Wind turbine blades rip loose near Esbjerg and southwestern Sweden, one landing on a hiking path A malfunction on a Vestas wind turbine in the town of Falkenberg on Sweden's southwest coast could have resulted in tragedy, as one of the structure's large blades flew off and landed on a track used by hikers.

Current and former executives at the wind turbine producer's Spanish subsidiary are accused of fraud Wind turbine maker Vestas has been defrauded for around 90 million kroner by employees of its Spanish subsidiary Vestas Eólica, according to a company press release.

Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world's biggest wind-turbine maker, said it uncovered a 90 million kroner ($16 million) fraud at its Spanish unit. Vestas has notified the authorities in Barcelona of the case, which involves current and former employees who made false invoices for nonexistent services, the Randers, Denmark-based company said today in a stock-exchange statement.

LM Glasfiber announces mass lay-offs in Denmark as a result of the on-going financial crisis. Wind turbine blade producer LM Glasfiber has announced that it is to fire one fifth of its Danish workforce in what is being called the biggest domestic firing-round of recent times. ...‘We believe 2009 will be a year with stagnant growth in the windmill market and LM Glasfiber has a clear case of over capacity,' said Rothausen.

The big challenge, wind developers acknowledge, is modifying site permits that restrict the spacing and height of turbines. Neighbors are often put off by the visual impact of the turbines themselves ...Wind developers face an additional hurdle to repower in Denmark, where legislation going into effect next year will require wind-park operators to compensate residents if wind turbines reduce their property values.

Canadian investors looking for exposure to the booming alternative energy sector have a handful of domestic players to choose from, but the local pickings are pretty slim and most of the companies are small. So why not look overseas, to one of the green behemoths that has sprung up on the international scene? ...The fast-growing U.S. wind power industry, driven by favourable government tax policy, is Vestas' largest current market. ...Some analysts are also urging caution over Vestas' high price. "We find the shares are fundamentally overvalued," said analyst Christian Nagstrup of Jyske Bank, a Danish financial institution. The biggest risk he sees at Vestas is a bottleneck in getting parts to build the turbines. Subcontractors have been slow in delivering key components, and that could slow delivery of complete turbines, Mr. Nagstrup said in a recent report.

Since the oil shocks of the 1970s, governments around the world have paid plenty of lip service to renewable energies such as wind and solar power. But only a few governments have been able to engineer policies that have begun to bring alternative energies into wider use. Renewable fuels provided 18% of the world’s total electricity supply in 2004, according to figures from the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization. Almost all of that, though, came from hydropower, a source with limited growth potential because of geographic constraints. The use of wind and solar power is growing, but they still generated only 1% of global electricity production in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available.

A sweeping plan to dramatically increase the European Union’s use of renewable energy sources by 2020 has Danish politicians and exporters looking towards a greener future. Renewable energy use in the EU currently sits at 6 percent, but, according to Børsen financial daily, the European Commission’s forthcoming proposal for a common energy policy would increase that level to 20 percent within two decades. Much of the increase will rely on sources such as wind and bio-ethanol, areas where the nation is already strongly represented on the world market. Exporters are seeing the proposal as an opportunity to increase their share of European sales.

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.

The most important findings of this report highlight studies that raise critical concerns challenging some of the claims made for wind power. Badly needed evidence is now available after three years of large scale operation of wind turbines in five countries..... These studies are the first real evidence showing how wind actually works, as opposed to what has been claimed, and come from some of the most authoritative voices on energy in the world......ABS Energy Research’s report does not relegate wind power to the dustbin. But it does show how essential proper analysis is to establish what renewable energy can and cannot deliver and how it must be accommodated within a total electricity generation system. Objective analysis is essential. Nearly every one of the points described in the study has been labelled a "myth" by a lobby group.

They introduced the world to "environmentally friendly" energy, but now some of Europe's "greenest" countries are under pressure to backtrack on wind farms as public anger grows over their impact on the countryside.

In conclusion, this study has shown that in many countries deregulation is having the expected effect of increased competition leading to price reduction. However, it is evident that pricing in markets depends not just on the status of deregulation, but also on the broader aspects of competition. Key factors here include the balance of supply and demand, generation fuel costs, the learning process that new markets go through, competition within different market segments and the costs of access to transmission and distribution networks. Deregulation is a long-term process that requires sustained attention.

Extracts from the attached promotional piece. The full report may be purchased from ABS.

International Experience With Implementing Wind Energy examines the relative costs, advantages and disadvantages of wind generation. In addition, the report explores infrastructure issues, public attitudes toward wind development, and the various policy instruments used to support the development of wind energy in countries that are leaders in implementing wind energy.

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.

Most shocking of all is new evidence that the need to switch on and off base load fossil fuel power plants, to provide back up for unreliable wind turbines, actually gives off more carbon emissions than keeping them running continuously, thus negating any carbon savings from wind. Alas, only when our governments have allowed thousands more turbines to disfigure Britain’s countryside, not least by their grotesque bending of the planning rules, will the futility of the ‘great Wind Scam’ finally be recognised.