The New York State Common Retirement Fund invested $15 million in Invenergy's High Sheldon Wind Farm, located in Wyoming County, through Credit Suisse Customized Fund Investment Group, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced Monday.

The Prattsburgh town board has ruled in favor of eminent domain. The decision means First Wind, the company that wants to build a 36 turbine wind farm in Prattsburgh can now take portions of land from property owners who oppose the project. Eminent domain was proposed after seven property owners said they would not sell their land to the company. First Wind wants the property along the town highways to lay underground cables.

As wind power becomes more common, its unpredictability becomes more of a problem. Sudden drops in wind speed can send grid operators scrambling to cover the shortfall and even cause blackouts; unexpected surges can leave conventional power plants idling, incurring costs and spewing pollution to no purpose. ...When wind farms were less common, grid controllers could essentially ignore their varying output, as it was all but indistinguishable from natural fluctuations in consumer use.

Bolton explained the many ways wind developers methodology is flawed. Field measurements are not done correctly (i.e. - improper microphone placement, no justification for sampling sites, etc.); accurate samplings need to be done for a full year to account for seasonal variations, but aren't; and computer prediction models wind developers rely on are inadequate because they don't account for modulation, coherence, refraction, and icing. Facts contained in Perry's DEIS from the sound study done by Horizon for Perry were brought up that highlighted Bolton's point that sound studies being done are totally inadequate: ...In response to questions asking what he thought of being "surrounded" by up to 23 turbines within 1.5 miles of their homes, he answered, "I would be VERY concerned if I were you."

With windmills a big topic of discussion among many Herkimer County municipalities, Frankfort Board of Trustee members want the public to know there is not yet a project under way in the village. "I've been approached by many people who are under the impression that we have already started a project," said board member John Spina. "We are in the middle of studies about the feasibility of such a project and either party can back out of the project at any time." The village of Frankfort Board of Trustees began discussions about a possible wind mill project last March.

The largest wind turbine manufactured in the United States is running into some technical difficulty. Clipper Windpower Inc.'s 2.5-MW Liberty wind turbines at the 20-MW Steel Winds facility in Lackawanna, N.Y., are malfunctioning due to faulty gear sets. "At first, we were receiving great performance from the turbines," said Michael Alvarez, executive vice president and COO of UPC Wind Partners LLC, which co-owns the facility with BQ Energy LLC. "Over the summer, a gear-timing issue in the drive train's secondary stage was detected in some of Clipper Windpower's Liberty wind turbines at the Steel Winds site. The cause was found to be a supplier quality deficiency in the drive train attributable to the suppliers' manufacturing process. As part of Clipper's warranty, upgraded drive trains will be installed into all eight turbines at the Steel Winds site. Currently, two turbines are in operation."

AWS Truewind, a Latham firm, will forecast winds 48 hours in advance under a two-year contract with the New York Independent System Operator to make it easier for turbine companies to offer more guaranteed power in advance. Forecasting also will make it easier to manage the grid by giving a clearer picture of how much wind power will be coming, which in turn should reduce the amount of power supplied from polluting sources like coal- and oil-fired power plants.

A new generation of super-size wind farm could be on its way to a field near you. General Electric is developing wind turbines with blades longer than the tip-to-tip wingspan of a jumbo jet. In a move likely to dismay activists who view wind farms as a blot on the landscape, the American company has taken the wraps off a project to develop power-generating windmills with blades of 70 metres - some 75% longer than the typical existing length of 40 metres. ...There was a hostile reaction yesterday from British campaigners who have fought wind farms on the grounds of their appearance, noise and economic viability. Angela Kelly, chairman of the pressure group Country Guardian, said she was "horrified" by jumbo jet-sized windmill blades and described the prospect as an "absolute disaster".

A discussion was held in the Common Council Chamber at City Hall Monday that could make the City of Oswego the first place in America with a design of electric-generating wind turbines only seen in Belgium. Bruce Cranston, representing the New England Windpower Corporation (NEWC), presented preliminary details on the scheme that is more efficient and affordable than the traditional wind turbines common in wind farms across the world. Instead of a large fan-like device, which once moved by the wind generates electricity, the new design resembles a tube with up to ten fans inside of it.

