By Andrew Williams •
October 29, 2008
Utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) has confirmed plans to build a massive 909 MW wind farm in Oregon. When completed, the facility will be one of the largest fully permitted wind power sites anywhere in the world.
The installation will be located in Morrow and Gilliam counties in North-Central Oregon, and will consist of 303 3MW wind turbines spread across a 30-mile radius. The project, called Caithness Shepherd’s Flat, will generate around two billion kWh of energy, roughly 10 per cent of SCE’s total alternative energy portfolio.
By Andrew Williams •
September 30, 2008
Last week, E.ON Climate and Renewables officially opened its massive new wind farm in Roscoe, Texas. The site is now capable of generating an impressive 335.5 MW of electricity, a figure set to rise to 781.5 MW when the farm is completed in mid-2009.
When finished, the Roscoe site will become one of the world’s largest wind farms, boasting a total of 627 wind turbines capable of powering more than 250,000 of the state’s homes.
By Michelle Bennett •
September 29, 2008
A season has passed since we covered the installation of Magco Inc.’s new thin film solar panel installation. The previous article generated a lot of interest and questions, so it’s time to get back on the roof and report on some real-world figures.
If you need a refresher on thin film solar technology, check out two of our previous posts. The important thing to remember here is that thin film solar is lighter than silicon panels, and uses different wavelengths of light.
In May of 2008, Magco Inc. installed 27kW of Unisolar’s triple-junction laminate panels. That’s 4,900 sq ft of thin film goodness. The building contains a warehouse and offices, and it has a metal roof. The solar panels were literally glued to the roof.
Total installation cost: US$215,000 (including inverter and hiring a master electrician)
Energy produced each month provides about 1/3 of Magco’s total needs. That may not seem like a lot, but recall that this includes a warehouse with associated heating/cooling, machinery and equipment. Magco anticipates producing about US$9,000 each year from the panels. So let’s do the math:
Many people envision solar power as rigid silicon panels mounted on a roof. With thin film solar cells, you’re more likely to not see them, or even know they’re there. This article is about a real-life thin film solar project.
Not many bloggers are able to witness the technologies we research and write about. It’s one thing to be able to buy afford a cool “green” gadget (usually not very green), but another to see the many forms of solar, wind, geothermal, etc., which are always changing and developing around the world. So when my employer decided to go solar, you might imagine my excitement.
At the moment I work for Magco Inc., a Tecta America company. Tecta is a national commercial roofing corporation that can install green roofs, solar lighting, and solar panels alongside a variety of traditional roofing systems. This solar project is pretty straight forward: our building has a big, flat roof on top of a hill without any shade. You’d have trouble finding a sunnier spot for solar panels.
I was double delighted when I heard that they ordered thin-film solar! Naturally inquiring minds wanted to know: why and what kind?
Devils Lake installation: image courtesy of Green Museum
There is a little family of asexual plants commonly known as duckweed, and otherwise known in the botanical world as lemnaceae. These smallest flowering plants are lean, lime-green, clean, eating machines. Lemna is the most common of this family, and has quite a profound impact for its size. Each plant has one paper thin leaf the size of the
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