Like peanut butter and jelly or chips and dip, some things were just meant to go together. A team from the University of Bath in collaboration with SME McCamley Middle East Ltd has developed a new wind turbine that they claim will overcome many of the problems associated with traditional renewable power generation. Their hybrid technology encases a vertical blade wind turbine in an outer frame that is outfitted with solar cells. Bat and bird friendly as well as quiet, the design is able to be installed on buildings in order to assist with urban electricity projects.

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Post tags: bulgaria, sme mccamley middle east ltd, Solar Power, UK, university of bath, vertical axis wind turbine

Mongolia’s first wind energy project just switched online for the first time! The $100 million Salkhit Wind Farm aims to take advantage of the country’s high winds with 31 turbines, each capable of generating 1.5 MW. It is hoped that the wind farm will reduce dependence on coal fired plants and help the country transition to renewable energy sources.

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Post tags: "wind power", Clean Energy LLC, GE, GE wind turbine, mongolia, Salkhit Wind Farm, SgurrEnergy, wind energy, wind farm

London-based manufacturer Poduhvat has developed a wind turbine which they claim can produce five times more energy than traditional wind turbines with the same rotor size. The contra-rotating Whetar turbine is almost completely silent and it can generate 43,8 MW/h per year with under 50% load capacity.

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind power", green technology, Poduhvat, Poduhvat turbines, renewable energy sources, silent wind turbines, Whetar Wind Turbines, wind energy, wind turbine design, wind turbines

America’s wind farms are set to expand to the offshore market, as the Interior Department just announced that it will auction wind energy rights to 164,750 acres off New England’s coast. Rhode Island and Massachusetts waters will be the first to be leased to wind energy investors. The area has the potential to generate 3,400 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power over a million New England homes.

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Post tags: eco design, federal auctioned wind farm, green design, offshore wind farm united states, offshore wind farms, sustainable design, wind farms rhode island

Google just announced that its new Finnish data center will be powered entirely by wind energy. The company is no stranger to renewable energy, and it struck up a ten year deal with a Swedish wind farm developer to construct a farm to power its new data center. The Hamina, South Finland data center will meet its energy needs by purchasing the entire output of the new O2 wind farm, which will be constructed in Maevaara, Northern Sweden.

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Post tags: "wind power", Allianz, eco design, Google, Google Data processing Center, green design, O2 wind farm, sustainable design

The first grid-connected offshore wind turbine in the US was just installed in Brewer, Maine. The 65-foot-tall VolturnUS turbine is a small-scale prototype of a giant 6-megawatt turbine designed by the University of Maine Composites Center that will be used to test the technology before a full-scale unit is connected to the grid in 2016. The researchers behind the project hope that they will be able to cut the cost of offshore wind to 10 cents/kWh by 2020.

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Post tags: "wind power", offshore turbines US, offshore wind power, renewable energy sources, UMaine floating turbine, University of Maine Composites Center, VolturnUS, VolturnUS turbine, wind energy, wind power US, wind turbine design

Read the rest of Merel Karhof’s Windworks Furniture is Produced From Scratch Using 100% Wind Power!

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Post tags: "sustainable furniture", "wind power", Color Mill, De Kat, Eco Production, Het Jonge Schaap, Knitting Mill, merel karhof, Netherlands, Saw Mill, wind energy, wind knitting factory, Wind Powered Furniture, Wind Powered Knitting Mill, Windmill Furniture, Windworks, Zaanse Schans

The African Development Bank just announced that private investors have raised enough funds to add a whopping 1.1GW of wind power to Africa’s grid. Currently wind power only makes up one percent of electricity production on the continent, but 76 new projects are set to multiply that figure ten-fold.

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind power", "wind turbine", Africa, Africa Development Bank, africa power grid, alternative energy, wind energy

Google X, the tech giant’s top secret experimental branch, recently announced that it will take over Makani Power, a startup that develops wind turbines that fly through the air like a kite, rather than being mounted on massive poles cemented into the ground. The acquisition is just one of many significant investments Google has made into renewable energy technologies, and indicates that airborne wind turbines might soon be ready to move out of the experimental phase and into commercial reality.

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind turbine", 'kite power, Airborne Wind Turbine, Google, google x, makani power, renewable energy

A new study by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Bonneville Power Administration finds that two underground sites in the Pacific Northwest are ideal for storing energy produced by the wind. Compressed air energy storage plants could capture the wind during times when breezes are more abundant at night and demand for electricity is low for use during peak hours. Able to switch between power storage and generation in a matter of minutes, the method could be an important means to assist states reach their Renewable Portfolio Standards.

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Post tags: "wind power", alabama, boardman, bonneville power administration, columbia hills site, Department of Energy, Electricity, geothermal, germany, natural gas, northwest power and conservation council, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, pnnl-bpa, renewable portfolio standard, washington, yakima minerals site

Every once in a while an idea comes along that is so unlike anything before that it defies reference. Take Belatchew Lab Architecture’s Strawscraper, a skyscraper covered in hair that can harness the energy of the wind. The building looks as though it belongs at the bottom of the sea, with its long anemone-like hair, but its technology is planted firmly on the terra firma of the future.

