The CORUS Centre, the Ion Beam Laboratory (LAFI) and LM Glasfiber have formed a research partnership to develop a surface treatment process to reduce the formation and build-up of different types of ice on the external parts of wind turbines. ..."The build-up and spread of ice on the blades cause the blades to be less aerodynamic and also cause many other problems such as increased vibrations, mechanical stresses and fatigue. Depending on the frequency of ice build-up and the severity of the icing, these phenomena can cause significant production losses".

The US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Denmark's Risø National Laboratory, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), signed an agreement to cooperate closely on improving wind energy technologies.

PARIS As recently as two years ago, few energy analysts believed that ocean power - harvesting electricity from tides and waves - had a future. Offshore conditions seemed too harsh, the costs too high. The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based research body that advises western governments, dismissed the technology in one paragraph in a 570-page study of energy resources that it published in 2004, saying it was "still in its infancy." But with crude oil heading to $80 a barrel, interest - from both investors and researchers - has surged.

At LM Glasfiber in Lunderskov, Helge Sander, the Danish Minister of Science, has inaugurated the world’s first wind tunnel custom-designed for research and testing of the aerodynamic properties of rotor blades.

Tomorrow will see the inauguration of the world’s largest pilot plant for demonstrating and validating new technology for the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) from conventional power stations.

The excitement amongst Danish alternative energy producers was tangible late Wednesday night as US president uttered the words 'America is addicted to oil' and that something must be done about it.

COPENHAGEN - Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems said on Tuesday it had won its biggest order in the United States with a contract with Horizon Wind Energy, sending its shares higher.

Shares in Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, plunged almost 14 per cent on Thursday as the Danish company downgraded its full-year forecast because of a severe shortage of key components, a sluggish output rate and budget overshoots in the US market.

Rube Goldberg would admire the utter purity of the pretensions of wind technology in pursuit of a safer modern world, claiming to be saving the environment while wreaking havoc upon it. But even he might be astonished by the spin of wind industry spokesmen. Consider the comments made by the American Wind Industry Association.s Christina Real de Azua in the wake of the virtual nonperformance of California.s more than 13,000 wind turbines in mitigating the electricity crisis precipitated by last July.s .heat storm.. .You really don.t count on wind energy as capacity,. she said. .It is different from other technologies because it can.t be dispatched.. (84) The press reported her comments solemnly without question, without even a risible chortle. Because they perceive time to be running out on fossil fuels, and the lure of non-polluting wind power is so seductive, otherwise sensible people are promoting it at any cost, without investigating potential negative consequences-- and with no apparent knowledge of even recent environmental history or grid operations.

Eventually, the pedal of wishful thinking and political demagoguery will meet the renitent metal of reality in the form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (85) and public resistance, as it has in Denmark and Germany. Ironically, support for industrial wind energy because of a desire for reductions in fossil-fueled power and their polluting emissions leads ineluctably to nuclear power, particularly under pressure of relentlessly increasing demand for reliable electricity. Environmentalists who demand dependable power generation at minimum environmental risk should take care about what they wish for, more aware that, with Rube Goldberg machines, the desired outcome is unlikely to be achieved. Subsidies given to industrial wind technology divert resources that could otherwise support effective measures, while uninformed rhetoric on its behalf distracts from the discourse.and political action-- necessary for achieving more enlightened policy.

This working paper is made available by the Resource and Environmental economics and Policy Analysis (REPA) Research Group at the University of Victoria. REPA working papers have not been peer reviewed and contain preliminary research findings. They shall not be cited without the expressed written consent of the author(s).

Editor's Note: The authors’ conclusion regarding ‘effective capacity’, i.e. the measure of a generator’s contribution to system reliability that is tied to meeting peak loads, is that it “is difficult to generalize, as it is a highly site-specific quantity determined by the correlation between wind resource and load” and that ‘values range from 26 % to 0% of rated capacity.” This conclusion is based, in part, on a 2003 study by the California Energy Commission that estimated that three wind farm aggregates- Altamont, San Gorgonio and Tehachpi, which collectively represent 75% of California’s deployed wind capacity- had relative capacity credits of 26.0%, 23.9% and 22.0% respectively. It is noteworthy that during California’s Summer ’06 energy crunch, as has been widely publicized in the press, wind power produced at 254.6 MW (10.2% of wind’s rated capacity of 2,500MW) at the time of peak demand (on July 24th) and over the preceding seven days (July 17-23) produced at 89.4 to 113.0 MW, averaging only 99.1 MW at the time of peak demand or just 4% of rated capacity.

This thesis studies the impact of large amounts of wind power on the Nordic electricity system. The impact on both the technical operation of the power system and the electricity market are investigated.

Editor's Note:The author's focus on the averaging effect of a multitude of small wind turbines spread over a large geopgraphical area understates the reliability problems associated with wind power, particularly the cascade effect as wind turbines drop off-line.

Vestas' current wind turbine products and related specifications are available by clicking on the web link.

Wind turbines convert the kinetic energy in moving air into rotational energy, which in turn is converted to electricity. Since wind speeds vary from month to month and second to second, the amount of electricity wind can make varies constantly. Sometimes a wind turbine will make no power at all. This variability does affect the value of the wind power……

Editor’s Note: This ‘fact sheet’ is, on the whole, a comparatively fair report. The definitions provided for capacity factor, efficiency, reliability, dispatchability, and availability are useful. Its discussion of back-up generation, marginal emissions and Germany & Denmark, however, is disingenuous as is, to a lesser degree, its discussion of capacity factor and availability. IWA's comments (updated October '06) on these issues follow selected extracts from the 'fact sheet' below.

This addresses the most important challenges confronting Eltra, the Transmission System Operator in Western Denmark.