Vestas is now manufacturing its first V110-2.0 MW wind turbines that will be delivered to EDP Renovaveis (EDPR) for several wind energy projects in the United States. The turbines are part of a supply agreement to deliver 1,500 MW to wind power plants in the Americas and Europe. EDPR said it selected the V110-2.0 MW because of its competitive cost of energy compared with other options.
The V110-2.0 MW turbines are expected to be delivered and commissioned in 2014 and 2015. The new projects’ names and specific locations are not currently available.
“Vestas has successfully worked with EDPR for the past eight years to deliver many wind-power projects around the world,” said Chris Brown, President of Vestas’ sales and service division in the United States and Canada. “We look forward to supplying EDPR our new V110-2.0 MW wind turbine, which is a variant of the V100-1.8 MW that can provide over 13 per cent higher annual energy production compared with its predecessor. Our 2-MW platform has a long track record of success and reliability. The V110-2.0 MW will provide clean, reliable and low cost electricity for decades.”
Vestas’ factories in Colorado will manufacture the blades, towers and nacelles for these projects.
The projects include five-year service agreements featuring the Active Output Management (AOM) 5000 offering. AOM 5000 is an energy-based availability guarantee that ensures the turbines are operational when the wind is blowing. This service option includes the VestasOnline surveillance system that remotely controls and monitors the turbines and predicts potential wear-and-tear issues. This allows Vestas to plan maintenance so the turbines operate with the minimum amount of lost production.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine
web! If you love wind turbines, welcome
to contact us!
2013年8月29日 星期四
Government delays $450m wind turbine
Transport Minister Norman Baker announced that, whilst the Planning Inspectorate panel appointed to consider the application for the development had recommended granting consent, he wished to receive further evidence relating to ecological compensation measures and the protection of a local rail line.
Baker asked for further information on these two issues to be supplied by 25 September.
Should it get the green light the park is to cover 906 acres, providing 1,279 metres of quayside facilities purpose built for the manufacture, assembly and installation of offshore renewable technologies. It is expected to create 4,000 local jobs and establish the Humber area as a "world-class centre for the renewable energy industries", according to Able UK.
Neil Etherington, Able UK group development director, said: "It is obviously good news that the panel which carried out the very detailed and complex examination of our application recommended granting consent. It's also good news that in today's announcement Ministers do recognise the regeneration and economic benefits for both the local area and the wider development of the offshore renewable energy industry."
"At the same time it has to be said that a further delay in a decision is disappointing."
Baker's report stated that the government recognised that "facilitating the regeneration and economic development of the area around the project, and supporting the development of the offshore renewable energy industry are matters of substantial public benefit" but that it realised that the project "would be likely to have a number of adverse environmental impacts, especially in relation to the ecologically-sensitive Humber estuary."
Renewable UK's deputy chief executive, Maf Smith, said: "Today's announcement marks an important step forward in the development of the UK's offshore wind manufacturing sector. This project demonstrates the massive scale of the opportunity we have to revitalise coastal areas around the country, creating tens of thousands of green-collar jobs by focusing specifically on marine renewables."
Etherington added: "We will be taking immediate steps to address the issues raised in the government's announcement today."
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind turbines, welcome to contact us!
Baker asked for further information on these two issues to be supplied by 25 September.
Should it get the green light the park is to cover 906 acres, providing 1,279 metres of quayside facilities purpose built for the manufacture, assembly and installation of offshore renewable technologies. It is expected to create 4,000 local jobs and establish the Humber area as a "world-class centre for the renewable energy industries", according to Able UK.
Neil Etherington, Able UK group development director, said: "It is obviously good news that the panel which carried out the very detailed and complex examination of our application recommended granting consent. It's also good news that in today's announcement Ministers do recognise the regeneration and economic benefits for both the local area and the wider development of the offshore renewable energy industry."
"At the same time it has to be said that a further delay in a decision is disappointing."
Baker's report stated that the government recognised that "facilitating the regeneration and economic development of the area around the project, and supporting the development of the offshore renewable energy industry are matters of substantial public benefit" but that it realised that the project "would be likely to have a number of adverse environmental impacts, especially in relation to the ecologically-sensitive Humber estuary."
Renewable UK's deputy chief executive, Maf Smith, said: "Today's announcement marks an important step forward in the development of the UK's offshore wind manufacturing sector. This project demonstrates the massive scale of the opportunity we have to revitalise coastal areas around the country, creating tens of thousands of green-collar jobs by focusing specifically on marine renewables."
Etherington added: "We will be taking immediate steps to address the issues raised in the government's announcement today."
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind turbines, welcome to contact us!
2013年8月27日 星期二
The report was authored
"This is the second of two major studies we have conducted on this topic [the first was published in 2009 -- see below], and in both studies [using two different datasets] we find no statistical evidence that operating wind turbines have had any measureable impact on home sales prices," says Ben Hoen, the lead author of the new report.
Hoen is a researcher in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Berkeley Lab.
The new study used a number of sophisticated techniques to control for other potential impacts on home prices, including collecting data that spanned well before the wind facilities' development was announced to after they were constructed and operating. This allowed the researchers to control for any pre-existing differences in home sales prices across their sample and any changes that occurred due to the housing bubble.
This study, the most comprehensive to-date, builds on both the previous Berkeley Lab study as well a number of other academic and published U.S. studies, which also generally find no measureable impacts near operating turbines.
"Although there have been claims of significant property value impacts near operating wind turbines that regularly surface in the press or in local communities, strong evidence to support those claims has failed to materialize in all of the major U.S. studies conducted thus far," says Hoen. "Moreover, our findings comport with the large set of studies that have investigated other potentially similar disamenities, such as high voltage transmission lines, land fills, and noisy roads, which suggest that widespread impacts from wind turbines would be either relatively small or non-existent."
