Wind Power Authority

Clean energy is the future, be it solar power, biomass or wind power. Each of these alternatives come from the sun interacting with our planet's physical makeup and each provides a set of distinct advantages. Efficiency, duration and return on investment are the real drivers for how we choose to harvest alternative energy with today's available technology. That said, what are the benefits of switching to wind power and are there any downsides? This article is designed to help identify the trade offs and advantages that wind power offers as a clean energy source. According to an article on greenlivingideas.com,...

Wind Energy-Related Legislation and Loan programs in Arizona According to A.R.S. §43-1085 enacted in January 2006, tax credit can be applied to corporate or personal taxes which is equal to 10% of the original installation cost of the energy system. The taxable years began in the year of 2006 and it's valid up to 2012. Originally according to HB 2429 this tax credit was eligible only for solar and wind installations in commercial and industrial applications. But later in 2007 according to HB 2491, the tax credit became applicable to all non-residential entities. Entities which were exempted from tax...

Wind Energy-Related Legislation and Loan programs in Florida  According to 25-6.065, F.A.C. enacted in March 2008, the Florida Public Service Commission started net metering and interconnection for all the renewable energy systems with a capacity of 2 MW. The PSC is entitled to set all the rules and regulation for this net metering policy. And these set of rules exclusively apply to state's investor owned utilities. Electric co-operatives and municipal co-operatives do not come under this policy. All the customers who generate electricity using one of the following technologies can avail the facility of net metering - wind energy, solar...

Wind Energy-Related Legislation in ConnecticutAccording to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 16-243h enacted in January 1998, State's two utilities - United Illuminating Company (UI) and Connecticut Light and Power Company (CL&P) provide net metering facility to its commercial and residential customers. According to this Electric Restructuring Act all customers need to have electrical generators using Class I renewable resources including Wind energy. Net metering is a system to determine the total amount of electricity used by these customers or provided to the power grid by them during normal billing cycles. Using net metering more energy is provided to the electric grid...

Renewable Energy-Related Legislation and Loan programs in ColoradoAccording to Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in November 2004, an amendment was passed in Colorado making every utility user with 40,000 or more customers to purchase electricity from renewable sources. Additionally the State Government is considering various incentives, net metering etc to promote the use of wind and solar electric equipments. Various terms of the amendment are still under consideration. According to the amendment any additionall generated electricity in a given month can't be used as a credit for the next month.Businesses are allowed to recover investments in a property through depreciation...

The Plastiki is a unique sailing vessel, you've probably never seen anything quite like it, or maybe you have? Much like the Maltese Falcon in the way it uses recycled parts, the Plastiki is made completely from reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled materials and is currently parked at San Francisco's Pier 45. I can bet you've seen a plastic bottle floating around in a lake or the ocean before? This is just a larger, more useful version that helps remind us that plastic can be recycled and reused, and that it doesn't just disappear when we're done drinking from...

Anyone with a sense of humor (and history) who is also interested in wind power should appreciate this recent sketch available at xkcd. If you've never seen xkcd before, consider spending a half hour flipping through the stories there. The founder, Randall Patrick Munroe, is from Somerville Massachusetts and is a programmer who recently worked for NASA. Random wind facts (to keep this story on topic):The US recently passed Germany to have the most wind power of any nation.Wind power is the leading renewable energy source (not counting hydro or geothermal) in the US today.In 2008 it is estimated that 48 billion kWh were...

Earlier today our friends over at Wind Power Handbook put out a comprehensive article on getting hired for wind power jobs. The article states that "The wind energy industry is the fastest growing segment of renewable energy production" and this very well may be true for the United States which has clusters of "clean tech" centers focusing on Solar, Biomass, and other technology but limited availability of clean jobs across across agricultural states.Wind however, blows everywhere so jobs and support positions are growing nation wide. As the image below suggests, even the most remote locations can harness wind and thus...

Under the new Obama administration alternative energy in the United States will become increasingly important, and invested in. Obama has outlined plans to increase US clean energy production from 3% (where it currently stands, minus hydroelectric) to 10% by 2012 and 25% by 2025. What this means is that more and more home owners, businesses, and electric companies are going to be incentivized to go green.Wind power is a big focus, and with huge tracts of land and mountains in Colorado, Wyoming, and California already utilizing massive wind turbines successfully this model will surely be expanded across the US. As...

I have an engineering consulting practice and live in a state that is in America's wind corridor (Colorado) so I sometimes have people who own rural land inquire about wind farm leases and whether their land might be suitable for the construction of some wind turbines. In order to be a desirable site for wind development, your land needs to be in close proximity to power lines with available capacity to transport the power to end customers. If not, it gets very expensive to build new distribution lines (about $500K per mile) and so wind developers tend to look for...