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Post tags: "wind power", Architecture in Stockholm, Belatchew Architecture, Belatchew Labs, hair shell harvests wind, Piezoelectric technology, renewable wind energy, Strawscraper, swedish architecture, urban wind energy

Beijing-based Decode Urbanism Office has designed a conceptual skyscraper with a façade composed of thousands of small wind turbines that would be able to produce enough energy to power the entire building. At night, the diamond-shaped generators are lit with thousands of tiny LED lights incorporated into the building envelope.

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Post tags: Beijing architects, Decode Urbanism Office, kinetic energy wind, LED facade, LED lights, renewable energy sources, sustainable tower, Taichung buildings, Taichung towers, Taichung Wind Tower, Taiwan Wind Tower, tower plum blossom, wind facade

Alternative energy company Urban Green Energy (UGE) has announced the launch of its new vertical axis wind turbine, the VisionAIR. The turbine was the result of over a year of dedicated testing at UGE’s research and development facility and according to the company, and it could be used in distributed energy applications, which are typically located near the point of energy consumption. The VisionAIR will debut at the Beijing International Garden Expo next week.

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Post tags: "wind power", "wind turbine", Seamless Grid, UGE, urban green energy, vertical axis wind turbine, VisionAir, wind energy

Offshore wind farms and tidal energy facilities harness the power of the wind and the ocean – but why should we have separate turbines for each task? Offshore technology company Mitsui is developing a hybrid wind-current power generating system that combines a floating vertical-axis wind turbine with an underwater turbine that generates power from ocean currents. The clever apparatus would cut down on material waste, and it could produce twice as much energy as a conventional wind turbine.

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Post tags: floating wind turbine, Hybrid wind and ocean current turbines, Japan, Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Company, MODEC, ocean currents, ocean power, offshore wind, renewable energy, tidal turbines, vertical axis wind turbine

US-based wind energy company SheerWind just unveiled the INVELOX – a tunnel-based wind turbine that can produce up to 600% more power than traditional wind turbines. The company states that after extensive field-testing, their new INVELOX turbine “significantly outperforms the traditional turbine” and could reduce installation capital costs to less than $750 per KW.

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Post tags: "wind power", INVELOX, INVELOX system, SheerWind, SheerWind INVELOX, traditional wind turbines, tunnel wind turbine system, wind energy, wind turbines

Renewable energy is gaining major momentum in Spain. In April, the country set a new record with renewable energy accounting for 54 percent of the electricity generated in Spain. April’s figure just outpaced March’s record of 51.8 percent of electricity generated by renewables. And those numbers should continue to grow, as wind and solar development continues in the Mediterranean country.

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Post tags: extramadura, new solar plan in extramadura spain, red, red electric de espana, renewable energy in Spain, Spain hits a new record of 54% renewable energy production in April, spain hydropower, spain photovoltaic power potential, spain solar photovoltaic, spain solar thermal, spain wind power

Urban Green Energy Inc has installed 120 solar and wind-powered streetlights in PingQuan, situated in the Hebei province of China. Instead of opting for costly traditional lights that would have needed to sink wires into the ground and connect to the grid, the city chose a more sustainable route. Each Sanya light is equipped with a HoYi! wind turbine and two 280 watt solar panels, allowing them to function completely off-grid.

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Post tags: "wind power", china, hebei, hoyi!, hybrid, LED, New York., pingquan, sanya, solar, streetlight, turbine, urban green energy inc

Critics of wind power keep coming back to the same old complaint: what happens when there’s no wind? A new design from researchers at MIT could finally offer a solution to this renewable energy conundrum. Engineers have conceived of an offshore wind turbine anchored by hollow concrete spheres that could also turn seawater into electricity. The turbine would allow offshore wind farm managers to store excess energy for a time when there’s no wind.

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Post tags: "wind power", "wind turbine", coral reefs, floating wind turbines, MArine Power, MIT, offshore wind, wind farm

Today’s wind turbines are big and heavy, which makes them costly to build and maintain – especially when they are installed offshore. To make turbines more efficient, the European Union just launched SUPRAPOWER, a four-year project led by Tecnalia in Spain that includes nine other industry and science partners across Europe. The initiative is researching superconductor technology to develop a next-gen wind turbine that could cut manufacturing costs by 30%.

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Post tags: cost of wind turbine manufacturing, Cryogenic Engineering Division, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, offshore wind turbine scalability, reducing wind turbine manufacturing cost by 30%, superconductor scale generator for wind power, SUPRAPOWER, Tecnalia, Tecnalia Technological Corporation, wind turbines

Inspecting wind turbines is not for the faint of heart. Some of the largest wind turbines possess rotating blades that are hundreds of feet in length suspended at dizzying heights, and getting up close to equipment is no easy task. Yet where humans dare not tread, machines have no fear. Wisconsin-based Helical Robotics just debuted its HR-MP20, a climbing robot that can wirelessly scale a wind turbine and climb out onto the blades. At only 42lbs, the robot can move at max speed of 232.5 feet per minute, all while being controlled by a human back on the ground.

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Post tags: "wind turbine", climb, digital camera, helical robotics, hr-mp20, neodymium magnets, radio control, robot, wireless, wisconsin