The report was authored by Ben Hoen (Berkeley Lab), Jason P. Brown (formerly USDA now Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), Thomas Jackson (Texas A & M and Real Property Analytics), Ryan Wiser (Berkeley Lab), Mark Thayer (San Diego State University) and Peter Cappers (Berkeley Lab). The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind power generators, welcome to contact us!
Hoen is a researcher in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Berkeley Lab.
The new study used a number of sophisticated techniques to control for other potential impacts on home prices, including collecting data that spanned well before the wind facilities' development was announced to after they were constructed and operating. This allowed the researchers to control for any pre-existing differences in home sales prices across their sample and any changes that occurred due to the housing bubble.
This study, the most comprehensive to-date, builds on both the previous Berkeley Lab study as well a number of other academic and published U.S. studies, which also generally find no measureable impacts near operating turbines.
"Although there have been claims of significant property value impacts near operating wind turbines that regularly surface in the press or in local communities, strong evidence to support those claims has failed to materialize in all of the major U.S. studies conducted thus far," says Hoen. "Moreover, our findings comport with the large set of studies that have investigated other potentially similar disamenities, such as high voltage transmission lines, land fills, and noisy roads, which suggest that widespread impacts from wind turbines would be either relatively small or non-existent."
The report was authored by Ben Hoen (Berkeley Lab), Jason P. Brown (formerly USDA now Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), Thomas Jackson (Texas A & M and Real Property Analytics), Ryan Wiser (Berkeley Lab), Mark Thayer (San Diego State University) and Peter Cappers (Berkeley Lab). The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind power generators, welcome to contact us!
Putting It All
Clare Donohue spent her teenage years growing up in the Catskill Mountains hamlet of Roscoe where water was central to the area’s way of life. Her family often fished at a nearby reservoir and so many fly fishers liked to visit the spot where two pristine rivers converged that Roscoe dubbed itself “Trout Town USA.”
“When you walked into the house,” Donohue recalled, “the first thing you did was go to the sink and fill a glass of water. It was so delicious.”
Donohue, 52, runs a small business and has lived in New York City for the past 30 years. When she learned from friends three years ago that 85 well sites had been leased for future drilling for natural gas in a village close to Roscoe, she was concerned. She watched Gasland, Josh Fox’s Oscar-nominated documentary, and later joined friends at a West Village community board meeting. There, officials from Spectra Energy sought to mollify local concerns about an underground natural gas pipeline that the company was bringing into the neighborhood.
“I just sat there unbelieving, because everybody was just calm and polite and they were all asking questions like whether the cement in the sidewalk would be put back the way it was, things that I thought were totally irrelevant in terms of the disaster that was being described. And I kept thinking, ’What is wrong here? Why aren’t people screaming?’”
Donohue has been raising her voice ever since as a co-founder of the Sane Energy Project, which she helped start with a dozen other activists to fight the Spectra pipeline. The group’s focus has since broadened as they confront a growing web of projects that could drive a surge in New York City’s use of natural gas obtained by fracking. In addition to Spectra, a second pipeline is slated to enter via the Rockaways and go up Brooklyn’s Flatbush Avenue. There is also a deep water liquefied natural gas import terminal proposed for off the coast of Long Island.
New Yorkers currently consume 1.3 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas. And these new infrastructure projects would increase that by between 16 and 30 percent, according to a study commissioned by the mayor’s office.
“It is a strategy to hook the city on fracked gas,” said Occupy the Pipeline activist Patrick Robbins.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, requires injecting millions of gallons of water laced with an array of toxic chemicals deep into the earth to cause fissures that allow drillers to tap previously unreachable deposits of natural gas. The technology has been blamed for poisoning underground drinking water supplies in areas near well sites.
Large parts of central and southern New York State sit atop the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation that is believed to contain large reserves of natural gas. While activists have won a moratorium against fracking in New York and are fighting for a full ban, Pennsylvania landowners have seen a fracking boom in the past decade, especially as smaller operators have been gobbled up by transnational companies. These corporations, owning large acreage and seeking fast profits, drive the push for increased drilling.
While natural gas is heralded as a cleaner-burning “bridge fuel” to a renewable energy future, it is in fact a potent greenhouse gas. When released directly into the atmosphere, it traps 72 times more heat than carbon dioxide and remains 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide after a century in the air.
Creating a New Market
With natural gas prices at a low and billions of dollars sunk into drill sites, the natural gas industry is looking for a way to increase demand, boost profits and garner more financial backers. Through that lens, New York City, a huge energy consumer, presents a golden opportunity.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2011 mandate to convert the boilers in New York City buildings to the “cleanest fuels” has set the stage for skyrocketing demand as many buildings switch to natural gas systems. The new heating oil regulations will ban the two dirtiest heating fuels available: Number 6 and Number 4. These heavy fuels create fine soot, known as particulate matter, which is highly polluting. Soot exacerbates asthma, irritates lungs and increases the risk of heart attacks and premature death.
The regulations will require New Yorkers to instead heat their buildings with either ultra-low sulfur Number 2 oil, biodiesel, natural gas or steam, according to PlaNYC.
The trouble, Donohue said, is that natural gas also produces particulate matter and at a higher rate than Number 2. In comparison, biofuel produces zero emissions and zero particulate matter. And while converting an average New York City building to biodiesel and Number 2 oil costs about $10,000 to $30,000, natural gas conversions can start at $500,000, a cost often transferred from landlord to tenant through rent hikes.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind turbines, welcome to contact us!
“When you walked into the house,” Donohue recalled, “the first thing you did was go to the sink and fill a glass of water. It was so delicious.”
