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World’s Largest Wind farm is opened in UK

The world’s largest offshore wind farm, Thanet, is constructed in England by the Swedish energy company Vattenfall. The 100 turbines off the coast of Thanet are estimated to produce enough electricity a year to power up to the equivalent of more than 200,000 homes

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Total wind-powered energy production capacity of UK has increased to 5 gigawats as part of the British government’s renewable energy promotion. Today, Britain covers merely 3 percent of its energy need from renewable sources but is aiming to increase that 5 times in ten years.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth wants the British government to guarantee funding of at least 2 billion pounds ($3.1 billion) a year for the Green Investment Bank, which aims to boost private-sector spending on low-carbon technology.

Yahoo News – London – Sept 23, 2010

Wisconsin Opens the Doors of Renewable Energy

As a part of the National Solar Tour coordinated by American Solar Energy Society, an open house event is organized in 5 regions of Wisconsin on Saturday, October 2 between 10am – 4pm..

People living and working in the area will open their doors to show the visitors how they make use of renewable energy and sustainable architectural techniques. The Midwest Renewable Energy Associationn also organizes a guides bus tour for the Green Bay area which costs $5 per person.

The event is significant in that everyone can see viable examples of eco-friendly living.

To learn more about the event or add your house to the site list: MREA Solar Tour

Dyson-Harrop provides 100bn times the energy we need

There is much discussion on whether the most efficient power source is the sun or wind. The most significant drawback of both is that they are hard to scale. Today I read an article on sify.com about a study that has been published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. It says that the world’s energy needs could be met 100 billion times over by means of a satellite to harness the solar wind.

Dyson-Harrop St6aelite Picture

How does it work?

This conceptual satellite is called Dyson-Harrop. It begins with a long metal wire loop pointed at the sun. When this wire is charged, it generates a cylindrical magnetic field that snags the electrons which then get funnelled into a metal spherical receiver to produce a current. This magnetic field makes the system sustainable.

Any current over the magnetic need powers an infrared laser trained on satellite dishes back on Earth, designed to collect the energy.

What are the advantages of using solar satellites?

Designer of Dyson-Harrop, Brooks Harrop, a physicist at Washington State University in Pullman asserts that a satellite with a 1-kilometre-long wire and a sail 8400 kilometres wide could generate 100 billion times the power humanity currently requires.

It is easy to construct out of copper and costs less than solar panels per pound.

Disadvantages?

A major drawback is thought to be the distance from earth the satellites are supposed to be located: from some ten million kilometers a sharp laser beam is said to spread to thousands of kilometres wide by the time it reached Earth.

Sify (News)Sept 25, 2010

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Developments in Solar Power Towers

On August 5th, the company eSolar opened the Sierra Sun Tower, the newest example solar power towers. According to the website of esolar, the Sierra facility supplies 5 MW of clean, renewable energy to the grid. As the only commercial CSP tower in the United States, supplies electricity to Southern California Edison (SCE) and will power up to 4,000 homes. Many bloggers and journalists welcome it as a promising development.

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Sierra Sun Tower in Southern California

UBS Wealth Management, moreover, is predicting that the relatively small market for concentrated solar power tends to expand, with projected growth of almost 20 gigawatts in new capacity over the next decade.  UBS analysts Gianrento Gamboni and Christoph Hugi, refers to the new projects in the United States and Spain as they say “After a long period of stagnation, the market is evolving more dynamically.”

  • What is a solar power tower?

One square kilometer of land holds the capacity – depending on the specifities of location – to  generate as much as 100 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity per year through solar thermal technology. To make it clear, this amount is enough to run 50,000 residences.

One option to produce this energy is the solar power tower, which is a type of solar thermal plant that uses a tower to receive the sunlight, focused  upon it via an array of flat, movable mirrors (ie. heliostats). These focused rays heats the water and the steam produced powers a turbine. As you see, no pollutants are emitted in producing the electricity.

Today liquid sodium is commonly used instead of water to store the energy during brief interruptions in sunlight or in night time.

  • A major advantage: Solar thermal plants produce electricity whose current and future costs are known.

It is a fixed-cost generation resource know to the consumer in advance and it decreases consumers’ exposure to market fluctuations and the volatile cost of natural gas (which solar thermal typically replaces in the portfolio).

  • A major disadvantage: Solar thermal power plants are huge

It uses a huge land desirably less than 3 percent slope. With respect to the electricity output versus total size, they make use of the land more effectively than coal plants or hydroelectric dams, though.

The best locations for solar power plants are massive lands, such as deserts, for which there might be few other uses; but again, then comes the problem of how to provide the necessary water.

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The factsheet in the released in the webpage of governement of CA, claims that as experience is gained with this technology, the acreage requirements
will likely be reduced due to more efficient placement of the heliostats.

