially those of us in … Read more
News on Large Wind
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.
Ministers are preparing to introduce changes to planning rules that will allow councils to give the go-ahead to turbine proposals where there is broad public support, according to the Telegraph.
The amendment to scrap the ban on new offshore wind was put forward by the former Cop26 president Alok Sharma and has since drawn support from a group of Tories including Liz Truss, who are “confident” that it will pass.
While visiting Tehachapi, my wife Nancy Nies, introduced me to a new restaurant because of its wind theme. I don’t … Read more
A worker lost his life on Friday, 28 July, in Tarifa (Cadiz) after being trapped in a wind turbine, according to the emergency services.
The event occurred at around midday, when the 112 emergency telephone operators handled a call from a worker who was trapped in the hub (the part of the machine where a shaft is supported and rotates) of a turbine, at a height of 130 metres. The turbine was located at kilometre 90 of the N-340.
Emergency services, including a helicopter ambulance, the Guardia CIvil, fire brigade and police were deployed to the scene.
The health services on the scene were only able to confirm the death of the worker. No further information has been released on how this incident occurred.
Oscar Wilde famously wrote that people “know the price of everything and the value of nothing” suggesting there is a difference between the two concepts of price and value. In the power market, due to some of its structural features, it is even more confusing as you also need to deal with the cost of power, which may again be different.
The below, derived from an article I wrote almost 15 years ago, tries to make sense of the differences between the 3, and how these are ultimately decided by political choices.
So, I have a history with anti-wind nuts of all types. A long history. I became Margaret Atwood’s — yes, the Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood — green technology pro bono consultant after debating with Ontario’s anti-wind nuts on her blog. The American Wind Energy Association, when it existed and was a positive force in the country, used to check my Barnard on Wind blog to see if I’d written about something before they bothered to start debunking. I was drawn into fights against anti-wind nuttery globally, including on tiny King Island between Tasmania and Australia.
Maine will procure at least 3,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind turbines by 2040 under a bill signed Thursday by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, enough to power about half of the state’s electricity load.
So, to the UK government: the CfD is actually is an excellent design for a tariff (as is the OFTO mechanism, as an aside), developers and financiers understand it and like it, there is no need to tinker with it on the basis of the whining or blackmail of utilities..
The design of lease auctions is something else – it could be tweaked given how it currently encourages irresponsible bidding for leases that have no connection to the reality of the price of the sector but favor the deepest-pockets players at the expense of the long term viability of the sector.
