Thermal storage technologies allow heat or cold to be stored for periods of time ranging from hours or overnight to interseasonal, and can involve storage of sensible energy (i.e. by changing the temperature of a medium) or latent energy (i.e. through phase changes of a medium, such between water and slush or ice). Short-term thermal storages can be used for peak-shaving in district heating or electrical distribution systems. Kinds of renewable or alternative energy sources that can be enabled include natural energy (e.g. collected via solar-thermal collectors, or dry cooling towers used to collect winter's cold), waste energy (e.g. from HVAC equipment, industrial processes or power plants), or surplus energy (e.g. as seasonally from hydropower projects or intermittently from wind farms). The Drake Landing Solar Community (Alberta, Canada) is illustrative. borehole thermal energy storage allows the community to get 97% of its year-round heat from solar collectors on the garage roofs, which most of the heat collected in summer.[58][59] Types of storages for sensible energy include insulated tanks, borehole clusters in substrates ranging from gravel to bedrock, deep aquifers, or shallow lined pits that are insulated on top. Some types of storage are capable of storing heat or cold between opposing seasons (particularly if very large), and some storage applications require inclusion of a heat pump. Latent heat is typically stored in ice tanks or what are called phase-change materials (PCMs).
Brazil has one of the largest renewable energy programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugar cane, and ethanol now provides 18 percent of the country's automotive fuel. As a result of this, together with the exploitation of domestic deep water oil sources, Brazil, which years ago had to import a large share of the petroleum needed for domestic consumption, recently reached complete self-sufficiency in oil.[36][37][38]
Power Scorecard is a web tool that rates the environmental quality of electricity offered to customers in California, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. It will help identify products that have the lowest overall environmental impact on our air, land, and water, and those that will lead to the development of the most new renewable energy generation. Power Scorecard will be expanding into other states in the near future.
List of onshore wind farms List of onshore wind farms in the United Kingdom List of offshore wind farms in the United Kingdom List of offshore wind farms in the United States Lists of offshore wind farms by country Lists of offshore wind farms by water area Lists of wind farms by country List of wind farms in Australia List of wind farms in Canada List of wind farms in Iran List of wind farms in New Zealand List of wind farms in Romania List of wind farms in Sweden List of wind farms in the United States List of wind turbine manufacturers
Solar Power Rocks provides free comprehensive guides to solar policy and incentives for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, along with hundreds of helpful and informative articles about recent solar news and general information related to home solar power. For media inquiries, general questions, or to report an error, you can reach us here.
Since you are working hard to read this rather lengthy article, here is some entertainment. The ‘intermission’ if you like. So, put your feet up and enjoy the next picture: It’s a prime example of much that is wrong with the small wind world. The fact that an installer would even consider installing in a place like that. Customers that are too uninformed to know better (and their installer clearly is not interested in educating them). Turbine manufacturers that deliver standard towers that are much too short to be effective; this tower plus turbine is just 23 feet tall! Then there is the claim by the manufacturer (dutifully parroted by the installer) that this turbine will offset “up to 30%” of their electricity bill. The last one is not really a lie I suppose: If in reality it offsets just 2% of the owners bill, technically that still falls within that “up to 30%”…
Due to data transmission problems, structural health monitoring of wind turbines is usually performed using several accelerometers and strain gages attached to the nacelle to monitor the gearbox and equipments. Currently, digital image correlation and stereophotogrammetry are used to measure dynamics of wind turbine blades. These methods usually measure displacement and strain to identify location of defects. Dynamic characteristics of non-rotating wind turbines have been measured using digital image correlation and photogrammetry.[44] Three dimensional point tracking has also been used to measure rotating dynamics of wind turbines.[45]
List of onshore wind farms List of onshore wind farms in the United Kingdom List of offshore wind farms in the United Kingdom List of offshore wind farms in the United States Lists of offshore wind farms by country Lists of offshore wind farms by water area Lists of wind farms by country List of wind farms in Australia List of wind farms in Canada List of wind farms in Iran List of wind farms in New Zealand List of wind farms in Romania List of wind farms in Sweden List of wind farms in the United States List of wind turbine manufacturers
Our home wind turbene systems are Wind/Solar Hybrid, and are qualified for government tax crdedits of 30%. So, for your investment made in these systems the IRS credits you back 30% within one year of purchase. You get 30% back from the IRS. So, basically the government will pay for almost 1/3 of your investment made in your new home wind Generator energy system. This includes all installation costs and expenses and is a real nice start on your investment payback.
