Wind Turbines • Page 3 of 17 • Wind Power For Every Home

Germany Leads the Way in Wind and Solar Power

Germany is the world’s fourth-largest economy and nearly a third of its electric power comes from renewable energy. That fraction is increasing… Indeed it is now thought that Germany is an ideal global test bed for the feasibility of using renewable energy on a large scale. Let’s look at other countries that generate a large amount… Read the rest

UK’s Renewable Energy Foundations Report Causes Controversy

The UK’s Renewable Energy Foundation’s recent online report on renewable energy performance in the UK has provoked a storm of controversy. The report’s authors interpret their findings in a way which RenewableUK find biased, although there is no accusation that the figures themselves are wrong. Here are some of the key findings: Wind and solar farms… Read the rest

Canadian Health Study Finds no link between and Adverse Health Effects

A Health Canada study has found no link between exposure to wind turbine noise and negative health effects in people. While the closer people lived to wind turbines, the more irritated they became with the nuisance of the noise, Health Canada concluded in their Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study that wind turbine noise did not… Read the rest

In a Small Rural Corner of England, Wind Power is Enthusiastically Embraced

You can’t get more rural than the village of Gorran High Lanes, Cornwall, South West England. If you believe the British press and fossil fuel lobby, you’d be forgiven for believing that this would be the heart of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and that the mere whiff of an idea to erect an onshore… Read the rest

United Kingdom Produces More Power from Wind than from Nuclear Power Stations

Before we all get too excited about the headline, I should say that this achievement was only managed for one day. Earlier this week, for one day only, the UK’s wind farms generated more power than its nuclear power stations according to the National Grid. However this was no mean achievement and not only shows the… Read the rest

Google Flying a Kite?

Google, a company that has long championed renewable energy, is looking closely at the possibility of conventional wind farms with tall wind turbines being replaced by innovative floating turbines. The possibility of air-borne devices to harness the wind is not new, but the fact that Google is now involved might give this fledgling arm of the… Read the rest

Drivetrain Technology

The end of this month sees an important conference, to be held in Bremen, Germany from 27 to 29 October, 2014: It is the 5th International Conference on Wind Turbine Drivetrains. What do we mean by the drivetrain for wind turbines? For modern horizontal turbines, the components are as follows: blade or rotor, which converts the… Read the rest

Wind Tower Technology

There was a time when all wind-driven affairs such as windmill sails, were mounted on wide wooden structures- windmills. With the growth of both the number and size of wind turbines over the last forty years, wind towers needed to be strong, durable, easily accessible for maintenance to the nacelle and gears, and not overly expensive.… Read the rest

El Hierro to be powered by100% Renewable Energy

El Hierro is a Spanish-owned island, one of the Canary Islands, off the West Coast of Africa. It is 278.5 square kilometres and was formed approx 1.2 million years ago after three successive eruptions. The island emerged from the ocean with a triangle-shaped top with a volcanic cone more than 2,000 metres high. Despite being formed… Read the rest

The United States and Offshore Wind Power

Why is it, when other countries, such as Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Germany, have built massive turbine farms off their coastlines in the past few decades, the United States has no operational offshore wind farms? The US clearly embraces wind and has a plethora of onshore wind farms sprinkled all over its states. Look… Read the rest