World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

July 23, 2006 – Vol.11 No.18

WORLD WIND WATCH.

Cuba will soon start building its first wind farm and there may be more on the way.

According to news agency Prensa Latina, Cuba, using its own resources, will build a 5.1 megawatt wind farm with six 850 kilowatt turbines in Holguin on the Gibara coast. The site, which has the potential of 500 megawatts of wind capacity, is along the northeastern coast and takes advantage of steady Atlantic Tradewinds.

The wind project at Holguin is set for completion in early 2007 and it appears more projects will follow.

Through an authorized dealer Carmanah, a Vancouver, British Columbia based maker of solar/LED products, has supplied over 400 solar/LED obstruction lights that have been, or will soon be, installed atop wind energy evaluation towers in the country.

Not only is Cuba situated within Atlantic Tradewinds (named for their ability to propel commercial sailing ships between the Europe and the Americas), it has three mountain ranges that can compress and accelerate breezes that can be harnessed by wind turbines. In short, Cuba seems to have good wind energy potential. Visit Carmanah at http://www.carmanah.com/

In a recent interview on National Public Radio (NPR) a Kansas farmer, who hosted a number of wind turbines on his property, was asked which farming he preferred, traditional or wind.

“The turbines.” he answered.

Wind energy is a natural fit for farmers. Little land is lost. Crops (which could be fuel crops) can still be grown underneath the turbines. And farmers get regular payments from wind energy operators which supplement their regular income from cultivating the soil. That supplement is often needed.

The farmer also expressed a thought. More wind energy could be built in America’s heartland if more transmission capacity was built to bring power to populated markets.

Even without America’s midsection wired for wind power transmission, wind development still goes on.

MidAmerican Energy has announced that construction will begin later this year on a 123-megawatt wind farm in Pocahontas County, Iowa. To be complete before the end of 2007, the project is another in MidAmerican’s plan to build 545 megawatts of new wind capacity in the largely agricultural state.

The utility company is also currently building a 99-megawatt project in Carroll and Crawford Counties.

MidAmerican Energy, along with PacifiCorp which operates in the Pacific Northwest, are subsidiaries of MidAmerican Holdings. With PacifiCorp’s announcement this week that it has purchased Leaning Juniper 1, a 100.5-megawatt wind project in the Columbia Gorge region of north central Oregon, MidAmerican Holdings has added 223.5 megawatts of renewable energy to its portfolio. Combined with other renewable assets - hydroelectric, geothermal, biofuel and solar - more than 15 percent of the combined power generation portfolio is from renewables. Visit MidAmerican Energy at http://www.midamericanenergy.com/ PacifiCorp at http://www.pacificorp.com/