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  • Five Earlier Examples:
  1. Solar One, a pilot solar-thermal project built in the Mojave Desert (CA, USA) was the first test of a large-scale thermal solar power tower plant. It was designed by the Department of Energy (DOE), Southern California Edison, LA Dept of Water and Power, and California Energy Commission. Solar One’s method of collecting energy was based on producing heat to drive a steam turbine.
  2. Later, in 1995 it was converted into Solar Two, with the addition of a second ring of 108 larger heliostats around the existing Solar One. The total number of heliostats became 1926 on an area of 82,750 m². Solar Two used molten salt, which is a combination of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate, instead of water.
  3. Solar Tres, which is located in the city of Écija, in Andalusia, Spain and received a subsidy of five million Euro from the European Commission, follows the Solar Two in using molten salt but is designed to be three times of it in size.
  4. Europe’s first commercial solar tower PS10 is located near the Southern Spanish city of Seville. It produces electricity of 11 MW with 624 large heliostats with surfaces of 120 square meters each.  The height the tower is 115 meters.
  5. The PS20 solar power tower is also near Seville. The capacity is 20 megawatt.  The  tower is taller than PS10, it is 160 meters.
  6. The THEMIS solar power tower, located near the village of Targassonne, in the département of Pyrénées-Orientales, South of France, is a R&D center focused on solar energy, as well as a photovoltaic power facility and a solar thermal energy plant. It had a power output of 2 MW in 1983.

Dress Up your Building with Inflatable Solar Panels

Green design is the new hype. Most of the new buildings are designed with a ecological approach. Greening the existing buildings is much harder, but obligatory. Designers over at Studio Formwork have tried to do just that with a new product design known as Solar Skin.

solar-skin-studio-formwork-1
The Solar Skin is a lightweight  system of inflatable solar components that can be zipped together to form a temporary skin for existing buildings. With this innovative solution, currently inefficient buildings can generate solar energy.

solar-skin-studio-formwork-2

VIA: ECOFRIEND.ORG

DIY Wind Generators – in a nutshell

wind turbinsThe thing that burns, never returns. In other words, using fossil fuels is unsustainable for the next 20 years. While we still have time we would better invest in sustainable, clean energy resources, such as wind power. Noticing that more and more people show an interest towards wind energy, I made a through research on the web and would like to share with you what I’ve found.

 

Wind Mill, Wind Generator, Wind Turbine… what are these?

Don’t get confused with the names. A wind generator is a device that generates electrical power from wind energy. Wind generators have been in use for a long time in the form of windmills. Years ago, when electricity was not invented, windmills were used to pull boats and pump out water. Contemporary electricity-generating versions are referred to as wind turbines.

In otherwords, all three words are interchangeable today.

How does it work?

A wind turbine converts wind energy into mechanical energy for mechanical work. Such a wind turbine is generally referred to as a windmill. A wind generator is a wind turbine that further converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy.

A wind turbine consists of blades, a tower, a shaft, a base, and a generator. The blades of the wind turbine rotate by the wind to generate mechanical energy. So, you can use wind energy to run your electrical and electronic appliances, to pump out water ot grind grains and stones.

What are the advantages?

Free source – The wind power makes use of wind energy which is absolutely free, and with modern technology it can be captured efficiently, helping us conveniently save the non-renewable sources of energy for the last resort.

Minimal environmental hazards – Once a wind turbine is built  the energy it produces is clean. It does not emit harmful gases, nuclear ores, or other pollutants.

Cost-effective – Using a free energy makes the wind turbines you installed extremely cost-effective.

Self-sufficiency – Making use of wind power makes you off the grid, thus independent. You no longer depend on the government and its agencies for power. Remote areas that are not connected to the electricity power grid can use wind turbines to produce their own supply.

Small base – Although wind turbines can be very tall each takes up only a small plot of land. This means that the land below can still be used and in agricultural areas as farming can still continue.

Availablity in a range of sizes- Single households to small towns and villages can make good use of range of wind turbines available today.

What are the disadvantages?

The strength of the wind is not constant, varying from zero to storm force. In other words, there can be times when they produce no electricity at all.

Some people feel that the landscape of the countryside should be left untouched, without these large structures being built.

Wind turbines are noisy. Each one can generate the same level of noise as a family car travelling at 70 mph.

When wind turbines are being manufactured some, even minimal, pollution is produced.

Large wind farms are needed to provide entire communities with enough electricity. For example, the largest single turbine available today can only provide enough electricity for 475 homes, when running at full capacity.

What are the requisites?

A large area of at least one acre

A consistent average wind speed of 11 miles per hour

Can you Do It Yourself?

This is the most relevant part for our handy reader. It is widely accepted that setting up a home wind generator does not need professional help and individuals can easily set it up with the help of numerous guides available in the market.

The most highly recommended guides are unsurprisingly those that come from reliable websites with money back guarantee and a sound payment merchant account. Testimonials from other satisfied customers are also good indicators of trustworthiness. I can recommend you either of two such guides; Earth4Energy or Homemade Wind Generator.

wind-cover-imageHomemade Wind Generator
www.windplans.com

Even though it looks less professional, don’t judge by its cover. Homemade Wind Generator provides the customers with detailed information from building your wind generator to hooking it up to your house. It also delivers good customer support. Les and Jane, the couple behind the product, live off of the grid for 15 years themselves. They guide in the light of their own experiences.

For again $49,97 you can get the Homemade Wind Generator guide as well as four other bonus manuels.

For more information on Homemade Wind Generators, please click here!

earth4energyEarth for Energy
www.earth4energy.com

Earth4Energy has a very professional look, almost like a physical object. The only drawback of Earth4Energy vis a vis the Homemade Wind Generator is the lack of customer support. Some people also find it a little complicated, but I found the instructions pretty clear with great illustrated step by step guides, followed by video instructions.

The cost for windmill and solar power manuels and video series is $49,97

For more information on Earth4Energy, please click here!

Once the best guide is selected, the next thing you will do is to shop for the needed materials. You can also easily find the components of a wind generator in the market.

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