Build Your Own Wind Turbine

Bird and bat kills are an issue that utility-scale wind farms deal with. Small residential-scale wind turbines do not pose a similar hazard. But recently I witnessed a situation where a small wind turbine in West Virginia became the victim of bird activity.Full Story

The Norwegian company Statkraft opens the world’s first facility for osmotic power generation. Statkraft says a full-scale commercial osmotic power plant could be ready by 2015. Osmotic power could contribute around 1,600 TWh on a global basis annually. Only in Norway osmotic power has the potential to cover 10 percent of the total power consumption. Osmotic power is based on the natural process of osmosis. In an osmotic power plant, seawater and fresh water are separated by a membrane. The seawater draws the fresh water through the membrane, thereby increasing the pressure on the seawater side. The increased pressure is…

The debate over government regulations for wind turbines noise should be based more on engineering issues and robust scientific evidence and less on politics, according to UK professional body, Institute Of Acoustics. There has been criticism of the regulations, known officially as ‘ETSU-R-97’, as being outdated and in need of revision, given they are more than a decade old and are still being used to assess wind farm noise in local government planning applications in the UK. Opponents variously describe the guidelines as “daft”, “confusing” and designed for much smaller wind turbines than can now be built. The IOA, which…

The main cause of wind turbine failure, noise, wear and damage is excessive vibration, according to a leading American researcher. Daryoush Allaei spoke about problems associated with the towers at the Institute of Acoustics’ Wind Turbine Noise meeting at Cardiff, January 27. “Excess noise has become a growing problem for farmers and those living near wind farms,” said Daryoush, founder and chief executive officer of Quality Research, Development and Consulting Inc, Chaska, Minnesota. Historically, rotating and turbine machinery failures have resulted from “blade mistuning, misalignment, imbalance, resonance, fastener looseness and bearing damages and defects,” he said. Three of these “root…