Wind Energy and renewable energy blog

Green Group Celebrate Town’s New Wind Farm

A green campaign group celebrated the construction of a wind farm in the heart of England this week.

The Sustainable Energy Alliance (SEA) supported Lindhurst wind farm, just outside the town of Mansfield from the early planning stages. The wind farm had over 3000 letters of support from local people.

The 5 turbine wind farm will generate enough renewable electricity to provide for the annual average needs of around 5000 homes.

Vauben- The Renewable Energy Powered Car Free District

This month’s Time magazine ran a feature on the ‘Heroes of the Environment’. The feature celebrated those contributing towards green initiatives all over the globe.

The Times report identified and congratulated individuals and groups from those who have brought about sustainability codes for big corporations to developers of new nuclear lazer fusion technology.

My first prize for the ‘most effective’ Heroe(s) of the Environment goes to the residents of Vauben.

Vauben is an urban area on the edge of the city of Freiburg in Germany. The district’s own residents decided to physically ban cars from their own streets and also garages attached to individual houses. As a result of taking the rules into their own hands a car parking space in the district will set a resident back a whopping US $30,000. According to Time, the result is a car ownership rate of 220 cars per 1000 residents compared with 520 cars per 1000 residents in the wider Freiburg area and much higher rates in other European cities. Residents believe that there is now more space for community life without the cars.

Wave Energy Technology

Wave energy technology is an immature but promising renewable energy technology. This video gives a clear explanation as to how some wave energy devices work. Pelamis and Anaconda are two wave energy devices that work using the same principles.

Pelamis was the world’s first commercial scale machine to produce offshore, grid connected, wave generated electricity. A new commercial wave energy machine is now being built for utility giant E.on in Scotland.

Anaconda is a 200 metre rubber tube with a hydraulic turbine driving a 1MW capacity electric generator. Anaconda’s developer – Checkmate Seaenergy say the wave energy device has the potential to generate renewable electricity off any coast with wave strength over 25 kW/m. Checkmate Seaenergy has a vision of the snakes being grouped in farms with 20 or more machines producing over 20 MW.

Wave Energy is Born

As OPEC proclaimed yesterday that low oil prices are unlikely to last long, Scottish wave energy company Aquamarine Power announced what they dubbed “the birth” of the wave industry.

The announcement followed the successful production and export of renewable electricity from its wave energy converter ‘Oyster‘ to the grid.