Nancy Sutley, White House Council on Environmental Quality
As US citizens prepare for the summer season and federal politicians lobby for votes in the upcoming November election, an increasingly acrimonious debate over extending the nation’s main wind power incentive continues.
On Monday, Nancy Sutley, President Barack Obama’s principal environmental advisor and Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, joined other politicians in Saint Paul, Minnesota to highlight the need for Congress to extend the existing Production Tax Credit (PTC).
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Current wind turbine design is revolving around the 6 to 7 MW capacity range, with increasingly large rotor diameters.
But why go for a 7 MW turbine with a bigger rotor when a range of 3-5 MW designs are already available?
“There’s an offshore market kicking off,” Anders Bach Andersen of Vestas told Wind Directions magazine. “and in order to make that market reasonably competitive bigger turbines are needed. With bigger turbines you need fewer of them and you can reduce both capital and operating costs. But with fewer turbines you have potentially a smaller swept area at wind farm level so you need to compensate for that by equipping the machine with a larger diameter rotor.”
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Chris Hopson
Comment by Recharge Editor-in-Chief Christopher Hopson. Reproduced with kind permission of Recharge.
Opinion polls in many countries show that most people actually like the look of wind farms. There is even a strong body of evidence to suggest that wind farms encourage tourism through such things as trips to visitor centres.
As can be instantly seen from the display of winning photographs for the Global Wind Day competition published across our centre pages this week, not only do wind farms generate power, visually they can be very much in harmony with surrounding landscapes.
Only a vocal anti-wind minority, mainly supported by out-of-touch conservative politicians and right-wing businessmen such as failed US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, view wind farms as “monstrosities”. The vast majority see wind as an exciting form of clean energy. Looking at the pictures, it’s easy to see why.
Wind farms in Australia are making an increasingly larger contribution to the nation’s economic performance and should continue doing so in the future, according to a new study commissioned by the Clean Energy Council (CEC).
The study, conducted by consultants Sinclair Knight Merz, found that a total of €3.4 billion has been invested in Australia as a result of wind power projects and, based on current proposed and approved projects, there is the potential for another €14.3 billion in local investment. continue reading »
By Megan Swieca
Offshore renewable energies are expanding to meet the EU’s 2020 renewable energy targets, but renewables are one of many activities competing for space at sea. Meanwhile, Europe’s maritime nations are currently operating under their own planning rules and guidelines, which often conflict with their neighbours and waste time and money.
This was the focus of a two year project, funded by the European Commission’s Intelligent Energy Europe programme and coordinated by EWEA, entitled SEANERGY 2020. The main findings and policy recommendations of the project were presented at a final workshop as part of the European Union Sustainable Energy Week. continue reading »