Donohue, 52, runs a small business and has lived in New York City for the past 30 years. When she learned from friends three years ago that 85 well sites had been leased for future drilling for natural gas in a village close to Roscoe, she was concerned. She watched Gasland, Josh Fox’s Oscar-nominated documentary, and later joined friends at a West Village community board meeting. There, officials from Spectra Energy sought to mollify local concerns about an underground natural gas pipeline that the company was bringing into the neighborhood.
“I just sat there unbelieving, because everybody was just calm and polite and they were all asking questions like whether the cement in the sidewalk would be put back the way it was, things that I thought were totally irrelevant in terms of the disaster that was being described. And I kept thinking, ’What is wrong here? Why aren’t people screaming?’”
Donohue has been raising her voice ever since as a co-founder of the Sane Energy Project, which she helped start with a dozen other activists to fight the Spectra pipeline. The group’s focus has since broadened as they confront a growing web of projects that could drive a surge in New York City’s use of natural gas obtained by fracking. In addition to Spectra, a second pipeline is slated to enter via the Rockaways and go up Brooklyn’s Flatbush Avenue. There is also a deep water liquefied natural gas import terminal proposed for off the coast of Long Island.
New Yorkers currently consume 1.3 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas. And these new infrastructure projects would increase that by between 16 and 30 percent, according to a study commissioned by the mayor’s office.
“It is a strategy to hook the city on fracked gas,” said Occupy the Pipeline activist Patrick Robbins.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, requires injecting millions of gallons of water laced with an array of toxic chemicals deep into the earth to cause fissures that allow drillers to tap previously unreachable deposits of natural gas. The technology has been blamed for poisoning underground drinking water supplies in areas near well sites.
Large parts of central and southern New York State sit atop the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation that is believed to contain large reserves of natural gas. While activists have won a moratorium against fracking in New York and are fighting for a full ban, Pennsylvania landowners have seen a fracking boom in the past decade, especially as smaller operators have been gobbled up by transnational companies. These corporations, owning large acreage and seeking fast profits, drive the push for increased drilling.
While natural gas is heralded as a cleaner-burning “bridge fuel” to a renewable energy future, it is in fact a potent greenhouse gas. When released directly into the atmosphere, it traps 72 times more heat than carbon dioxide and remains 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide after a century in the air.
Creating a New Market
With natural gas prices at a low and billions of dollars sunk into drill sites, the natural gas industry is looking for a way to increase demand, boost profits and garner more financial backers. Through that lens, New York City, a huge energy consumer, presents a golden opportunity.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2011 mandate to convert the boilers in New York City buildings to the “cleanest fuels” has set the stage for skyrocketing demand as many buildings switch to natural gas systems. The new heating oil regulations will ban the two dirtiest heating fuels available: Number 6 and Number 4. These heavy fuels create fine soot, known as particulate matter, which is highly polluting. Soot exacerbates asthma, irritates lungs and increases the risk of heart attacks and premature death.
The regulations will require New Yorkers to instead heat their buildings with either ultra-low sulfur Number 2 oil, biodiesel, natural gas or steam, according to PlaNYC.
The trouble, Donohue said, is that natural gas also produces particulate matter and at a higher rate than Number 2. In comparison, biofuel produces zero emissions and zero particulate matter. And while converting an average New York City building to biodiesel and Number 2 oil costs about $10,000 to $30,000, natural gas conversions can start at $500,000, a cost often transferred from landlord to tenant through rent hikes.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind turbines, welcome to contact us!
2013年8月25日 星期日
Wind turbines spinning
Wind turbines spinning on the Palouse are the final piece of Avista Utilities’ strategy to meet Washington’s new renewable energy standards.
Energy from the 58-turbine Palouse Wind farm, which started operations last year, has pushed the Spokane-based utility over the top. Even with future customer growth, Avista officials say they’ve lined up enough qualifying renewable energy to meet Initiative 937’s requirements through 2020.
Passed by voters in 2006, the initiative requires most utilities serving Washington customers to get 15 percent of their electricity from new renewable sources by 2020. The initiative’s goal is to diversify green energy production in Washington, prompting investment in wind, solar, geothermal and biomass in a state long dependent on hydropower, said Danielle Dixon, senior policy associate for the NW Energy Coalition in Seattle.
More than $8 billion has been spent on wind, solar and biomass development in Washington over the past 15 years, with the majority funneling into wind. At least part of that investment can be attributed to I-937’s passage, initiative backers say.
Some utilities “acquired early and acquired sufficiently,” which means they’ve blown past the upcoming deadlines, Dixon said.
In addition to Avista, Puget Sound Energy has enough resources in place to generate 15 percent of its electricity from new renewable resources, said Ray Lane, PSE spokesman. The utility, which serves about 1.1 million customers in the Interstate 5 corridor, built its own wind farms.
Avista provides electricity to about 237,000 Eastern Washington electric customers. The utility is ahead of the game for several reasons, said Jason Thackston, the company’s vice president for energy resources.
Avista was able to count toward I-937 requirements additional energy produced from the installation of new turbines at its Clark Fork River dams, because the turbines produce more kilowatts from the same river flow. Avista can also count energy from two long-term wind contracts, along with upcoming work at two Spokane River dams that will increase electrical output.
Through a legislative amendment, Avista will be able to count electricity produced at its existing Kettle Falls biomass plant toward the renewable tally beginning in 2016. However, the utility will have to document that the wood waste burned at the plant doesn’t come from old-growth forests, said Jessie Wuerst, an Avista spokeswoman.
Avista spent about $3.6 million last year to meet I-937’s requirements, according to information filed with the state. The cost represents less than 1 percent of a residential customer’s electric bill, officials said.
