Wind Energy Planning

The Times Green Rich List

The Times has started to publish its British Green Rich list annually with the new list out yesterday.

In the face of depleting fossil fuels and the need to find alternative sources of energy these new millionnaires have spotted enormous potential in the green energy market. The list gives a flavour as to which green sectors are commercially evolved in Britain today and flags those technologies likely to continue to grow in the short to medium term future.

Wind energy players take 1st, 11th and 16th places, whilst solar companies take 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 20th places. The wind energy sector, despite a near term slow down in growth is expected to grow by 20% per year between 2009 and 2015. The solar sector is growing at a huge 30% per year thanks in part to reduced production costs. Other green millionnaires have made their money from home efficiency technologies, green infrastructure provision, low carbon fuel manufacturers and green consultancy.

Taking the number 1 spot wind energy producer and retailer Ecotricity has been making money from renewable electricity since 1996. Ecotricity’s 48 year old owner Dale Vince is estimated by the Times as being worth £85 million (US $136m).

COP15 Branded a Disaster by Green Groups

The climate conference at Copenhagen has been branded a distaster after leaders failed to put in place legally binding carbon reduction targets.

Despite an accord to limit global temperature rises to 2 degrees, several countries refused to sign up to legally binding carbon reduction targets. The result is that there will not be a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Friends of the Earth said the conference, which ended on Friday had been an “abject failure”, pointing out that the effects of global warming would be felt most by the poor. The blame for the failure has been cast in many directions- in particular towards the US and China, the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

The agreement to the targets stalled when head of China’s climate delegation Xie Zhenhua, refused to agree a process allowing inspectors into China to verify that the country is meeting its carbon reduction committments. This process was a condition insisted upon by US President Obama and the lack of agreement to it has been seen by many as China asserting its power in the new world in a way other countries will not be happy about.

UK Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said that the outcome of the conference was “disappointing” but claimed that important progress was made in the challenge to deal with global warming.

New Study Reveals No Health Effects From Wind Turbine Sound

The British Wind Energy Association has welcomed the findings of a further study demonstrating that there is no evidence of health effects from wind turbines.

The joint AWEA / CanWEA report on Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects was put together by a multidisciplinary panel who conducted the most extensive study of its kind to date. The seven-member panel included experts in the fields of medicine, audiology, acoustics, environmental and public health from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Denmark.

The report is based on a review of a large body of scientific literature on sound and health effects, and specifically with regard to sound produced by wind turbines. After extensive review, analysis and discussion, the panel concluded that sounds or vibrations emitted from wind turbines have no adverse effect on human health.

CanWEA president Robert Hornung said: ‘’The Canadian Wind Energy Association supports the responsible and sustainable development of wind energy in Canada. This study will go a long way in addressing people’s concerns and answering their questions about the effects of wind turbines. Canada’s wind energy industry will continue to take a proactive role in ensuring wind energy developments are good neighbours to the communities that have embraced wind energy.’

Floating Wind Turbine Future

It appears that floating wind turbines are set to become a reality in the near future if the signs of a newly emerging supply chain are anything to go by.

The Hywind, a 2.3 megawatt (MW) floating wind turbine made by Siemens, combines technologies from both the wind farm industry and the oil and gas sectors, and was installed in June of this year. It is being tested off the coast of Norway for two years. Since the installation of the turbine new products are starting to emerge which would be dedicated to the technology.

The video below shows a specialist barge which could be used to transport and put into place floating wind turbines. This is but a small indicator of the potentially huge benefits of offshore wind energy when it comes to new business and green collar jobs.

A week of Controversy in Copenhagen

The mainstream press has been keeping a close eye on the COP15 conference in Copenhagen which was always set to generate a host of strong feelings both outside the conference hall and within.

A week into the conference and it has not failed to deliver the expected controvery. At the end of the first week an unauthorized 40,000 person demonstration yesterday led to 13 people being detained overnight.

The conference kicked off a week ago with the EU promising more money to combat global warming. The EU committed to fund 7.2 billion euro (US $10.5 billion) for tackling global warming over the next three years. The move was described by the UN climate chief as “hugely encouraging” for the climate conference process.

EU leaders also agreed to contribute 2.4 billion euro (US $3.6 billion) a year until 2012 to help poorer countries combat global warming. With the UK contributing one third of this – the average woman on the London street has however been left asking what happened to the contributions from other EU countries.

Offshore Wind Energy Credits Extended

It has been a good financial week for renewable energy with the European Union agreeing to fund 7.2 billion euros for tackling global warming at Copenhagen. Also this week, the UK Government announced further financial help for offshore wind. Thursday’s pre-budget report proposed an extension to the time limit on double credits for offshore wind energy projects.

Offshore wind energy projects operational before 2014 will recieve 2 renewable obligation certificates (ROCs) rather than the 1 ROC onshore wind energy recieves.

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) welcomed Chancellor Alistair Darling’s Pre-Budget Report commitment to maintain support for offshore wind energy at 2 ROCs per megawatt hour (MWh) to 2014. The UK is the world leader in offshore wind with more projects installed, in planning and in construction than any other country in the world. The BWEA anticipate that by 2020 at least 20,000MW of offshore wind will be installed and operating in UK waters.

New £15m Wind Turbine Test Facility Planned for Blyth, UK

A new wind turbine blade test facility is planned for Blyth in the north east of England it was announced by R& D company Nirec today.

The £15 million ($24m) facility will test new turbine blade designs before they are used in offshore wind farms. The wind turbine blades to be tested will be up to 100 metres in length.

Narec are providers of R&D, consultancy, test and demonstration facilities for the renewable energy sector. The blade test centre will be the biggest of its type in the world, expanding the existing testing capability developed over the last five years at Blyth.

The expansion of the centre is being funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Energy and Climate Change (£11.5m / $19m) and Regional Development Agency One North East (£3.5m/ $5.7m).

New Study says Wind Farms have no Measurable Effect on House Prices

A new study released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reveals that the view of wind farms does not appear to have a significant effect on the sale of houses.

The study investigated the sales of 7,500 homes between 1996 and 2007 located within 10 miles of 24 operational wind farms. These sales included homes within a mile of wind farms. Specifically, neither the view of the wind farm facilities nor the distance of the home to those facilities is found to have any consistent, measurable and statistically significant effect on home sales.

The study concludes that ‘although the analysis cannot dismiss the possibility that individual homes have been or could be negatively impacted, it finds that if these impacts do exist, they are either too small and too infrequent to result in any widespread observable impact’.

The Wave

Tens of thousands of people will be marching through the streets of London tomorrow to demonstrate their support for a deal to stop climate change.

The Wave will call on leaders across the globe to take urgent action to secure an international agreement to stop global warming rising above the ‘danger threshold’ of 2 degrees C. The march is to make a clear statement on climate change, the weekend before the start of Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Organisers of the march, Climate Chaos say that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable are already suffering the impacts of climate change. They are being hit first and worst because we, and other rich countries, created this mess and are making it worse.

Clipper Windpower Share Price Rise

Wind turbine manufacturer Clipper has sold its Maryland wind energy project together with wind turbines for the 70 megawatt capacity project to Constellation Energy.

The sale of the ‘Criterion wind energy project’ included 28, Clipper ‘Liberty 2.5MW’ wind turbines for at total of $140m. Constellation is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Maryland.

As a result the wind turbine company Clipper, moved higher on the Aim list yesterday with shares rising by 3.8 per cent to 148p. President and CEO of Clipper Windpower said;