News & Articles on Large Wind Power
Large wind turbines are those used to generate commercial quantities of electricity. This category includes single turbines used in distributed applications as well as arrays of multiple wind turbines used in a wind power plant.

38th Annual Windmill-Wildflower Hike Planned for Tehachapi 18 May 2024
By
Paul Gipe
Tehachapi Windmill-Wildflower Hike 2024 38th hike Paul Gipe and Georgette Theotig will lead a hike among the wind turbines on …

The first wind farm on California’s coast just came online
By
Michelle Lewis
The Strauss Wind Project in Santa Barbara County, the first wind farm on California’s coast, is now online. The 98-megawatt (MW) Strauss Wind is near Lompoc, on the Central Coast, with Vandenberg Space Force Base to the south, west, and northwest. The location’s 3,000-acre topography is perpendicular to the predominant wind direction from the ocean, making it an ideal location to generate wind power.

Yes, wind turbines kill birds. But fracking is much worse
By
Sammy Roth
It’s also why journalists should avoid treating bird deaths at wind farms as unforgivable sins, rather than as nasty side effects of renewable energy development that we should work hard to minimize but likely can’t avoid entirely. As part of his study, Katovich used the International Newsstream database to run a comparison. He found that in 2020, major U.S. news outlets published 173 stories about the effects of wind farms on birds — and just 46 stories on fracking impacts. I wrote last week that it’s time to see the world through climate-colored goggles. That’s true for the media as much as anyone.

Uruguay’s green power revolution: rapid shift to wind shows the world how it’s done
By
External Source
Today, the country has almost phased out fossil fuels in electricity production. Depending on the weather, anything between 90% and 95% of its power comes from renewables. In some years, that number has crept as high as 98%. Uruguay, meanwhile, has moved on to what is becoming known as the second stage of its transition. It is gradually moving its buses and public vehicles over to electric, and incentivising taxi and minicab drivers to switch.

LBL: Do large-scale wind projects impact the sales prices of nearby homes? New US study results say yes and no
By
Joseph Rand; Ben Hoen
New Berkeley Lab study of half a million transactions across the country finds evidence of temporary decreases in home sale prices in more populous counties within 1 mile of wind projects, starting after the project’s announcement but returning to pre-announcement inflation-adjusted levels 3–5 years after operation begins.

Capacity Factor, Power Ratings, Specific Area, Specific Power, Rated Power, and the Silent Wind Revolution
By
Paul Gipe
I’ve written extensively about the misuse of wind turbine power ratings and why the term “capacity factor” should not be used.[1] In short, don’t use it. There are much better descriptors of wind turbine performance. Many of the outlandish claims by inventors rely on the improper use of power ratings and capacity factor. It’s easy for unscrupulous promoters to hoodwink the public, the media, and even some engineers with the sleight of hand that “power ratings” and “capacity factors” makes possible.