As a result of I-937, Avista invested sooner in new generating resources than it otherwise would have, Thackston said. But the utility got a good deal on its 30-year contract to purchase electricity from the Palouse Wind farm near Oakesdale, Wash., he said.
Buying energy from the Palouse was cheaper than Avista’s projected cost of putting up its own wind turbines on land it purchased near Reardan, Thackston said.
While Avista has met I-937’s requirements with relative ease, its smaller neighbor – Inland Power – is in a different situation.
Inland Power is an electric cooperative that serves 39,000 customers spread across 13 counties. Most are rural residents and 42 percent are low-income, said Chad Jensen, Inland Power’s chief executive officer.
Inland Power is already one of the nation’s greenest utilities, purchasing 81 percent of its electricity from federal hydroeletric dams, Jensen said. Because its customer base is relatively stable, complying with I-937 will force the utility to invest in renewable energy it doesn’t need, he said.
“It’s a frustrating piece of legislation,” Jensen said. “We’re having trouble getting sensible changes that we think should be easy tweaks.”
Inland Power lobbied the Legislature this year, saying that upgrades at federal hydroelectric facilities should count toward the utility’s I-937 requirements. That’s one of the inequities in the initiative, Jensen said: If utilities own the dam, they get credit for upgrades that increase electrical output. If they don’t own the dam, they can’t count the upgrades toward I-937.
Inland Power is spending nearly $3.4 million to help finance major upgrades at Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, two federal dams on the Columbia River that produce power the utility purchases.
Though Inland Power couldn’t get the Legislature to adopt the change this year, Jensen said the utility will continue to push for an amendment. More than 50 bills related to I-937 were introduced during the last legislative session, which hampered the effort, he said.
“There were so many bills trying to change Initiative 937 that we couldn’t get any traction,” Jensen said.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine web! If you love wind turbines, welcome to contact us!
Energy from the 58-turbine Palouse Wind farm, which started operations last year, has pushed the Spokane-based utility over the top. Even with future customer growth, Avista officials say they’ve lined up enough qualifying renewable energy to meet Initiative 937’s requirements through 2020.
Passed by voters in 2006, the initiative requires most utilities serving Washington customers to get 15 percent of their electricity from new renewable sources by 2020. The initiative’s goal is to diversify green energy production in Washington, prompting investment in wind, solar, geothermal and biomass in a state long dependent on hydropower, said Danielle Dixon, senior policy associate for the NW Energy Coalition in Seattle.
More than $8 billion has been spent on wind, solar and biomass development in Washington over the past 15 years, with the majority funneling into wind. At least part of that investment can be attributed to I-937’s passage, initiative backers say.
Some utilities “acquired early and acquired sufficiently,” which means they’ve blown past the upcoming deadlines, Dixon said.
In addition to Avista, Puget Sound Energy has enough resources in place to generate 15 percent of its electricity from new renewable resources, said Ray Lane, PSE spokesman. The utility, which serves about 1.1 million customers in the Interstate 5 corridor, built its own wind farms.
Avista provides electricity to about 237,000 Eastern Washington electric customers. The utility is ahead of the game for several reasons, said Jason Thackston, the company’s vice president for energy resources.
Avista was able to count toward I-937 requirements additional energy produced from the installation of new turbines at its Clark Fork River dams, because the turbines produce more kilowatts from the same river flow. Avista can also count energy from two long-term wind contracts, along with upcoming work at two Spokane River dams that will increase electrical output.
Through a legislative amendment, Avista will be able to count electricity produced at its existing Kettle Falls biomass plant toward the renewable tally beginning in 2016. However, the utility will have to document that the wood waste burned at the plant doesn’t come from old-growth forests, said Jessie Wuerst, an Avista spokeswoman.
Avista spent about $3.6 million last year to meet I-937’s requirements, according to information filed with the state. The cost represents less than 1 percent of a residential customer’s electric bill, officials said.
As a result of I-937, Avista invested sooner in new generating resources than it otherwise would have, Thackston said. But the utility got a good deal on its 30-year contract to purchase electricity from the Palouse Wind farm near Oakesdale, Wash., he said.
Buying energy from the Palouse was cheaper than Avista’s projected cost of putting up its own wind turbines on land it purchased near Reardan, Thackston said.
While Avista has met I-937’s requirements with relative ease, its smaller neighbor – Inland Power – is in a different situation.
Inland Power is an electric cooperative that serves 39,000 customers spread across 13 counties. Most are rural residents and 42 percent are low-income, said Chad Jensen, Inland Power’s chief executive officer.
Inland Power is already one of the nation’s greenest utilities, purchasing 81 percent of its electricity from federal hydroeletric dams, Jensen said. Because its customer base is relatively stable, complying with I-937 will force the utility to invest in renewable energy it doesn’t need, he said.
“It’s a frustrating piece of legislation,” Jensen said. “We’re having trouble getting sensible changes that we think should be easy tweaks.”
Inland Power lobbied the Legislature this year, saying that upgrades at federal hydroelectric facilities should count toward the utility’s I-937 requirements. That’s one of the inequities in the initiative, Jensen said: If utilities own the dam, they get credit for upgrades that increase electrical output. If they don’t own the dam, they can’t count the upgrades toward I-937.
Inland Power is spending nearly $3.4 million to help finance major upgrades at Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, two federal dams on the Columbia River that produce power the utility purchases.
Though Inland Power couldn’t get the Legislature to adopt the change this year, Jensen said the utility will continue to push for an amendment. More than 50 bills related to I-937 were introduced during the last legislative session, which hampered the effort, he said.
“There were so many bills trying to change Initiative 937 that we couldn’t get any traction,” Jensen said.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine web! If you love wind turbines, welcome to contact us!
