World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

February 19, 2006 – Vol.10 No.48

WORLD WIND WATCH.

President Bush and a few cabinet secretaries have been speaking at various renewable energy companies as well as the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) pushing the President’s agenda for more spending on renewable energy research: his Advanced Energy Initiative. At the NREL Bush said that wind energy could supply 20 percent of the nation’s power.

But for Bush trouble may be brewing in Congress: new legislation that could effectively cancel what would be that nation’s first offshore wind farm.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young (Republican-Alaska) and chair of the House-Senate conference committee that is finalizing the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act, H.R. 889, wants to add an amendment to the bill that not allow the installation of offshore wind turbines within 1.5 miles of shipping channels or ferry routes. The new restriction, to which even the Coast Guard is opposed, would effectively kill Cape Wind. So many turbines would have to be removed from the plan that Cape Wind would no longer be economically viable.

Currently ships can pass within 500 feet of offshore installations including oil and natural gas rigs. Another proposed offshore wind project, Long Island Offshore Wind Park, is more than 1.5 miles from shipping channels so wouldn’t be affected.

The amendment would also require the Coast Guard to develop a new rule-making process for offshore wind farms which would delay the construction of all offshore wind farms.

Both the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and Cape Wind are urging citizens to contact those senators that can keep Young’s amendment from being included in the final version of Coast Guard Reauthorization Act.

But what happens if Young’s amendment stays and both houses agree to the final version? It’s on to the President to sign. Bush, in 5 years in office has yet to veto any legislation. Would this be his first? Visit Cape Wind at http://www.capewind.org/ and the AWEA at http://www.awea.org/ .

This editor can’t fly to Japan or Europe to investigate new products. But if press releases and websites are to be believed (and in this case there’s no reason to believe they shouldn’t) Tokyo-based Zephyr Corporation has now begun worldwide shipping of what could be the most technologically advanced small wind turbine on the planet: the Air Dolphin Mark-Zero.

Here are the specs for the turbine aimed at battery charging, distributed generation, and micro-grids built with multiple Mark-Zeroes:

--- Rated power output: 1-kilowatt at 28 mph (12.5 m/s) wind speed.

--- Maximum power output: 3.2-kilowatts at 45 mph (20 m/s)

--- Power generation range: nonstop 6 -112 mph (2.5 m/s to 50 m/s)

--- Blade rotor diameter: 6 feet (1.8 meters )

--- Weight: 39 lbs (17.5 kilograms)

--- Maximum efficiency: 40 percent at 13 mph (6 m/s)

--- Price? The company suggests 472,500 yen ($4050)

It also has an all-aluminum housing, a carbon-fiber, low-noise set of blades, and a has marine-mammal-looking swishing rudder that, along with the turbine’s low mass, keeps the Air Dolphin pointed into the breeze.

The Mark-Zero also has power assist rotation, which helps put slight breezes to work generating electricity.

Once a minute, in no-wind conditions, the blade is turned to 150 revolutions per minute for ten seconds, just enough to create aerodynamic lift and overcome inertia of the rotor. Should a light breeze be available the turbine will keep rotating and generating power. (In essence the turbine has a starter motor.)

The power assist function isn’t used if wind is already spinning the rotor. Power consumption by the power assist is only 10 Watts per hour per day and Zephyr feels that a small amount of power can be sacrificed when the result is more power generated at low wind speeds.

Zephyr also offers a variety of towers including a guyless tilting version. Visit Zephyr at http://www.zephyreco.co.jp/en/index.htm