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

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

After weeks of submissions and an intense week of online voting, we’re excited to finally announce the two winners of Inhabitat’s Lighten Up! Lighting Design Competition. We received hundreds of entries featuring projects that employ LEDs in innovative and interesting ways, ranging from a colorful art installation that reacts to changing light to a restaurant donning beautiful ceiling lamps to a research campus adorned with LED back-lit wood walls. We narrowed all the entries we received down to just 30 finalists, and then left it up to Inhabitat readers to decide which two designs were most deserving of $1000 prizes from Elemental LED. So who won? Now the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

Drumroll Please……….

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Post tags: "wind power", 3D printed lamp, 3D printed light, 3D printing, aerodynamics, Air Turbine, Air Turbine Light, diTTo design, diTTo’s LED Acoustic Cloud Installation, green design, green interiors, green lighting, inhabitat competition, Inhabitat Design Competition, interior lighting design, LED Acoustic Cloud Installation, LED lighting installation, Lighten Up, lighten up competition, Lighten Up LED Lighting competition, Lighten Up LED Lighting competition commercial winner, Lighten Up LED Lighting competition residential winner, lighten up lighting design competition, lighten up lighting design winner, lighten up winner, lighting object, margot krasojevic, Rolluda Architects, wind-powered light Lighten Up LED Lighting competition

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

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.

Read the rest of UGE Rolls Out Solar and Wind-Powered LED Streetlights in PingQuan, China

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

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind power", Antarctic, Brazilian Antarctica, clean tech, Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station, conservation, eco design, Estudio 41, green design, Keller Peninsula, prefabricated design, research, science, Solar Power, sustainable design, thermal loss, weather proof, Wildlife

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

March marked a historic month for renewable energy, as for first time ever 100% of new utility electricity generation added to the US grid came from solar power. According to a report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), seven solar projects in California, Nevada, New Jersey, Hawaii, Arizona, and North Carolina added 44MW to the grid. It may not be a particularly jaw-dropping figure, but as projects from other energy sources added no new generation, solar’s record month does point to a promising outlook for the industry.

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Post tags: "wind power", green energy, nrg energy, renewable energy, renewables grid, SEIA, solar capacity, solar electricity, solar grid, solar industry energy, solar plant, Solar Power

England’s London Array just placed its last wind turbine and switched online as the world’s largest wind farm. Located in the Thames Estuary, the farm consists of 175 turbines that will power the area from Essex to Margate. Owned by Dong Energy, Masdar and EON, the 141 turbine (630 MW) phase one of the London Array is now fully functional.

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Post tags: "wind power", "wind turbine", blackfriars bridge, dong energy, eco design, EON, green design, London Array, london green energy, london wind power, Masdar, renewable energy, siemens, sustainable design, thames estuary, wind farm, world's largest wind farm

After reaching record levels of production in 2012, the world’s wind power capacity is projected to grow to reach 300,000 MW by the end of 2013. With major projects announced in the past few months, China, Denmark the EU and the US remain among the primary producers of the world’s wind power, while Japan hopes to soon become home to the world’s largest offshore wind farm as nations in Eastern Europe and Latin America begin to harness their own wind potential. Currently operating wind turbines can already—at European levels of production—provide carbon-free power for over 450 million homes world-wide.

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Post tags: "wind power", california wind farm, china wind, denmark energy, global wind power capacity, offshore wind, palm springs wind, renewable energy, wind capacity, wind power production, world wind power generation

Denmark has an impressive track record when it comes to the adoption of renewable energy, and the nation has been working quickly to develop its substantial offshore wind potential. Last month, with the installation of their 36th 3.6 megawatt (MW) Siemens wind turbine, the nation reached an impressive 1 GW wind-power capacity – enough to power 25 percent of the nation. Moreover, they aim to be 50 percent powered by wind farms within the next eight years, not simply through the installation of renewable energy infrastructure, but through a holistic adoption of energy-efficient policies and technologies.

Read the rest of Denmark Now 25 Percent Powered by Offshore Wind, Aims to Double Capacity by 2020

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Post tags: "wind power", anholt wind farm, car charging network, carbon neutrality, copenhagen, danish wind, Denmark, electric cars, europe renewables, hydroelectric, north sea power, norway, Offshore Wind Farm, renewable energy, siemens, sustainable infrastructure, Sweden, wind turbines

Researchers at TU Delft recently teamed up with Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo to design a bird-friendly wind turbine that can transform wind energy into electricity without any mechanical moving parts. The turbine, dubbed the EWICON, was installed at the Delft University of Technology in March.

