Kittitas County commissioners approved an agreement on Tuesday with a wind energy company that has the firm paying Kittitas County for the staff work required to deal with the development of its wind farm. Invenergy Wind North America LLC, through its subsidiary Vantage Wind Energy LLC, will pay the county $110,000 for handling county requirements for the planned 69-turbine wind farm proposed.

A wind turbine has been switched off and an investigation launched after its frozen blades showered nearby homes with large chunks of ice. Residents complained when the 260ft wind generator began hurling shards of ice, some measuring two feet long, after the cold snap over the weekend.

Plans to notify the Turitea wind farm have stalled again following news a call-in decision is imminent. After announcing last month that Mighty River Power's application for the 131-turbine wind farm would be publicly notified, despite still waiting on a ministerial call-in decision, Palmerston North City Council has back-pedalled after news Environment Minister Nick Smith plans to announce his decision in the next week.

First it was a lorry park for 3,000 trucks. Then there was the small issue of a sludge recycling centre. Now locals have been left stunned by plans for a wind farm too. It never rains on a site between Aldington and Sellindge, it seems, but it pours. However, the latest plans for a wind farm have been mocked...because, say residents, there is not enough wind to power them.

The worker is an employee of Vestas, a wind turbine manufacturer. A spokesman with that company said the incident was under investigation and details would be provided when they became available. Olavarria said the worker was outside the turbine in front of its nose when the explosion and fire occurred. It's not clear what caused the explosion or what burned, but the turbines do have lubricating oil inside, she said.

Local Plaid Cymru AM for Aberconwy, Gareth Jones, has described the decision by the Westminster Labour Government to approve the construction of the huge Gwynt y Mor windfarm, off the coast of Llandudno and Colwyn Bay, as a slap in the face and an affront to the democratically-expressed wishes of the people of Wales. ..."The scale of the Gwynt y Mor development cannot be overstated. The 250 turbines will be visible for many miles around.

Hot air in the council chambers could lead to stiffer Barrie breezes down the road. Unhappy with planning staff's policy review of wind turbines, city councillors decided Monday they'd like it to consider higher structures and turbines in some residential areas. "It is not progressive enough," Coun. Lynn Strachan said of the policy review. "It does not support what we are trying to do.

As U.S. WindForce prepares to present its application to the West Virginia Public Service Commission, Dave Friend, vice president for sales and marketing, said the company is looking to do more with the community. "We've been working at the community level for a while," Friend said. "We formed a community advisory panel, which has a cross section from the Keyser, New Creek and Elk Garden area. The goal was to involve the community in our planning process."

Xcel Energy has asked regulators to increase the amount it can charge consumers to help recover the cost of renewable-energy generation. ...If approved, the increase would take effect Jan. 1 and increase typical residential bills by 33 cents a month.

Portland General Electric plans to repurpose its second Port Westward power plant as a 200-MW peaker to address the growing amount of wind generation it expects ..."When wind energy is added to a utility system, its natural variability and uncertainty is combined with the natural variability and uncertainty of loads. As a result, there is an increase in the need for system flexibility required to maintain utility system balance and reliability."

The West of Duddon offshore wind farm will provide 500MW of electricity, enough to nearly double Britain's existing offshore electricity-generating capability. Around 370,000 homes will be powered by the wind farm. Edmund Brooks, the Chamber of Shipping's deputy director general, told politics.co.uk the government's approval for offshore wind projects was problematic for shipping firms. "To use the famous analogy, you wouldn't put a wind farm in the middle of the M1, would you?" he said.

The nation's largest public utility issued a request for proposals Tuesday to buy enough clean energy from the wind, sun and other renewable sources to supply about 978,000 homes in three years. It would be like adding two new nuclear reactors to the TVA system. The possible energy sources also could include hydropower, geothermal, ocean, tidal, biomass and other biologically derived fuels, not necessarily produced in the Tennessee Valley.

A two kilometre buffer zone from houses would make the proposed Glen Innes Windfarm unviable according to the project's developers, however they say they are hopeful of negotiating a compromise with critics of the project.

People objecting to wind farms were today told like it or lump it. The warning came as Glasgow councillors met and approved a 410ft wind turbine on Cathkin Braes, on the south of the city. The turbine will be just 49ft lower than the Glasgow Science Tower, which is Scotland's largest freestanding building. However, the move has sparked concerns about the impact on birds and on an area popular with walkers.

A residents group promised Tuesday to appeal a planning board decision approving a proposed $130 million wind farm that would create as many as 10 new jobs as much as 60 megawatts of electricity in peak winds. With member Heidi Stevens the sole dissenter, the board voted 6-1 during a meeting Monday to issue permits to First Wind of Massachusetts, which wants to build 40 massive 380-foot turbines, each generating 1½ megawatts on ridgelines in Burlington, Lincoln, Lee and Winn.

Arthur and Pamela Dodds are upset with the West Virginia Public Service Commission's approval of the wind turbine facility along the Laurel Mountain ridgeline in Barbour and Randolph Counties. "I was very disappointed that the wind turbine complex had been approved. I feel there was an improper balancing of the information that the opposition gave," says Pamela Dodds, a Barbour County resident.

The transmission project "will likely require more than 1,000 miles (1,610 km) of new extra-high voltage transmission lines at a cost of between $5 billion and $10 billion," AEP said. The Midwest Independent System Operator, which manages transmission lines in the region, must approve the project. The new lines would connect 2,000 megawatts of wind power in Hartland Wind Farm project in North Dakota, near the western terminus of the proposed lines, AEP said.

On Monday it called on Premier Dalton McGuinty to initiate a province-wide study on the health effects of wind energy generation and transmission. Moreover, it is calling on McGuinty to impose a moratorium on all wind generation projects in the province until a health study is completed.

Minnesota Power's Taconite Ridge wind farm isn't producing nearly as much electricity as anticipated in recent months, with seven of the 10 wind turbines shut off for repairs. The $50 million project, built on 450 acres of land overlooking U.S. Steel's Minntac mine, came fully online early this summer. But this fall, inspectors with the turbine manufacturer discovered defects in seven of the wind turbines' blades. Those turbines were shut down.

Residents were left fearing for their safety after shards of melting ice fell on homes and gardens from the blades of a giant wind turbine. For about four hours people in King's Dyke, Whittlesey, had to take cover as huge lumps - some two feet long - showered them from the 80 metre high tower on Saturday morning. Resident Peter Randall, whose son's house lies a stone's throw away from the turbine, said: "Somebody is going to get killed. There was huge lumps of ice shooting off and landing everywhere.