Wind Power Advances for June 2009

The news has been a little thin lately on the wind power front, but low and behold this week there were some surprising stories!

In the face of the fact that most local utilities aren’t publicizing their alternative energy or energy efficiency programs very well at all (http://earth2tech.com/2009/06/10/electric-utilities-fail-to-promote-their-energy-efficiency-initiatives/) it seems that most alternative energy solutions have an uphill battle to get people to install them.  We need these programs publicized so that people will realize that they can afford both solar and wind power!

With that in mind we have a new product over in the UK that can provide site specific data on how soon your proposed wind or solar equipment will pay back. The story is via Greenbang (http://www.greenbang.com/new-device-gives-site-specific-data-on-solar-wind-potential/) and the device looks pretty good and should be affordable. I just hope that we can get it imported tot he United States.

There is also good news in the way of a just published study by the American Wind Energy Association where the US added 17.2 megawatts of wind power generation capacity in 2008! The full story is here on CleanBeta (http://www.cleantechlawandbusiness.com/cleanbeta/index.php/3980/small-wind-energy-market-no-longer-small/).

Lastly today we have stories on 2 small wind turbines that can generate usable amounts of power with winds as low as 2mph.  The first story is via Ecogeek (http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2790/) and talks about the Honeywell system that will actually be sold through a local hardware store chain. The price is supposed to be around $6000 installed for a 2000kw system.

The other story is via Ecofriend (http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/eco-tech-windtronics-latest-creation-converts-the-slowest-of-winds-into-electricity/) and cover a product from Windtronics that has similar performance characteristics and a similar price point.

So now I have a new summer project, first get the site data device and decide which turbine fits my needs!

As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Digg, Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com

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