New Wind Turbines 300X More Powerful than in 1996 (+ Top Wind Power Stories)

August 9th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

I can’t say I was the one who noticed this, but that’s a pretty cool stat — some new wind turbines (sold today by Vestas) are 300x more powerful than wind turbines sold 15 years ago.

Furthermore, if you consider that modern-day wind turbines have been under development for about 100 years less than automobiles, and you think about the advancements made in automobiles in that 100 years, you can pretty safely assume that wind turbines today will not compare to those of the future.

It’s funny to run across this information and idea just a day or so after a back-and-forth with a commenter here on CleanTechnica who was arguing that wind turbines are old technology of no real value and we should be pursuing nuclear instead. Well, considering the advancements made in wind turbines in the last 15 years, the power they are already creating, the fact that wind power is one of the cheapest options (if not the cheapest option) for new electricity, and the potential and projections for the future wind power growth, I don’t really think many people would be inclined to believe that argument. But hey, what do I know?

Anyway, if you are a wind power fan (or even if you’re not), you may find these top wind power stories of the past week (other than our own stories on the topic) interesting:

Report: EU wind energy market to triple in size by 2020 [European Wind Energy Associate] China Estimates Its Wind Potential at One Billion Kilowatts [People’s Daily] Maryland Youth Campaign for Offshore Wind [Chesapeake Climate Action Network] Hippy Dropout Becomes Wind Energy Mogul [TreeHugger] Can Germany’s North Sea Winds Blow Away Nuclear? [Greentech Media] Wind Capital Reaches For 500 MW Capacity in Just Seven Years [Power Engineering] Grid Connection Deal Paves the Way for More Wind Power in Romania [GE]

Wind Power Projects & Orders

Capital Power, Samsung partner on Canada wind farm [Reuters] International Power signs wind power deal in Ontario [Reuters] REpower wins latest Co-operative wind farm deal [Business Green] 5-MW turbine Installed at Vattenfall Wind Farm in UK [Power Engineering] New Wind Farms Announced in Michigan [MLive] Vestas receives order for 92 MW in Spain [Vestas] Vestas receives order for 47 MW in India [Vestas]

Image via LoraxV











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