Ohio’s Lake Erie windmills
An environmental riddle is brewing off the shores of Lake Erie, and its answer is blowing in the wind.
The planned launch of a wind turbine demonstration project seven miles off of Cleveland’s lakeshore in Ohio – the first of its kind on the Great Lakes – has politicians, developers and labor there on board.
That’s a totally different vibe from what took place in Buffalo Niagara in 2009 and 2010, when the New York Power Authority gauged interest in a similar project in lakes Erie and Ontario. Local governments here quickly scuttled the idea after intense political pressure from a well-organized group of local lakeshore residents.
The environmentalist community, meanwhile, still searches for a Solomonic solution to the question of harnessing wind on the Great Lakes.
Can support for coveted renewable energy that reduces reliance on fossil fuels outweigh potential collateral damage to birds, bats and fish – not to mention aesthetic and noise considerations, as well as possible water pollution?
It’s a tough one, but Lynda Schneekloth of the Sierra Club’s Niagara Group thinks so.
“If we don’t switch from fossil fuels, all the fish in the lake are going to die anyway,” Schneekloth said. “Anything that gets us off of fossil fuels should be tried now.”
Citing a climate change “emergency,” Schneekloth says projects like wind farms in the lakes should be fast-tracked without having them mired down in years of public debate.
Others disagree.
“It could be a disaster,” said Sharen Trembath, a Southtowns resident who leads the area’s annual Great Lakes Beach Sweep and helped spearhead efforts to quash the Power Authority’s plans to install turbines in Lake Erie a couple years ago. “It’s giving up one natural resource for another.”
Added Tom Marks, a local charter boat captain who also opposed the former Power Authority plan: “There are environmental hazards with locating the turbines in the lake.”
Offshore hazards
Here are some of the concerns about offshore wind development, according to Marks, Trembath and the 2010 and 2011 resolutions put forth by Niagara, Erie and Chautauqua county legislatures as well as several lakeshore towns opposing them:
Disruption of the flight patterns of some migrating birds and some of recently resurgent species, such as bald eagles.Interference with boating and fishing.Stirring up “a 40-year cap” on toxic sediment in the lake bed left behind from the region’s industrial heyday.Potential for damage to the turbines and the lakeshore from fire, electrical shock or other problems from large power cables stretched along the lake bed, and leakage from an oil cartridge that Trembath calls “the size of a bus.”
What’s more, dissenters say, windmills are just not that efficient, don’t create jobs, can only operate when winds reach specific speeds and can be expensive.
And, they add, they’re eye pollution.
“I’ve spent my life taking care of the lake’s environment,” Trembath said. “I don’t want it filled with turbines.”
In Ohio, however, many don’t see it that way.
The Cleveland-based Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. has received support in Northeast Ohio for its “Icebreaker” project, which it says “is a blueprint to position Ohio as the leader in the region.”
The demonstration project calls for six 3-megawatt, American-made wind turbines to be placed offshore of downtown Cleveland, with full operation beginning in 2017. In contrast, Lackawanna’s on-shore “Steel Winds” consists of more than a dozen 2.5-megawatt turbines.
Bolstered with $4 million in startup money from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Cleveland company Thursday launched its “POWER Pledge program” to continue building “local stakeholder support” for the wind farm. About 5,000 supporters in Northeast Ohio have already pledged to buy electricity, at higher prices, from Icebreaker’s offshore farm, said Lorry Wagner, president of the Lake Erie energy company.
“Community engagement and support are critical to our success,” said Wagner, “and the support we have received for the POWER Pledge is very encouraging for the future of offshore wind in the Great Lakes.”
Three of seven wind demonstration projects nationwide – of which Cleveland is one – are scheduled for selection by the DOE next year for an additional $46.7 million award to build out the balance of the offshore project. Either way, however, Wagner said his company has invested time and resources in the belief that offshore wind will happen near Cleveland with or without the extra federal money.
By 2030, Wagner expects that his company could be managing “a few hundred” offshore wind turbines in Lake Erie.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love skystream, welcome to contact us!
The planned launch of a wind turbine demonstration project seven miles off of Cleveland’s lakeshore in Ohio – the first of its kind on the Great Lakes – has politicians, developers and labor there on board.
That’s a totally different vibe from what took place in Buffalo Niagara in 2009 and 2010, when the New York Power Authority gauged interest in a similar project in lakes Erie and Ontario. Local governments here quickly scuttled the idea after intense political pressure from a well-organized group of local lakeshore residents.
The environmentalist community, meanwhile, still searches for a Solomonic solution to the question of harnessing wind on the Great Lakes.
Can support for coveted renewable energy that reduces reliance on fossil fuels outweigh potential collateral damage to birds, bats and fish – not to mention aesthetic and noise considerations, as well as possible water pollution?
It’s a tough one, but Lynda Schneekloth of the Sierra Club’s Niagara Group thinks so.
“If we don’t switch from fossil fuels, all the fish in the lake are going to die anyway,” Schneekloth said. “Anything that gets us off of fossil fuels should be tried now.”
Citing a climate change “emergency,” Schneekloth says projects like wind farms in the lakes should be fast-tracked without having them mired down in years of public debate.
Others disagree.
“It could be a disaster,” said Sharen Trembath, a Southtowns resident who leads the area’s annual Great Lakes Beach Sweep and helped spearhead efforts to quash the Power Authority’s plans to install turbines in Lake Erie a couple years ago. “It’s giving up one natural resource for another.”
Added Tom Marks, a local charter boat captain who also opposed the former Power Authority plan: “There are environmental hazards with locating the turbines in the lake.”
