Wales wind power line to go underground near historic village

April 29, 2013

MEIFOD, Wales, April 29 (UPI) — A controversial power line connecting onshore wind farms in Wales to England will be placed underground near a historic village, National Grid has announced.

The company said in a release last week it is bowing to one of the demands of residents fighting the 40-mile combination of more than 100 overhead pylons and underground cables — an effort to connect about 10 planned wind farms in scenic mid-Wales to the British grid via 400-kilovolt cables.

The British transmission system operator, which is still working on the final route through the region, revealed last Wednesday the lines would be placed underground around the village of Meifod in the Vyrnwy River valley, about 7 miles northwest of Welshpool.

Opposition to the power line was especially strong in and around the tiny village, which is revered as the burial place for several of the rulers and princes of the medieval kingdom of Powys and is held up as a prime example of the rugged, pre-industrial beauty of the Welsh countryside.

In making the announcement, National Grid’s Jeremy Lee also confirmed the Vyrnwy Valley is the preferred route of the line, while the nearby Peniarth Valley had been eliminated from consideration.

“We’re continuing to work on the best route for the connection. But it was becoming increasingly clear that construction challenges, such as the steepness of the valley, and environmental effects in the Peniarth Valley makes a route through the Vyrnwy Valley a better option to take forward,” he said.

“A section of underground cable in the more sensitive areas around the village of Meifod seems appropriate recognizing the beautiful landscape and rich cultural heritage,” Lee added.

The company is “committed to continuing to listen to local views as we develop the rest of our plans,” he said.

National Grid contends it is trying to strike a balance between Britain’s need to develop renewable energy sources and the concerns of those living along the route, who claim it will devastate the countryside and ruin the local tourism trade.

The 40-mile route, which would include 100 154-foot overhead pylons, would stretch from Cefn Coch in Montgomeryshire, Wales, through Llansantffraid near Welshpool to Lower Frankton in Shropshire, England.

Along the way it would traverse the scenic Powys uplands and the Vyrnwy Valley, which is popular with hikers, rock climbers, bicyclists and equestrians.

One of the biggest obstacles integrating more renewable power sources is connecting the scattered wind generation sources to the grid, which was built to serve single-source, fossil-fuel generating plants.

Some estimates have suggested Britain’s power network needs more than $300 billion in upgrades to connect up the new sources of energy.

The announcement of the Meifod and Vyrnwy Valley plans generated little enthusiasm from opponents.

“While I would like to see further details of (Wednesday’s) decision, the announcement comes as no surprise,” Montgomeryshire Welsh Assembly Member Russell George said.

“However, even though (the Peniarth Valley) route has been discounted, National Grid is still determined to press ahead with the connection project and destroy large areas of Montgomeryshire, in the face of community opposition.

“As far as I am concerned, there is absolutely no justification for this project to go ahead and I urge all communities in Montgomeryshire to remain resolute and united in their opposition of the entire project and maintain the campaign to get it stopped,” George said.

Source: United Press International (UPI).

Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/04/29/Wales-wind-power-line-to-go-underground-near-historic-village/UPI-87741367208240/.

Advanced wind turbine design eliminates need for environmentally-harmful rare earth metals, generates electricity at $0.04 per kWh

Thursday, September 22, 2011
by: Jonathan Benson

(NaturalNews) The bumbling, inefficient reputation of current wind energy technology just might get the game-changing overhaul it needs to become a viable form of clean energy production, thanks to a new permanent magnet generator (PMG) design created by Boulder Wind Power (BWP).

According to a recent report by Green Tech Media, the budding technology does not require the use of expensive, environmentally-damaging rare earth metals typically imported from China, and it also generates electricity at a lower cost than traditional coal-burning plants are able to do.

Most wind turbines in use today rely on complicated gearboxes that run at high temperatures, that wear out easily, and that are difficult and expensive to maintain. They also require the use of dysprosium, an expensive, rare-earth metal obtained from China, a country whose track record of environmental friendliness leaves much to be desired.

In other words, the lofty price of dysprosium, which can run as high as $2,000 per kilo (2.2 pounds), combined with the frequent need to maintain and replace a slew of intricate turbine parts, has made current wind energy production technologies inadequate and unable to compete in the energy market apart from government subsidization.

The PMG design, however, eliminates the gear-driven system, which BWP describes as “a bunch of very high precision, high quality steel parts in a gear box,” with a direct drive system that is “basically one big moving part.” And since this single part relies on neodymium, which is one-twentieth the price of dysprosium, and mined in California using an environmentally-friendly extraction process, its potential to replace current wind energy technologies is essentially a given.

But the biggest reason why the PMG wind design is sure to take off is that it actually produces energy for less than both current wind energy technologies and traditional coal technologies do. With the capacity to produce energy at a cost of roughly $0.04 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), without government subsidization, PMG’s economic viability alone is enough to eventually propel it to the forefront of the clean energy market.

“We’re not inventing new science,” said BWP CEO Sandy Butterfield. “We don’t expect the rotor to change. We don’t expect the tower to change. The nacelle — everything between the tower and the rotor — will have significant changes. But it’s all mechanical engineering.”

Source: NaturalNews.
Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/033647_wind_turbines_rare_earth_metals.html.

