wind

Wind power outlook weak in Europe, report says

Rising materials costs, engineering challenges, and installation snags threaten European goals to dramatically expand wind power, according to a report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

The European Union aims to get 20 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020. But wind power won't meet a significant portion of that unless more government subsidies help companies offset increased costs, the firm warned Wednesday.

The world market for wind power will grow by 155 percent by 2012, according to a March report by the Global Wind Energy Council.

But a global backlog of turbines has sent wind park builders scrambling … Read more

Putting wind to work on farms

Financing company MMA Renewable Ventures is branching into wind energy, betting places like family farms are underserved.

The company on Wednesday is expected to announce the launch of its wind business, which will provide financing and project management for installations between 10 megawatts and 50 megawatts.

Its first customer is a planned 10-megawatt project, the PaTu Wind Farm in Oregon, which is expected to go up by 2009. MMA Renewable has a pipeline of deals worth 200 megawatts, said Moira Geraghty, vice president of wind finance at MMA Renewable Ventures.

In general, the deals will be structured so that MMA … Read more

First offshore wind turbine to be buoyed off Norway

Wind power's best days may be out at sea.

Energy company StatoilHydro on Thursday announced Hywind, a project to test a large-scale offshore wind turbine.

The 2.3-megawatt turbine, a Siemens machine that is 65 meters high, will sit atop a buoy tied down by three anchors.

The system can work in depths ranging from 120 meters to 700 meters, according to StatoilHydro. It will be tested, starting in 2009, off the coast of Norway.

Building offshore wind turbines is an idea that has been advocated for some time. One advantage is that they are, in theory, out of … Read more

Spain's Iberdrola commits $8 billion to renewable energy in U.S.

Correction at 9:40 a.m. PDT: The spelling of the company's name and oil developer T. Boone Pickens have been fixed.

How much potential is there for wind and solar energy in the United States?

Big enough for Spanish energy developer Iberdrola to commit to investing $8 billion in the U.S. over the next two years.

The company's president Ignacio Galán set the target Sunday at a conference in Houston, where he said the company intends to double its electricity capacity, mainly through wind, in the U.S. which is now at nearly 2.… Read more

FloDesign's jet engine-inspired wind turbine wins prizes

The wind power business, dominated by international conglomerates deploying mature technology, is a tough nut to crack.

A small Massachusetts-based start-up, FloDesign Wind Turbine, this week won two clean-energy competitions with a "shrouded turbine" design that it says can generate three to four times more electricity than today's hulking wind turbines.

The company has gotten attention from Al Gore in his role as partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, according to news Web site Xconomy which cited an unnamed source.

FloDesign Wind Turbine CEO Stan Kowalski III, who is traveling in California, was … Read more

Is anyone doing any business in renewable energy?

Okay, that's kind of a specious lead in, but seriously, both the investment tax credit (ITC) for solar and the production tax credit (PTC) for wind are up for expiration in barely 6 months in the US. And that seems to be much higher on industry workers minds than actually doing business.

I have had conversation after conversation over the past weeks indicating that the policy renewal is increasingly the biggest topic of concern.

M&A deals are getting held up waiting to see the impact on valuations

Sales teams have added the "fear factor" of … Read more

MSI dishes specs for its Wind mininotebook

MSI put out a vague news release today that details some, but not all, of the specifications of its upcoming and unfortunately named Wind mininotebook. At the top of the release, it states the 10-inch notebook will "feature the new Intel Processor," but it fails to explain what that processor might be. An Intel Atom processor is a safe bet; the chips are expected to be released this summer.

The only mention of pricing in the release states that MSI Wind configurations will start at less than $500 in early June. The MSI Wind is available, however, for … Read more

Personal, 'green' airplanes propel forward

The idea of personal planes may conjure up dark visions of Blade Runner, but the first batch of two-seater aircraft to fly on electricity rather than fossil fuels could reach more than a dozen buyers by year's end.

And if some fans of experimental air travel have their way, that's a step closer to a gridlock-free future when relatively ordinary folks will hop to work in small, carbon-neutral planes.

A cozy crowd of several dozen engineers, venture capitalists, and members of clean-tech companies plotted the potential at the Electric Aircraft Symposium held Saturday in San Francisco, sponsored by … Read more

To green the Capitol, lawmakers follow tech titans

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Washington lawmakers aiming to green both the Capitol dome and the laws made beneath it are turning to Silicon Valley for inspiration while pledging to help renewable energy start-ups get off the ground.

Some Democrats in the House of Representatives fear U.S. policies aren't combating global warming quickly enough. But they hope that they can at least "green" the Capitol complex enough to call it the world's first carbon-neutral legislative body within the year.

"We're making a difference and we're going to change the world," said Rep. Zoe … Read more