Points of Interest | Green Energy News

July 27, 2003 – Vol.8 No.18

POINTS OF INTEREST.

A weekly collection of websites worth visiting.

iPower Technologies is worth watching, not so much for its current product line, but for the potential in its heritage. The company was created in 2000 by AeroVironment and Delco Remy, and also includes partners DTE Energy and Hydro-Quebec Capitech, to pursue opportunities in distributed generation and hybrid electric vehicle markets. AeroVironment is a cutting-edge technology developer - having built such things as pedal and solar-powered airplanes. Delco Remy is a world-wide manufacturer and distributor of auto parts. The company plans to capitalize on Delco’s world presence to market products in the future.

The company now makes combustion generators for distributed generation that can be run on alternative fuels and in combined heat and power applications, as well as other related equipment. http://www.ipowertechnologies.com/

The Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium remains an advocate for one of the most oft-forgotten, oft-ignored green energy technologies - geoexchange or ground source heating and cooling (which some include under the header of geothermal energy.)

A Geoexchange heating/cooling system relies on stable temperatures below ground level from which to extract heat. Systems are generally custom built for each application from available parts and components. The Consortium, at its website, explains how a system works as well as provides a searchable list of contractors with experience in designing and installing a system. http://www.geoexchange.org/

Windland Inc. and Windbrokers are both dealers in used, once-connected-to-the-grid wind turbines. As readers may or may not have noticed the output capacity of wind turbines has increased dramatically in the last few years. Less than ten years ago the typical capacity for a utility grade wind turbine was about 300 kilowatts. Now most turbines sold by the major companies are at least one megawatt, with offshore units as big as 3.6 megawatts with 4.5 megawatts soon to be available.

Yet wind turbines are mechanically fairly simple and often robustly built to last for decades. So when a wind farm operator decides to upgrade to larger turbines for greater capacity (or fewer turbines) the obsolete (in terms of output) turbines are refurbished and sold in the marketplace through companies like Windland and Windbrokers. The turbines listed by each are too large for home use but with reasonable prices can and will be used for many applications around the globe. http://www.windland.com/ http://www.windbrokers.com/ .