Spain: Wild Wind Rockstar

This from Ecogeek on Spain going "Gone with the Wind..."

Last week, during a spell of particularly strong wind gusts, Spain set a world record by having 40 percent of their energy requirement generated by wind power. The high winds in the northwest of the country generated a whopping 11,180 MW during the strongest gust.

Spain's Wind Energy Association said that the turbines were working at 69 percent of their potential during the strong winds, which means even fiercer winds could crush this record.

While the U.S. is still number one in wind power, we only get 1 percent of our energy from the resource. Spain, ranked third in the world, has been incredibly ambitious in their wind plans. They hope to be generating 20,000 MW from wind by 2010 up from the 16,000 MW they're currently producing. Beyond just wind, Spain hopes to have renewable energy sources making up 30 percent of their energy demand within the next year.

- Brewskie

Pinwheels on Lake Michigan

Offshore wind farms on the Great Lakes is nothing new, but it's been decided a post of this subject will be planted:

The Michigan Wind Energy Conference wrapped up at Cobo Center Wednesday with a look at offshore wind projects in the United Kingdom and their potential in Michigan, along with breakout sessions on small and community windpower projects.

Chris Jenner and Johnny Lewis of England's RPS Energy offered a comprehensive overview of their company's work on offshore wind power in Europe, specifically the United Kingdom, covering the challenges and successes of the technology.

Peter Mandelstam, founder and president of Bluewater Wind LLC of Delaware, gave a detailed presentation on the potential of offshore wind in the United States, including the Great Lakes.

[...]

Why? Because they offer stronger and more consistent winds than other shoreline areas, relatively shallow water depths even miles offshore, no significant water use conflicts, accessible transmission and ports, large available project area footprints, and little opposition from the public if the turbines are built more than 10 miles from shore (which makes them too small to see from the beach, for the most part).

According to cleantechnia:

Offshore wind farms are much more common in Europe than they are in the U.S. And the lakes have their own set of construction and maintenance challenges because they freeze almost completely in the winter and saltwater farms usually don’t encounter the same level of ice. Ice floes and ridges formed when lakes freeze could damage the turbine towers, some studies have cautioned. But an official with the Trillium Wind Power Corp., which is building a 700 megawatt wind farm in Canadian waters in Lake Ontario told the New York Times last month the problems can be overcome with barriers around the turbines and other defenses.

Michigan has been planning to capitalize on its wind power potential for some time. New York has ambitious plans for wind power as well. Building wind farms offshore seems to be a convenient way to deal with the NIMBY issue that many terrestrial wind farms create. Let’s see if more companies begin looking at the Lakes for their projects.

- Brewskie

U.S. Now the World's Biggest Wind Market

The U.S. is now the new king of wind energy; China is doing good, too. America, with 8.35 gigawatts of new capacity (almost as much as all of Europe added last year), usurped the previous title holder, Germany, with a total of 25.1 gigawatts of wind energy over 23.9 (Germany still obtains a higher percentage of its energy through wind).

From the article:

Global wind energy capacity surged by 28.8 percent in 2008, as the United States became the world's leading market, an industry survey showed Monday.

The Global Wind Energy Council said the US and China showed the strongest growth in wind energy as the global electric-generating capacity rose to 120.8 gigawatts at the end of 2008.

Also...

Wind power accounted for about 42 percent of the new power capacity last year in the United States and one-third in Asia.

China doubled its installed capacity by adding about 6.3 gigawatts, reaching a total of 12.2 gigawatts.

"The Chinese wind energy market is going from strength to strength, and has once again doubled in size compared to 2007, reaching over 12 GW of total installed capacity," said Shi Pengfei, vice president of the Chinese Wind Energy Association. "The outlook for the coming years is also very healthy."

At this rate, China would be well on its way to overtake Germany and Spain to reach second place in terms of total wind power capacity in 2010, the council said.

The total 2008 market for turbine installation is estimated to be worth $47.5 billion.

- Brewskie