better generation

In the beginning of his Administration, President Obama set a goal of doubling U.S. renewable energy generation capacity from wind, solar, and geothermal by 2012. This was a bold goal - to install as much renewable energy in the next three years as the U.S. had in the previous thirty. However, a new White House report from the office of Vice President Joe Biden, suggests the country is right on track thanks to the hefty government stimulus package.

A "quiet green revolution" that avoids "green gimmicks" and instead focuses on delivering low carbon jobs is what Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claims the coalition government is aiming for.

This month marks a significant milestone for the current darlings of the small wind industry, Endurance Wind Power. Around a week ago they completed the first European installation of their 50kW machine, the E-3120, at a dairy farm in Devon, UK. Installed by engineers from Dulas Ltd, the project took three days to complete. A nice video that shows the installation is available at this link.

Scotland's community and renewable energy scheme (CARES) is closing to new applications due to unprecedented demand, it was announced on Monday.

The Scottish government yesterday revealed it is in talks with Norwegian energy giant Statoil about hosting the world's first floating wind farm at two potential sites off the Scottish coast. The company envisages installing between three and five floating wind turbines that would be deployed to demonstrate the commercial viability of the technology. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond met with senior executives at the firm to discuss the viability of the two prospective sites - one off the coast of Lewis and one off Aberdeenshire.

Lying 5000 metres below the unassuming Cornish town of Redruth are the granite generators of the UK's first geothermal power plant. Water pumped down to the 170°C bedrock will return as rapidly expanding steam and drive generators capable of producing up to 10 MW of base load electricity to the National Grid and up to 55 MW of renewable heat for local use.

A new industry body, called the Australian Small Wind Energy Association has just been founded. Here's an extract from an email which has been circulated to known players in the Australian small wind industry:

A new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has highlighted the merits of feed-in tariff (FiT) schemes - showing that these fiscal incentives are responsible for 75% of all solar PV and 45% of all wind development worldwide.  

A much-heralded installation of four 12kW rooftop vertical axis wind turbines on a council building in Hobart, Tasmania, has suffered a spectacular glitch only weeks after being installed. Strong winds of around 15 m/s (or around 33 mph) hit the Hobart bay area, and at least two of the four turbines suffered an overspeeding problem.