(Pavilion, NY, December 4, 2006) - - Recent gusts were powerful enough to break off the blades of a wind turbine in Genesee County. News 4's Al Vaughters reports the property owner is still picking up the pieces in Pavilion. Steve Rigoni said, "Well, the blade has got to come from Minnesota, so it'll be four or five days before they get here." This is all that's left of Steve Rigoni's wind turbine: three busted-up fiberglass blades and a 140-foot tower. The turbine has been blowing away Steve's electric bills, but Friday's wind storm was just too much.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- In the quest for oil-free power, a handful of small companies are staking claims on the boundless energy of the rising and ebbing sea. The technology that would draw energy from ocean tides to keep light bulbs and laptops aglow is largely untested, but several newly minted companies are reserving tracts of water from Alaska's Cook Inlet to Manhattan's East River in the belief that such sites could become profitable sources of electricity.

Several tidal energy initiatives to be located near an already proposed wind-turbine pilot project in the waters off the North Fork are prompting calls for a go-slow approach as local political and financial interests work to grasp the scope of the projects. As reported in Newsday last week, Highland, N.Y.-based Natural Currents Energy Services has filed a permit with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a 136-square-mile tidal energy project off Orient Point. Another company, Verdant Power, which is near to testing tidal turbines in the East River, has filed for two permits for similar projects in Plum Gut and off Fishers Island.

When the wind blows, the turbines will rock – when it doesn’t, there’s trouble. At least, for those who would put a wind farm off Long Island’s South Shore. During the hottest days of this year, as energy consumption records fell across the Island, there was nary a breeze – and not nearly enough wind to power the turbines of the Long Island Power Authority’s proposed Offshore Wind Park to their 140-megawatt capacity, according to Suffolk County Leg. Wayne Horsley, D-Babylon.

Clipper Windpower Plc has announced that under a supply Agreement with UPC Wind, eight of the company’s first commercially-available 2.5MW Liberty wind turbines will be utilized in the Steel Winds Wind Farm, the first wind power project to be built on the US shores of Lake Erie.

Within weeks, Verdant Power plans to submerge experimental turbines in the East River off the coast of Roosevelt Island, a slice of land squeezed between Manhattan and Queens. Resembling and working much like stout underwater windmills, the six 15-foot-tall turbines will draw energy from tidal currents to power a nearby supermarket and parking garage.

A proposed tidal energy project to put six test turbines in New York City's East River cleared its final regulatory hurdle on April 28.

This paper documents the results of an in-field test at the Maple Ridge wind energy facility in New York to determine the effectiveness of using an experimental acoustic bat deterrent to reduce bat mortality. The executive summary excerpted below suggests the results were inconclusive. Most bat experts remain unconvinced that acoustic deterrence will be a suitable mitigation approach to reduce bat fatalities at existing turbines.

In this report we discuss some recent studies that have occurred in the United States since our previous work [2, 3]. The key objectives of these studies were to quantify the physical impacts and costs of wind generation on grid operations and the associated costs. Examples of these costs are (a) committing unneeded generation, (b) allocating more load-following capability to account for wind variability, and (c) allocating more regulation capacity. These are referred to as “ancillary service” costs, and are based on the physical system and operating characteristics and procedures. This topic is covered in more detail by Zavadil et al. [4].

"In response to emerging market conditions, and in recognition of the unique operating characteristics of wind generation, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) commissioned a joint study to produce empirical information that will assist the NYISO in evaluating the reliability implications of increased wind generation. The work was divided into two phases. Phase 1, Preliminary Overall Reliability Assessment, was completed in early 2004. This initial phase provided a preliminary, overall, screening assessment of the impact of large-scale wind generation on the reliability of the New York State Bulk Power System (NYSBPS).

This document was prepared by General Electric International, Inc. in Schenectady, NY. It is submitted to THE NEW YORK STATE ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (NYSERDA).

Editor's Note:

In the Executive Summary, GE argues that 'imbalance' penalties should not be imposed on wind: "subimbalance penalties should not be imposed on wind generation. Wind projects would need to settle discrepancies between their forecast and actual outputs in the energy balancing market. However, because wind is largely nondispatchable, any additional penalties for imbalance should be eliminated. [emphasis added] The FERC Order 888 allows imbalance penalties to be applied to generators that operate outside of their schedule. As applied in New York, any “overgeneration” can be accepted without payment and any “undergeneration” is priced at the greater of 150% of the spot price or $100/MWh. Strict application of these policies in the MAPS analysis performed would result in the loss of roughly 90% of the wind generation revenue, which would be disastrous to their future development."(page 2.8)

"New York has the potential to generate a significant share of its electrical energy requirements through the use of indigenous renewable resources such as wind."