Italy moves closer to wind energy goals

Sept. 9, 2011

ESSEN, Germany, Sept. 9 (UPI) — RWE Innogy announced it commissioned its third onshore wind farm in Italy, putting the government closer to its wind energy targets for 2020.

Italy aims to have 12 gigawatts of installed wind capacity by 2020. RWE Innogy, a division of Germany’s RWE, announced that, after a year’s worth of construction work, its third wind farm was commissioned in Italy.

The eight-turbine wind farm can produce 16 megawatts of energy, enough to meet the annual energy needs of 10,000 homes.

The wind farm is on a plateau 3,600 feet above sea level in the southern Italian region of Basilicata.

“Our aim is not only to compose a portfolio along technology lines but also geographically, for example in order to accommodate a wide range of weather conditions,” Hans Bunting, chief financial officer with RWE Innogy, said in a statement.

Italy by the end of last year had 5.8 gigawatts of wind energy installed. The government by the end of this year plans to introduce a tariff system to promote renewable energy.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/09/09/Italy-moves-closer-to-wind-energy-goals/UPI-97191315568846/.

Michigan sees future in wind energy

HARRISON TOWNSHIP, Mich., Aug. 30 (UPI) — Developing wind energy in Michigan is providing economic stimulus to the state and redefining its workforce, a U.S. congresswoman said.

U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., whose district includes the eastern part of the state, toured a wind-energy project in the so-called thumb area. She said more than 80 percent of the workforce needed to build the Michigan Wind 2 site is coming from state labor pools.

“This wind farm is providing our area with clean energy, and is doing so by engaging the local community,” she said in a statement.

Exelon Wind is building three wind farms in Michigan. The Wind 2 site will have 50 turbines spinning by the end of the year, supplying 90 megawatts of clean energy to Michigan consumers.

The thumb region is expected to become one of the more robust wind energy regions in the state. DTE Energy, a state utility company, aims to invest $225 million in three wind farms in the area.

Consumers Energy, another state utility, said it was doubling the amount of solar power it would purchase from its customers under a state plan that requires utility companies to get 10 percent of their energy from renewable resources by 2015.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/08/30/Michigan-sees-future-in-wind-energy/UPI-28001314714809/.

Chinese turbine maker enters Irish project

DUBLIN, Ireland, Aug. 17 (UPI) — Chinese wind turbine maker XEMC Group has forged a strategic partnership with Irish renewables firm Gaelectric Holdings, the companies announced this week.

Under the deal, Gaelectric will work with XEMC to develop three onshore wind farms in Ireland totaling 13.6 megawatts, worth a combined $26 million, Gaelectric Chief Executive Brendan McGrath told reporters at a Monday signing ceremony in Dublin.

“With the backing of XEMC’s industrial strength and technological capacity and their track record and commitment to long term relationships, we are confident that Gaelectric’s portfolio of wind farm sites will be realized to the highest commercial and technical standards,” he said.

The deal marks the European debut of turbines made by the state owned XEMC Group of Hunan, China, which says it has 820 of its XE series direct-drive, permanent magnet generator, or PMG, wind turbines installed in China.

Another key element of the deal, McGrath said, is that XEMC will co-develop Gaelectric’s remaining wind energy projects in Ireland and the United States.

Initially, the agreement covers three onshore farms at Roosky in County Roscommon, Leabeg in County Offaly and Crowinstown in Westmeath, Ireland, the companies said.

McGrath said his March visit to China satisfied him that XEMC had a sufficient commitment to research and development, which “combines Dutch engineering design and pedigree with Chinese industrial power.”

Together, he said, the companies “share a vision for the significant opportunities from offshore wind energy generation on which we are already working closely together.”

“Gaelectric’s pipeline of wind farm projects in key locations in Ireland and the U.S., combined with our shared focus on innovation in renewable energy technologies, makes us ideal allies in co-developing Gaelectric’s portfolio of renewable power projects,” XEMC Group Chairman Zhou Jianxiong told reporters.

The Irish Industrial Development Agency called the XEMC-Gaelectric partnership an important development in the history of Chinese-Irish business cooperation, the Irish technology news Web site SiliconRepublic.com reported.

It said XEMC is putting its research and development emphasis on its PMG technology — a prototype of its new 5-megawatt turbine has been installed at a test center in the Netherlands.

Gaelectric, established in 2004, has assets and projects under development in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and North America, including up to 3,000 megawatts of wind power projects in the U.S. state of Montana. The company says the first of its farms there, a 430-megawatt effort, is to be commissioned in 2014 or 2015.

Gaelectric announced in March it had secured planning approval for 42-megwatt wind farm at Dunbeg in Northern Ireland’s County Derry, which it built for $98 million.

It called Dunbeg “one of the most significant wind farm developments on the island of Ireland,” generating enough renewable power to meet the electricity demand of 24,000 homes.

The big wind farm will consist of 14 wind turbines with a maximum hub height of 260 feet and a maximum blade diameter of 295 feet, the company said.

The project had initially been quashed by the Northern Ireland Planning Service because Dunbeg, between Coleraine and Limavady, Northern Ireland, was designated as a scenic preserve, The Irish Times reported.

But an appellate commission subsequently overruled the planning shouldn’t stand in the way of green energy projects, the newspaper said.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/08/17/Chinese-turbine-maker-enters-Irish-project/UPI-25531313576520/.