Offshore hazards
Here are some of the concerns about offshore wind development, according to Marks, Trembath and the 2010 and 2011 resolutions put forth by Niagara, Erie and Chautauqua county legislatures as well as several lakeshore towns opposing them:
Disruption of the flight patterns of some migrating birds and some of recently resurgent species, such as bald eagles.Interference with boating and fishing.Stirring up “a 40-year cap” on toxic sediment in the lake bed left behind from the region’s industrial heyday.Potential for damage to the turbines and the lakeshore from fire, electrical shock or other problems from large power cables stretched along the lake bed, and leakage from an oil cartridge that Trembath calls “the size of a bus.”
What’s more, dissenters say, windmills are just not that efficient, don’t create jobs, can only operate when winds reach specific speeds and can be expensive.
And, they add, they’re eye pollution.
“I’ve spent my life taking care of the lake’s environment,” Trembath said. “I don’t want it filled with turbines.”
In Ohio, however, many don’t see it that way.
The Cleveland-based Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. has received support in Northeast Ohio for its “Icebreaker” project, which it says “is a blueprint to position Ohio as the leader in the region.”
The demonstration project calls for six 3-megawatt, American-made wind turbines to be placed offshore of downtown Cleveland, with full operation beginning in 2017. In contrast, Lackawanna’s on-shore “Steel Winds” consists of more than a dozen 2.5-megawatt turbines.
Bolstered with $4 million in startup money from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Cleveland company Thursday launched its “POWER Pledge program” to continue building “local stakeholder support” for the wind farm. About 5,000 supporters in Northeast Ohio have already pledged to buy electricity, at higher prices, from Icebreaker’s offshore farm, said Lorry Wagner, president of the Lake Erie energy company.
“Community engagement and support are critical to our success,” said Wagner, “and the support we have received for the POWER Pledge is very encouraging for the future of offshore wind in the Great Lakes.”
Three of seven wind demonstration projects nationwide – of which Cleveland is one – are scheduled for selection by the DOE next year for an additional $46.7 million award to build out the balance of the offshore project. Either way, however, Wagner said his company has invested time and resources in the belief that offshore wind will happen near Cleveland with or without the extra federal money.
By 2030, Wagner expects that his company could be managing “a few hundred” offshore wind turbines in Lake Erie.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love skystream, welcome to contact us!
2013年8月20日 星期二
wind energy for $18 million
Bay City will purchase a chunk of its electric power from a Gratiot County wind-turbine farm.
The Bay City Commission on Monday, Aug. 19, voted 7-2 to buy $18 million in electricity generated by the Beebe Community Wind Farm near Ithaca during the next 20 years.
Bay City Electric, Light & Power must comply with a state mandate to provide at least 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2015. The utility has 20,200 customers.
Phil Newton, the city’s electric utility director, has called the contract and its accompanying price a good deal because the cost is lower than he’s seen from other wind developers.
Other communities have already purchased Beebe’s wind farm energy include Holland. The West Michigan community joined four other member utilities of the Michigan Public Power Agency earlier this year in purchasing 26.4 megawatts of power from Beebe.
Bay City’s agreement would be to purchase 4.8 megawatts through the MPPA, a supply agency the city and other smaller municipalities belong to as a group. The initial year will cost Bay City about $45 a megawatt hour, for a total of $700,000.
Commissioners Elizabeth Peters and Chad Sibley protested the length of the agreement. Peters wanted to see an opt-out clause in the contract.
“Energy prices are going to go down,” Sibley said. “At this point, locking (the city) into a 20-year commitment might not be in our best interest."
Newton previously said Bay City's 2013 average cost to purchase power was $59 a megawatt hour. Landfill gases run at $85 a megawatt hour and coal-based power costs the city about $54 per megawatt hour, he said.
The cost of the wind-turbine energy increases during the contract’s 20-year term, rising to about $72 per megawatt hour in the final year.
Workers at Siemens Energy, a plant in Hutchinson, will build portions of wind turbines for a project in the northwest United States.
Siemens has an order from Portland General Electric company, a public utility in Oregon.
Hutchinson workers will build the nacelles and hubs for 116 wind turbines. Crews will start installing the wind turbines in 2014. Once the project is completed, it's expected to generate enough power for 84,000 households.Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com!
The Bay City Commission on Monday, Aug. 19, voted 7-2 to buy $18 million in electricity generated by the Beebe Community Wind Farm near Ithaca during the next 20 years.
Bay City Electric, Light & Power must comply with a state mandate to provide at least 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2015. The utility has 20,200 customers.
Phil Newton, the city’s electric utility director, has called the contract and its accompanying price a good deal because the cost is lower than he’s seen from other wind developers.
Other communities have already purchased Beebe’s wind farm energy include Holland. The West Michigan community joined four other member utilities of the Michigan Public Power Agency earlier this year in purchasing 26.4 megawatts of power from Beebe.
Bay City’s agreement would be to purchase 4.8 megawatts through the MPPA, a supply agency the city and other smaller municipalities belong to as a group. The initial year will cost Bay City about $45 a megawatt hour, for a total of $700,000.
Commissioners Elizabeth Peters and Chad Sibley protested the length of the agreement. Peters wanted to see an opt-out clause in the contract.
“Energy prices are going to go down,” Sibley said. “At this point, locking (the city) into a 20-year commitment might not be in our best interest."
Newton previously said Bay City's 2013 average cost to purchase power was $59 a megawatt hour. Landfill gases run at $85 a megawatt hour and coal-based power costs the city about $54 per megawatt hour, he said.
The cost of the wind-turbine energy increases during the contract’s 20-year term, rising to about $72 per megawatt hour in the final year.
Workers at Siemens Energy, a plant in Hutchinson, will build portions of wind turbines for a project in the northwest United States.
