Monday, May 14, 2012

Donald Trump and the Wind Turbines

Image/golfvacationinsider.com
An interesting story is developing in Scotland, where the US tycoon, Donald Trump is seeking to stop the construction of a wind farm just nest to his multibillion golf estate. Trump says that the 11-wind farm would destroy the aestheticism of the golf estate and terming them as industrial turbines.

A planning application for an 11-turbine wind farm off Aberdeen Bay was submitted to Marine Scotland last summer and a decision is expected to be made later this year. Mr Trump has halted work on his resort until the decision is made by the Scottish Government.

In his letter addressed to Mr Salmond, he wrote: "Inward investors everywhere are reading the headlines and concluding that Scotland is no longer a secure place to invest because of the fact you are single-handedly destroying the economic well-being of a great country.
Read more...

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Wind farm Model - Part3

Hello guys its been quite some time since I did an update of the wind turbine project. All is well, just that I had encountered some problems on the way. The type of grass that I had planted hoping it would do well, didn't, so back to square one.

Luckily I got another type that creeps on the surface and it seems to be a success story soon.

I have embarked on making the turbines coz the grass is growing up quite fast.

Have a look.



Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Wind Farm Model - Part 2

The Wind Park Model Project is well on track. Still fixing some parts in the design part here on my PC.
Outside the grass is picking and adapting to the new environment. Some vegetation cover is starting to grow as the grass starts to cover the surface.

The design on WindFarmer has some bit of errors and placement of Wind Turbines here and there so can't post it now but its coming soon.

Here are some pics of the veggie cover on the box.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Wind Farm Model Project

In a bid to come to a full understanding of Wind Farms, I have embarked on a project which will involve modelling an actual wind farm.

As opposed to regular models by Architects, my model will be alive but not generating. This simply means that, the vegetation will be alive and growing.

To save up on time, since the grass and other vegetation will take time to mature, I will start by preparing the land and planting the grass. As the grass takes tits time to grow, I will be working on the turbine models and associated structures on site.

I have modeled on Google Sketch-up and GH WindFarmer 4.2 (Best) to know how everything will fall in place. Sorry the model is not ready as for now, but I will upload as soon as possible. The whole model will be covered with a glass cover to protect it against dust. A grass watering system will also be working to keep the vegetation alive.
▲The plywood is cornered by cardboard to stop the soil from falling off.
▲Inside view of the setup. Note the plywood is corvered by Formica to prevent any chances of rotting.
▲Complete. I used electrical insulation tape (Green)

There is more...▼▼▼

Monday, January 30, 2012

General Electric launches a 100MW Wind Power Station

The Kenya wind energy sector is getting a boost with a new wind power plant coming in just 2years.

General Electric has announced that it will set up a 100MW Wind Power Station in Ngong, Kenya which will be under a project called Kipeto Energy and construction is said to have already started.

General Electric is an international company with its headquarters in New York, US The project is estimate dto cost this company Ksh.25Billion and it will be ready by the time Lk. Turkana Wind Project is done.

Lets wait and see the outcome...

Saturday, January 7, 2012

World Future Energy Summit 2012

There are many energy events that one can afford to miss out but this one is not. The World Future Energy Summit is the hallmark of energy and innovation events. Coming this 18th to 21st January 2012 is this year's World Future Energy Summit 2012. Under the Patronage of H.H. General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.


Products to be Launched
Gold Wind 1.5 PMDD Wind Turbine.
This products offers:
  1. High power generating efficiency
  2. Compact,Light & Easy to transport
  3. Superior power quality and grid code compliance
  4. Significantly reduced maintenance costs and total operating expenditures.
  5. PMDD Technology, simple drive -train construction ,high reliability. Light and compact design compared to other turbines in its class. Sealed insulation design for excellent dust resistance. Full power converter, low voltage and zero voltage ride through capabilities for excellent grid connection characteristics
This product is being launched by GOLDWIND - China

Friday, January 6, 2012

3phase blog is 2years old

Once again 3phase blog gets the privilege of celebrating our second anniversary. Getting to this point cannot be taken for granted. It has been 2 years of talking about electricity, environment and wind energy.

Since I started this blog, 2 years ago, I have taught and at the same time learnt alot and I feel like a professor in these disciplines though am still learning.

To all those who have taken the time of contributing by comments and questions, am much indebted. Thanks you all and lets make 2012 another successful engineering year.

Kudos.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Kinagop Wind Park, 61MW

Kinagop Wind Park LTD, a local company here in Kenya has announced plans to build a 61MW wind park in Kinagopplateau in Nyandarua County.

The wind farm will have a nameplate capacity of 60.8 MW and the power will be fed into the grid. The company added to say that they will apply for a power generating license in December 5th.

The new plant will add to the nations wind power network breaking ranks to be the largest wind power station. Currently Kenya boasts of Ngong Wind Power as the largest farm with 5 turbines and 5.1MW output. The Lake Turkana Wind Power project, once complete will not only be the largest wind power in Kenya but even in Africa.

Monday, November 14, 2011

South Korea to build the world's largest Wind Farm

The 50Million people Republic of Korea has announced plans to build the world's largest Wind Power Station which will be offshore. The government has said that it will invest 10.2 trillion won (US$9 billion) in building a 2.5 Gigawatt (GW) offshore wind farm, the largest in the world.

Korea Electric Power(KEP), the countries largest power company, will be incharge of the project.The project will be divied into 3phases:

  1. 100MW, 353Million US Dollars, (Demonstartion Phase) - 2014
  2. 400MW, 1.4Billion US Dollars, Second Phase - 2016
  3. 2GW, 8.2Trillion won,Third Phase - 2019
Joining Korea Electric in the consortium of companies building the offshore wind farm are eight suppliers, including Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co., Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., and Hyundai Heavy Industries Co.

“South Korea is a latecomer to wind energy and is coming in at a very difficult time for the industry, where severe competition and falling turbine prices are squeezing the profits of the entire supply chain,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance lead wind analyst Justin Woo commented.

“Offshore wind is probably the best entry point for Korean companies into this sector, given their extensive shipbuilding and marine engineering experience as well as the country’s excellent offshore wind resources.”

Source: Bloomberg Business Week
Clean Technica

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Wind Farmer 4.2

When it comes to designing a wind farm project, no one does it better than WindFarmer 4.2. Yes, GL Garrad Hassan have released version 4.2 and I cannot wait to get my hands on.
This is what lies inside this release:

NEW: Increased support of ESRI shape files for site limits and object locations
NEW: Tools for design and optimisation of regular grid turbine layouts
NEW: Improved modelling of array effects between large wind farms

NEW: Expanded MCP+ Module with more displays and analysis
NEW: Arabic and Polish language versions.

You can try the demo here.

WindFarmer is wind energy software used to calculate turbine wake impacts, energy yield, and site conditions for determining turbine suitability. WindFarmer uses wind modeling inputs from WAsP or CFD software. WindFarmer is developed internally by the independent renewable energy consultant GL Garrad Hassan. WindFarmer can engage several types of wake models, including an Eddy Viscosity wake model which is more complex than the standard PARK model employed by WindPRO, a leading competitor.

More recently, the Eddy Viscosity model has been modified to account for previous discrepancies in the wake modelling of large wind farms. WindFarmer and WindPRO have both been trusted by investment banks to develop the published wind energy assessments used to determine financing for proposed wind farms.WindFarmer, like WindPRO, can optimize a wind farm layout for energy yield given turbine spacing, setback distances, shadow flicker, and acoustic noise level constraints.

Both products also feature wind farm visualization capabilities.