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind power", bladeless wind turbine, Ewicon, green technology, Mecanoo wind turbine, renewable energy sources, TU Delft wind turbine, wind energy, Wind Renewable Energy, wind turbine design, wind turbine generator, wind turbines

Why settle for one form of renewable energy when you can produce power with two? That’s exactly what scientists from the University of Liverpool have done by upgrading an everyday wind turbine with a new set of spinning solar blades. The team, led by Dr. Joe King, came up with the innovative solution to stymie critics who say wind turbines are “only useful when the wind is blowing” — their design doubles the functionality of traditional turbines by incorporating photovoltaic technology.

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Post tags: "april fools", "wind power", dr joe king, heat wave, Solar Power, solar power uk, solar powered wind turbine, wind power uk, wind turbines solar

Despite opposition from the world’s most outspoken billionaire, an offshore wind farm near Aberdeen has been given the green light by the Scottish government. The 11-turbine project will overlook the North Sea, not far from Trump’s International Golf Resort. The billionaire claims that the green project will obstruct the views from his billion-dollar resort, potentially costing him millions.

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Post tags: "wind power", Donald Trump, Donald Trump Scotland Wind Farm, eco design, green design, offshore wind farm Aberdeen, sustainable design, Trump's International Gulf Resort

Washington D.C. has just announced a huge step forward in its quest to become America’s “greenest” city. The District of Columbia Department of General Services (DGS) has signed a one-year contract that requires all government agencies to use 100 percent wind power for their electricity needs. The new contract with Herndon-based Washington Gas Energy Services (WGES) improves upon the District’s prior commitment of using 50 percent wind-generated electricity.

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Post tags: "energy star", "leed", "wind power", District of Columbia, Electricity, honest buildings, renewable energy, Washington DC, WGES, wind farm

The title of ‘world’s largest offshore wind farm‘ has been batted about many times in the past few years – from the 100-turbine Thanet Wind Farm in the North Sea to the 175-turbine London Array. However Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd is planning to top both by constructing three offshore wind farms located 22km (13.5 miles) from the Caithness coast that will contain a total of 339 turbines. The £4.5bn project has the potential to power up to one million households in Scotland.

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Post tags: "wind power", Moray Firth, Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd, Offshore Wind Farm, Scotland, wind energy, world's biggest wind farm, world's largest offshore wind farm

Students of the Kalindi Colege at Delhi University have received approval to pilot a project that will use the high-speed winds generated by metro trains to produce energy. The team of 10 students and two teachers developed a proposal that consists of small turbines placed strategically throughout Delhi’s 196-kilometer metro network.

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind power", "wind turbine", Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Delhi metro wind power, Delhi University student research, India carbon footprint, India wind power, metro wind power, rail travel in India, renewable energy sources, underground wind power, wind energy, Wind Renewable Energy

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia sits upon the world’s second-largest oil reserves, and as such, oil dominates the national economy. But in recent years, Saudi Arabia has begun taking advantage of the abundant sun and wind it enjoys by developing several major renewable energy projects. According to a new white paper published this week, Saudi Arabia will seek to develop 23.9 GW of renewable energy by 2020 and 54.1 GW by 2032, making it one of the biggest renewable energy producers in the world.

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Post tags: "wind power", photovoltaic, renewable energy, saudi arabia, saudi oil, Saudi renewable energy, solar, solar array, solar farm, solar panels, Solar Power, wind energy, wind farm, wind turbines, windmills

Hydroelectric power can be a very efficient way to produce or augment renewable energy. But if you don’t have a nearby river that’s big enough to dam—that’s where pumped storage comes in. Using the power of gravity and a reversible turbine, Toronto’s Northland power wants to convert an old open-pit iron ore mine in Marmora, Ontario, into a waterfall five times the height of Niagara Falls. Water spilling over the new waterfall could generate 400-megawatts of power and allow customers to take advantage of peak-time power prices when demand is high and local wind turbines typically are less active.

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Post tags: "wind power", canada, hydro power, hydroelectric power, Marmora, Northland Power, Ontario, open pit mine, power storage, pumped storage, wind energy

Over the past decade, no country has embraced renewable energy with as much enthusiasm as Germany. Despite phasing out nuclear power, the country is exporting more energy than ever, thanks largely to its investment in renewable energy. One town in particular stands as a shining beacon of the potential that renewable energy holds: Feldheim, a small village located about 60 kilometers from Berlin that has its own energy grid and generates all of its power from wind, solar and biogas.

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Post tags: "wind power", energy independent, Feldheim, German town, germany, renewable energy town, wind energy, wind farm, wind turbines