Siemens has an order from Portland General Electric company, a public utility in Oregon.
Hutchinson workers will build the nacelles and hubs for 116 wind turbines. Crews will start installing the wind turbines in 2014. Once the project is completed, it's expected to generate enough power for 84,000 households.Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com!
That could see the state falter
Tamil Nadu may find its pole position in captive wind energy under threat as companies are reluctant to add to capacity nor is the sector attractive enough for third-party wind power developers.
That could see the state falter in its bid to add 6,000 megawatts (MW) of wind energy capacity by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2016-17) to take it to 13,000MW from 7,162.3MW now.
Gujarat and Maharastra, which are a distant second and third in the rankings, could take advantage of this to gain on Tamil Nadu, experts said.
Madras Cements Ltd, the second largest cement maker in south India, has a wind energy capacity of 159MW. It doesn’t intend to add to this, but will instead invest in thermal energy, said a senior company executive who didn’t want to be named.
It costs Rs.5 crore to set up 1MW of thermal energy capacity and Rs.6 crore for equivalent wind energy capacity, according to Amol Kotwal, deputy director of energy and power systems at Frost and Sullivan, a business consulting firm. Inadequate infrastructure, delayed payments, and lack of incentives are discouraging further investment in the sector, critical for a power-deficient country that needs to boost energy capacity.
The trend in Tamil Nadu also reflects a wider disenchantment with the promise of wind energy as a source of seemingly “free” energy.
Madras Cements plans to enhance the capacity of the thermal power plants at Alathiyur, Jayanthipuram and Ariyalur by adding one turbine each of 6MW capacity at a total cost of Rs.55 crore, said the company in its recent annual report.
Last week, TVS Motors Ltd’s TVS Energy unit, which set up its captive 59MW wind energy unit in 2010, sold 90% of its stake to Green Infra Ltd, a renewable power producer as it was too capital intensive. The two-wheeler company did not mention whether the price at which it sold its subsidiary and whether it made profits.
Tamil Nadu gets 44% of its total energy requirement from renewable energy, with close to 90% of it coming from wind energy, pushing thermal energy to second place. This is much higher than the national average for renewable energy consumption of 12%.
With the economic slowdown hurting firms, most aren’t too keen on making investments in renewable energy. “Since the slowdown has affected the business of many companies, they would rather divert the money into their core business than put it in wind power,” said K. Vidyashankar, managing director, MM Forgings, which has a captive wind energy plant.
Wind energy is seasonal in Tamil Nadu—mostly between May and October. The southern state saw its wind energy capacity addition drop to 174MW for a total of 7,162MW in 2012-13, compared with about 1,000MW made over the previous two years. Last year, Rajasthan saw the highest addition of 614MW, taking its total capacity to 2,684MW. Gujarat set up 208MW additional capacity, adding up to a total of 3,174.9MW, and Maharastra added 288.5MW taking its total to 3,021MW.
The poor financial condition of the state power distribution company is leading to delays in payments to windmill owners, said Frost and Sullivan’s Kotwal.
Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corp. Ltd (Tangedco), the commissioning and distribution arm of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, reported a loss of Rs.54,000 crore in 2011-12.
It has taken over a year to clear payment dues. “We have cleared about Rs.2,000 crore backlog dues till April,” said a state government official.
Since a majority of the wind farm project cost is funded through debt (70-75%), irregular payments from Tangedco result in windmill owners struggling to repay bank loans. Meanwhile, the lack of infrastructure—in terms of transmission and distribution—needed to move power to the grid results in windmills having to be shut down for several hours a day, Kotwal said.
The reasons for inadequate infrastructure include incomplete projects such as the establishment of 400 kilovolts (kV), 230kV, 110kV and 11kV substations at Kanarpatti, Kayathar and Karungulam. Due to the shortage of evacuation facilities, nearly 15-20% of wind energy generated is lost, explains Kotwal.
“It is a sad state of affairs unless the transmission and tariff rates are improved,” said Ramesh Kymal, chairman, Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers’ Association. “Additional capacity expansion may not happen as seen two years ago.”
The removal of accelerated depreciation for wind energy and raising the rates on cross-subsidy by the state has made the sector unviable, he added. It takes six-seven years for a wind energy farm to break even depending upon size and location.
On the tariff front as well, Tamil Nadu offers the lowest at Rs.3.51 per kilowatt-hour compared with states such as Gujarat (Rs.4.23) and Rajasthan (Rs.5). Tariffs are decided by the state electricity regulatory commissions.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind power generators, welcome to contact us!
That could see the state falter in its bid to add 6,000 megawatts (MW) of wind energy capacity by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2016-17) to take it to 13,000MW from 7,162.3MW now.
Gujarat and Maharastra, which are a distant second and third in the rankings, could take advantage of this to gain on Tamil Nadu, experts said.
Madras Cements Ltd, the second largest cement maker in south India, has a wind energy capacity of 159MW. It doesn’t intend to add to this, but will instead invest in thermal energy, said a senior company executive who didn’t want to be named.
It costs Rs.5 crore to set up 1MW of thermal energy capacity and Rs.6 crore for equivalent wind energy capacity, according to Amol Kotwal, deputy director of energy and power systems at Frost and Sullivan, a business consulting firm. Inadequate infrastructure, delayed payments, and lack of incentives are discouraging further investment in the sector, critical for a power-deficient country that needs to boost energy capacity.
The trend in Tamil Nadu also reflects a wider disenchantment with the promise of wind energy as a source of seemingly “free” energy.
Madras Cements plans to enhance the capacity of the thermal power plants at Alathiyur, Jayanthipuram and Ariyalur by adding one turbine each of 6MW capacity at a total cost of Rs.55 crore, said the company in its recent annual report.
