September 1, 2010

Genoa Township, Mich., has installed five solar and wind hybrid systems... [More]

August 24, 2010

The Recovery Act is working, and Vice President Joe Biden had some metrics Tuesday to back up that claim.

With the help of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act investments, the United States is on track to double its renewable energy generation capacity by 2012 and significantly drive down the cost of electric batteries and solar technology over the next five years, Biden said to an audience of Recovery Act recipients at the White House.

Joined by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Biden made the remarks during a speech to unveil a report, titled “The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation,” that analyzed the impacts of Recovery Act investments in science and technology projects, many in the clean energy sector. [More]

August 23, 2010

Have a question about wind energy? You're not alone.... [More]

August 16, 2010

Thirty miles to the north of Dallas, Texas, the city of McKinney is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation – and included on Forbes' top 25 best places to move... [More]

August 10, 2010

This time last year, Mary Jo Celichowski was at home in Oshkosh, Wis., unemployed and a little antsy after the motor parts company she was working at down-sized. Today, it's a bit different.

"We're extremely busy here," says the wind turbine parts buyer for Renewegy, which manufactures smaller-scale wind turbines. Celichowski joined the company in January. "I am currently busy purchasing components for the 30 wind units we are going to start building." [More]

August 4, 2010

A research team at the University of Massachusetts Lowell is ironing out the kinks in blade manufacturing to make way for safer, lighter and cheaper blades.

The Wind Turbine Research Group (WTRG) at UMass Lowell has received $401,885 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to figure out where and why some blades "wrinkle"— a serious internal fracture caused by bunching up or buckling of materials during the molding process. [More]

July 29, 2010

Everything keeps getting bigger in the wind energy industry: turbines, blades and now the towers that hold them in place.

Today, most steel towers that support utility-scale turbines stand about 80 meters tall, but the Tindall Corporation wants to go higher using precast concrete to raise turbines over 100 meters in height to capture stronger, steadier winds - and more energy. [More]

July 23, 2010

America's first-of-its-kind wind blade testing facility — capable of testing blades as long as football fields — almost never was.

Because of funding woes, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), which owns and will operate the testing center, was going to scale down to a smaller facility, a move that would have sent American manufacturers elsewhere for testing and stunted a domestic wind industry that's moving towards bigger blades. [More]

July 23, 2010

On an Oahu cliff, construction has begun on a 30 MW wind farm that will help Hawaii meet its goal of 70 percent renewable energy by 2030.

The Kahuku Wind project is being developed by Boston-based First Wind, a private company, using $117 million in conditional loan guarantees supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. [More]

July 21, 2010

"Traditionally, we made automotive products," says Scott McKay, General Manager for Merrill Technologies Group in Saginaw, Mich. "After several ups and downs in that industry, we’ve opened our eyes to finding ways to diversify our line of products, and one of those areas is in making renewable energy materials." [More]

July 19, 2010

The city of Colton, S.D. is a small, agriculturally-based community. So small that Mayor Erik Miller says if his two Labrador retrievers ever got lost, local residents would have no trouble finding them.

"Colton is like taking a trip to the past," says Miller. [More]

July 14, 2010

A wind turbine parts facility in Cuba City, Wis., is getting another chance after shutting down twice and laying off employees over the last two years.

The Wausaukee Composites, Inc. facility will reopen its doors this fall, thanks to new orders from international wind turbine companies that will keep production going into 2012 and beyond. [More]

July 12, 2010

Last year, Israel Sanchez, a 31-year-old Newton, Kan., resident, was painting the blades of wind turbines for Enertech, Inc., a small-scale wind manufacturer. Now he's assembling the entire system.

"They promoted me," says Sanchez, taking a quick break from the assembly line in the 10,000 square-foot plant in Newton. "It's a new field for me, but I'm excited because it's all new experiences every day." [More]

July 9, 2010

Drivers along the Florida stretches of I-10, I-110, I-75 and other highways will soon see more than advertising messages on roadside signs. Lamar Advertising is converting almost 1500 of its Florida billboards to renewable energy devices. Solar panels and wind turbines will top the displays.

The company hopes to communicate the value of renewable energy to millions of travelers cruising along major Florida highways and thoroughfares. The Florida Energy and Climate Commission liked the sound of that and granted the project $2.5 million through the U.S. Department of Energy's State Energy Program. Lamar contributed $10 million to the initiative. [More]

July 6, 2010

Tom Bos has found a new profession.

Bos was laid off after 20 years in a small company office environment. He spent 14 months looking for a job, before seeing an ad in the local paper about Grand Rapids Community College's new composites training course. The course was developed through a partnership with Energetx Composites, a Holland, Mich.-based wind turbine blade manufacturer.

A friend who worked at Tiara Yachts — Energetx's sister company — told Bos about how Energetx was hiring people with composites training for positions in wind turbine blade manufacturing. [More]

June 28, 2010

On the street level in Reno, it may be easy to forget that every time the breeze blows off the Truckee River and past the 17-story City Hall, the town is quietly saving money.

But the $11,000 the city is expected to save each year from wind power will be a friendly reminder. Installed in early June, the two 1.5-kilowatt wind turbines on City Hall also make Reno one of the first cities in the nation to capture and generate energy from wind from the rooftop of a city hall building. [More]

June 28, 2010

The Timken Company - which will be 111-years-old later this year - has a long tradition of investing in new technologies. After assessing their business in recent years, the Ohio-based, global manufacturer saw a market opportunity and decided to invest in a new manufacturing capability: producing the massive bearings for large wind turbines.

"Timken has the tenacity to continue to invest into the trough of the recession," says Lorrie Crum, manager of global media and strategic communications. "That’s what it takes to survive in this economic climate."

Using a 48C Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit, the company will retool production processes in its Union, S.C. plant-known as Tyger River-to manufacture heavy-duty bearings responsible for producing power from wind turbines. [More]

June 25, 2010

The steady increase of wind power on the grid presents new challenges for power system operators charged with making sure the grid stays up and running.

"We need to ensure that we are going down a path that will lead to better reliability [with wind power]," said Bob Zavadil, an executive vice president at EnerNex Corporation in Knoxville, Tenn., a firm specializing in renewable energy grid interconnection and integration. "If this piece isn't done, there will be problems."

EnerNex has spent the last decade perfecting wind turbine and plant models that test a wind plant's influence on the grid and its ability to provide grid support. In its latest effort, the company is using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds worth $750,000 to develop documentation and validations of computer wind turbine models. [More]

June 24, 2010

In what looks and feels more like an e-book on the iPad than a website, a new digital book by Cannon Power Group, a San Diego-based developer of utility-scale wind, tells the story of the construction of a 400 MW wind farm along a 26-mile stretch in Goldendale, Wash., located on a ridgeline plateau about 125 miles east of Portland, Ore.

"The New American Farm" chronicles the stages of the Windy Flats/Windy Point project in seven interactive chapters: from "Prospecting" (finding the right site) to "Planting" (installing 175, 300-foot turbines) to "Harvest" (distributing the wind energy). [More]

June 18, 2010

Near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, there's a shift taking place. [More]