From 1978 to 1996, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory experimented with producing algae fuel in the "Aquatic Species Program."[112] A self-published article by Michael Briggs, at the University of New Hampshire Biofuels Group, offers estimates for the realistic replacement of all motor vehicle fuel with biofuels by utilizing algae that have a natural oil content greater than 50%, which Briggs suggests can be grown on algae ponds at wastewater treatment plants.[113] This oil-rich algae can then be extracted from the system and processed into biofuels, with the dried remainder further reprocessed to create ethanol. The production of algae to harvest oil for biofuels has not yet been undertaken on a commercial scale, but feasibility studies have been conducted to arrive at the above yield estimate. During the biofuel production process algae actually consumes the carbon dioxide in the air and turns it into oxygen through photosynthesis.[114] In addition to its projected high yield, algaculture— unlike food crop-based biofuels — does not entail a decrease in food production, since it requires neither farmland nor fresh water. Many companies are pursuing algae bio-reactors for various purposes, including scaling up biofuels production to commercial levels.[115][116]
This discussion is mainly about factory-made grid-tie wind turbines. The off-grid crowd has an entirely different set of decisions and goals. The main ones are that for off-grid use economic viability in comparison with the electrical grid is not an issue, and a wind turbine can make up for the loss of sunlight (and PV electricity) in the winter months. For the DIY group there are several good turbine designs available; Hugh Piggott and the two Dans have written books that outline this step-by-step. Building your own turbine can be a great hobby, and some of the topics touched below apply (such as proper site selection), but this discussion is not about those. The decisions involved in making your own turbine, and the cost basis, have little overlap with a the process of having an installer put a factory-made turbine in your backyard.
With investment subsidies, the financial burden falls upon the taxpayer, while with feed-in tariffs the extra cost is distributed across the utilities' customer bases. While the investment subsidy may be simpler to administer, the main argument in favour of feed-in tariffs is the encouragement of quality. Investment subsidies are paid out as a function of the nameplate capacity of the installed system and are independent of its actual power yield over time, thus rewarding the overstatement of power and tolerating poor durability and maintenance. Some electric companies offer rebates to their customers, such as Austin Energy in Texas, which offers $2.50/watt installed up to $15,000.[96]
Solar electricity is inherently variable and predictable by time of day, location, and seasons. In addition solar is intermittent due to day/night cycles and unpredictable weather. How much of a special challenge solar power is in any given electric utility varies significantly. In a summer peak utility, solar is well matched to daytime cooling demands. In winter peak utilities, solar displaces other forms of generation, reducing their capacity factors.
UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm 1972) Brundtlandt Commission Report (1983) Our Common Future (1987) Earth Summit (1992) Rio Declaration on Environment and Development Agenda 21 (1992) Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) ICPD Programme of Action (1994) Earth Charter Lisbon Principles UN Millennium Declaration (2000) Earth Summit 2002 (Rio+10, Johannesburg) United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20, 2012) Sustainable Development Goals
While many renewable energy projects are large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited to rural and remote areas and developing countries, where energy is often crucial in human development.[13] Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that renewable energy has the ability to lift the poorest nations to new levels of prosperity.[14] As most of renewables provide electricity, renewable energy deployment is often applied in conjunction with further electrification, which has several benefits: Electricity can be converted to heat (where necessary generating higher temperatures than fossil fuels), can be converted into mechanical energy with high efficiency and is clean at the point of consumption.[15][16] In addition to that electrification with renewable energy is much more efficient and therefore leads to a significant reduction in primary energy requirements, because most renewables don't have a steam cycle with high losses (fossil power plants usually have losses of 40 to 65%).[17]
According to a 2011 projection by the International Energy Agency, solar power generators may produce most of the world's electricity within 50 years, reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases that harm the environment. Cedric Philibert, senior analyst in the renewable energy division at the IEA said: "Photovoltaic and solar-thermal plants may meet most of the world's demand for electricity by 2060 – and half of all energy needs – with wind, hydropower and biomass plants supplying much of the remaining generation". "Photovoltaic and concentrated solar power together can become the major source of electricity", Philibert said.[25]
A more recent concept for improving our electrical grid is to beam microwaves from Earth-orbiting satellites or the moon to directly when and where there is demand. The power would be generated from solar energy captured on the lunar surface In this system, the receivers would be "broad, translucent tent-like structures that would receive microwaves and convert them to electricity". NASA said in 2000 that the technology was worth pursuing but it is still too soon to say if the technology will be cost-effective.[77]
Responsible development of all of America’s rich energy resources -- including solar, wind, water, geothermal, bioenergy & nuclear -- will help ensure America’s continued leadership in clean energy. Moving forward, the Energy Department will continue to drive strategic investments in the transition to a cleaner, domestic and more secure energy future.
The combination of wind and solar PV has the advantage that the two sources complement each other because the peak operating times for each system occur at different times of the day and year. The power generation of such solar hybrid power systems is therefore more constant and fluctuates less than each of the two component subsystems.[21] Solar power is seasonal, particularly in northern/southern climates, away from the equator, suggesting a need for long term seasonal storage in a medium such as hydrogen or pumped hydroelectric.[117] The Institute for Solar Energy Supply Technology of the University of Kassel pilot-tested a combined power plant linking solar, wind, biogas and hydrostorage to provide load-following power from renewable sources.[118]
Adam Schultz, a senior policy analyst for the Oregon Department of Energy, says he’s more encouraged than ever about the prospects for renewables. Because the Pacific Northwest features large-scale hydropower plants built as part of the New Deal, energy already tends to be less expensive there than the U.S. average. But solar and wind power have “gotten cheaper over the last couple years to the point that I can’t even tell you what the costs are because costs have been dropping so rapidly,” Schultz says. “We have enough sunshine,” he says (presumably referring to the eastern part of the state), “so it’s just a matter of time.”
