The AWEA Blog: Into the Wind


Xcel Energy achieves wind energy milestone

Posted: 26 Mar 2013 Tom Gray, Consultant

At 8 p.m. on February 17, Xcel Energy's subsidiary utility Northern States Power achieved a milestone when a record 1,713 megawatt-hours of electricity were generated by locally sourced, emission-free wind power, amounting to nearly 33 percent of the company’s Upper Midwest customer electricity needs.

“From our first purchase of wind energy in 1993 to the commissioning of our own Grand Meadow and Nobles wind farms in 2008 and 2010, we have been working toward this day,” said Judy Poferl, president and CEO of Northern States Power Co.-Minnesota. “We have learned a lot about how to successfully produce and integrate wind energy onto our system in a cost-effective manner for our customers.”

Wind farms produced almost 12 percent of the energy used by Xcel Energy’s ...


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Fact check: More misinformation from Bryce on wind and birds

Posted: 25 Mar 2013 John Anderson, Director of Siting Policy

Anti-wind advocate Robert Bryce penned a recent column on wind and birds for the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal. As with his previous writings on wind, Mr. Bryce again ignores a balanced analysis in favor of misinformation.


No source of energy production is without potential risk to wildlife. However, the wind energy industry’s impacts are comparatively minor, and it does more to study, avoid, and mitigate for them than any other energy industry. We work directly with federal and state regulatory officials the conservation community, and other stakeholders in this regard.


A recent analysis of studies conducted at over 100 wind farms estimated that wind power generation results in the loss ...


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Science: Anti-wind groups appear to spread illnesses they complain of

Posted: 21 Mar 2013 Tom Gray, Consultant

For many years, an unfounded assertion about wind power has thwarted the best of debunking efforts. That is the claim that wind turbine sound--in particular "infrasound," which normally cannot be heard, but which can come from turbines as well as many other sources in the natural and human environment--has some mysterious characteristic causing a wide variety of illnesses.

Government studies in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the U.S.--many of which you will find in the list of references below--have all found no evidence of any mechanism by which wind turbine sound could actually have a direct physical effect on the human body. Instead, as an independent panel of expert acousticians commissioned by AWEA and the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) reported ...


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Fact check: Study of wind power's local effects leaves questions

Posted: 21 Mar 2013 Michael Goggin, AWEA Manager-Transmission Policy

Recently, it was reported that a team of researchers from Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne has completed a wind tunnel study of the effect of large wind farms on local heat and humidity in the atmosphere.  Unsurprisingly, the study, like others before it, found that the rotation of large wind turbines can change the distribution of heat and water vapor in the surrounding air, and speculated that this might affect the cultivation of crops near the turbines.

While this analysis is interesting from a theoretical point of view, its results should be kept in perspective.

First, any impact of wind on localized movements of air is likely to be extremely small. As one article noted, "the team found that the total change in surface heat flux ...


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Opinion: Vermont wind power bill defies public's strong support

Posted: 21 Mar 2013 Tom Gray, Consultant

This article by Emerson Lynn is reprinted from Green Energy Times with the permission of the author.

When two out of every three Vermonters express support for something, that’s considered overwhelming support. Politically, it’s bulletproof.

That was the message delivered by a Castleton State College poll in which 66 percent of Vermonters expressed support for wind power.

This support was not just for wind power in general, but for wind power in the form of turbines along Vermont’s ridgelines. Even more--69 percent--would favor a wind farm in their community. Not only do two-thirds of Vermonters support ...


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Honoring leading women in the wind power industry

Posted: 19 Mar 2013 David Ward, Consultant

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’d like to take a moment to highlight just some of the many talented women leaders in the wind energy industry. Without these women leading the way, wind power would not be where it is today. We look forward to future generations of women helping to grow wind power in America.

·       Susan Reilly – Susan is President and CEO, Renewable Energy Systems Americas (RES). RES is a renewable energy company, with more than 300 full-time staff, that develops, constructs, owns, and/or operates projects across North America. Susan is also an active member of the American Wind Energy Association’s board of ...


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Pew: U.S. clean-energy surplus with China attributable to policy

Posted: 14 Mar 2013 Carl Levesque, Consultant

A new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts showing a U.S. surplus in clean-energy trade with China underscores the importance of America taking a leadership role in the sector in order to reap the economic benefits.

 

That was one conclusion reached by the clean-energy experts at Pew, which released the report last week.


But first, the numbers: According to the report (Advantage America: The U.S.-China Clean Energy Trade Relationship in 2011), the U.S. and China traded more than $8.5 billion worth of clean energy goods and services in 2011, the latest year for which data are ...


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Ontario resident's personal testimony: 'Anti-wind groups make me sick'

Posted: 13 Mar 2013 Tom Gray, Consultant

From the blogs this past weekend comes a thoughtful piece from Meredith, an Ontario resident and wind industry employee, titled Anti-wind groups make me sick.

 

Meredith, an unabashed enthusiast of utility-scale wind power, covers most of the bases in her article, including the suspicion--expressed in the title--that her view of the technology might be quite different had she been exposed to the fear-laden rumors that are fanned by anti-wind groups:

 

"What if I been told that windmills would make me sick, make my dog sick, make my family sick, etc, over and over again until I believed it? Would living here, looking out at the things that supposedly ...


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Fact check: About those 'abandoned' turbines ...

Posted: 11 Mar 2013 Tom Gray, Consultant

The following article is cross-posted from the Barnard on Wind blog with permission of the author, Mike Barnard.


Anti-wind lobbyists claim more than 1 in 20 wind turbines permanently inactive; they're wrong, as usual.

 

There’s an anti-wind energy myth floating around that refuses to die. The most recent sighting was in the official policy of an Australian political party, the Democratic Labour Party of Australia. [11] What is the myth?

 

That there are 14,000 permanently ...


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LBNL report: Low natural gas prices haven’t detracted from wind’s hedge appeal

Posted: 11 Mar 2013 Carl Levesque, Consultant

Even with recent declines in natural gas prices resulting from the expansion of shale gas production, wind power proves to be beneficial for its ability to give buyers long-term price certainty, a new report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) finds.

 

Drawing on a sizable sample of long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) between existing wind projects and utilities, the report compares wind power prices that have been contractually locked in for decades to come with a range of long-term natural gas price projections.  Data from 287 PPAs totaling 23.5 gigawatts were used.

 

Some notable quotes from the report:

 

·      “Adding wind power to a portfolio of generating assets will partially hedge or insulate that portfolio ...


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