The ability of biomass and biofuels to contribute to a reduction in CO2 emissions is limited because both biomass and biofuels emit large amounts of air pollution when burned and in some cases compete with food supply. Furthermore, biomass and biofuels consume large amounts of water.[200] Other renewable sources such as wind power, photovoltaics, and hydroelectricity have the advantage of being able to conserve water, lower pollution and reduce CO2 emissions.
Globally, the long-term technical potential of wind energy is believed to be five times total current global energy production, or 40 times current electricity demand, assuming all practical barriers needed were overcome. This would require wind turbines to be installed over large areas, particularly in areas of higher wind resources, such as offshore. As offshore wind speeds average ~90% greater than that of land, so offshore resources can contribute substantially more energy than land stationed turbines.[44] In 2014 global wind generation was 706 terawatt-hours or 3% of the worlds total electricity.[45]
Biomass is biological material derived from living, or recently living organisms. It most often refers to plants or plant-derived materials which are specifically called lignocellulosic biomass.[65] As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly via combustion to produce heat, or indirectly after converting it to various forms of biofuel. Conversion of biomass to biofuel can be achieved by different methods which are broadly classified into: thermal, chemical, and biochemical methods. Wood remains the largest biomass energy source today;[66] examples include forest residues – such as dead trees, branches and tree stumps –, yard clippings, wood chips and even municipal solid waste. In the second sense, biomass includes plant or animal matter that can be converted into fibers or other industrial chemicals, including biofuels. Industrial biomass can be grown from numerous types of plants, including miscanthus, switchgrass, hemp, corn, poplar, willow, sorghum, sugarcane, bamboo,[67] and a variety of tree species, ranging from eucalyptus to oil palm (palm oil).
Grid parity, the point at which the cost of photovoltaic electricity is equal to or cheaper than the price of grid power, is more easily achieved in areas with abundant sun and high costs for electricity such as in California and Japan.[80] In 2008, The levelized cost of electricity for solar PV was $0.25/kWh or less in most of the OECD countries. By late 2011, the fully loaded cost was predicted to fall below $0.15/kWh for most of the OECD and to reach $0.10/kWh in sunnier regions. These cost levels are driving three emerging trends: vertical integration of the supply chain, origination of power purchase agreements (PPAs) by solar power companies, and unexpected risk for traditional power generation companies, grid operators and wind turbine manufacturers.[81][dead link]
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Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, is harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies such as solar heating, photovoltaics, concentrated solar power (CSP), concentrator photovoltaics (CPV), solar architecture and artificial photosynthesis.[49][50] Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air. Active solar technologies encompass solar thermal energy, using solar collectors for heating, and solar power, converting sunlight into electricity either directly using photovoltaics (PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP).
U.S. President Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 includes more than $70 billion in direct spending and tax credits for clean energy and associated transportation programs. Leading renewable energy companies include First Solar, Gamesa, GE Energy, Hanwha Q Cells, Sharp Solar, Siemens, SunOpta, Suntech Power, and Vestas.[142]
In the next tutorial about Wind Turbine Generators we will look at DC machines and how we can use a DC Generator to produce electricity from the power of the wind. To learn more about “Wind Turbine Generators”, or obtain more wind energy information about the various wind turbine generating systems available, or to explore the advantages and disadvantages of wind energy, Click Here to get your copy of one of the top “Wind Turbine Guides” today direct from Amazon.
Renewable energy and energy efficiency are sometimes said to be the "twin pillars" of sustainable energy policy. Both resources must be developed in order to stabilize and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Efficiency slows down energy demand growth so that rising clean energy supplies can make deep cuts in fossil fuel use. If energy use grows too fast, renewable energy development will chase a receding target. A recent historical analysis has demonstrated that the rate of energy efficiency improvements has generally been outpaced by the rate of growth in energy demand, which is due to continuing economic and population growth. As a result, despite energy efficiency gains, total energy use and related carbon emissions have continued to increase. Thus, given the thermodynamic and practical limits of energy efficiency improvements, slowing the growth in energy demand is essential.[61] However, unless clean energy supplies come online rapidly, slowing demand growth will only begin to reduce total emissions; reducing the carbon content of energy sources is also needed. Any serious vision of a sustainable energy economy thus requires commitments to both renewables and efficiency.[62]
The International Geothermal Association (IGA) has reported that 10,715 MW of geothermal power in 24 countries is online, which is expected to generate 67,246 GWh of electricity in 2010.[131] This represents a 20% increase in geothermal power online capacity since 2005. IGA projects this will grow to 18,500 MW by 2015, due to the large number of projects presently under consideration, often in areas previously assumed to have little exploitable resource.[131]
Worldwide growth of photovoltaics has averaged 40% per year from 2000 to 2013[35] and total installed capacity reached 303 GW at the end of 2016 with China having the most cumulative installations (78 GW)[36] and Honduras having the highest theoretical percentage of annual electricity usage which could be generated by solar PV (12.5%).[36][35] The largest manufacturers are located in China.[37][38]