Last week, TVS Motors Ltd’s TVS Energy unit, which set up its captive 59MW wind energy unit in 2010, sold 90% of its stake to Green Infra Ltd, a renewable power producer as it was too capital intensive. The two-wheeler company did not mention whether the price at which it sold its subsidiary and whether it made profits.
Tamil Nadu gets 44% of its total energy requirement from renewable energy, with close to 90% of it coming from wind energy, pushing thermal energy to second place. This is much higher than the national average for renewable energy consumption of 12%.
With the economic slowdown hurting firms, most aren’t too keen on making investments in renewable energy. “Since the slowdown has affected the business of many companies, they would rather divert the money into their core business than put it in wind power,” said K. Vidyashankar, managing director, MM Forgings, which has a captive wind energy plant.
Wind energy is seasonal in Tamil Nadu—mostly between May and October. The southern state saw its wind energy capacity addition drop to 174MW for a total of 7,162MW in 2012-13, compared with about 1,000MW made over the previous two years. Last year, Rajasthan saw the highest addition of 614MW, taking its total capacity to 2,684MW. Gujarat set up 208MW additional capacity, adding up to a total of 3,174.9MW, and Maharastra added 288.5MW taking its total to 3,021MW.
The poor financial condition of the state power distribution company is leading to delays in payments to windmill owners, said Frost and Sullivan’s Kotwal.
Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corp. Ltd (Tangedco), the commissioning and distribution arm of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, reported a loss of Rs.54,000 crore in 2011-12.
It has taken over a year to clear payment dues. “We have cleared about Rs.2,000 crore backlog dues till April,” said a state government official.
Since a majority of the wind farm project cost is funded through debt (70-75%), irregular payments from Tangedco result in windmill owners struggling to repay bank loans. Meanwhile, the lack of infrastructure—in terms of transmission and distribution—needed to move power to the grid results in windmills having to be shut down for several hours a day, Kotwal said.
The reasons for inadequate infrastructure include incomplete projects such as the establishment of 400 kilovolts (kV), 230kV, 110kV and 11kV substations at Kanarpatti, Kayathar and Karungulam. Due to the shortage of evacuation facilities, nearly 15-20% of wind energy generated is lost, explains Kotwal.
“It is a sad state of affairs unless the transmission and tariff rates are improved,” said Ramesh Kymal, chairman, Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers’ Association. “Additional capacity expansion may not happen as seen two years ago.”
The removal of accelerated depreciation for wind energy and raising the rates on cross-subsidy by the state has made the sector unviable, he added. It takes six-seven years for a wind energy farm to break even depending upon size and location.
On the tariff front as well, Tamil Nadu offers the lowest at Rs.3.51 per kilowatt-hour compared with states such as Gujarat (Rs.4.23) and Rajasthan (Rs.5). Tariffs are decided by the state electricity regulatory commissions.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind power generators, welcome to contact us!
2013年8月16日 星期五
Grounds care
Power tools - petrol, electric and battery - will dominate at this year's show, with equipment on offer covering all sectors. Battery power provides several benefits, including low noise, reduced vibration levels and no emissions. The Husqvarna professional battery series provides up to 35 minutes of continuous operation from a single charge of the Li-ion battery, while the saveE energy-saving mode optimises the run time to get the most out of every charge.
The series already features 20m/s chainsaws and heavy-duty commercial grass trimmers with two-way rotation of the mowing head. Husqvarna has now introduced backpack battery models for those who want to work all day without recharging.
The Husqvarna BLi 520X and BLi 940X are described as high-performance 36V Li-ion batteries. The BLi 520X has 520Wh of energy, a capacity of 14,4Ah and a charging time of 130 minutes. It weighs 5.9kg. For all-day operation, the BLi 940X boasts energy of 940Wh, a 26,1Ah battery capacity, a charging time of 235 minutes and a weight of 6.7kg.
Also new for 2014 is a professional battery hedge trimmer with a pivoting rear handle, cutting length of 60cm and a tooth opening of 30mm. It will be on show for the first time at IoG Saltex.
STIHL has introduced more advanced engine technologies into its product line-up this year and entered two new product groups to make outdoor professionals' tasks quicker and more efficient. Visitors to IoG Saltex can view an extended range of quiet, cordless power tools, a new backpack battery and advanced chainsaws, as well as more hard-working products for brushcutters. A new range of floor sweepers has also arrived this year, plus tools for construction and hard landscaping, including a world first - a two-stroke engine with electronic fuel injection that drives a cut-off saw.
Anyone clearing tough weeds from verges and embankments should welcome STIHL's new backpack brushcutter. The FR 460 TC-EM is the first backpack model to feature the M-Tronic self-tuning engine, making it easy to use and maintain. Its DuoCut mowing heads, which are compatible with all of STIHL's 28 petrol-powered brushcutters, allow the simple insertion of pre-cut lengths of line. The company has also added the FS PROTECT brushcutter trousers to its range. These tough yet breathable trousers provide extra impact protection to the lower leg.
Husqvarna has introduced a range of low-weight, 25cc trimmers and brushcutters aimed at the commercial landscaping and grounds care markets. "Commercial operators need products that not only deliver high work rates and quality finishing, but wherever possible can reduce costly man hours and maximise profitability," says commercial landscaping and groundcare manager Kevin Ashmore.
Featuring a 25cc two-stroke X-Torq engine, these machines focus on being easy to manoeuvre.
The 525LK Combi Unit and 525RJX feature a loop handle and SmartStart. The 525RXT, weighing 5.4kg, comes with comfort handlebars, T35X line head, grass blade and Balance 55 harness.
A new entrant to the power-tools market, Hyundai Power Equipment, makes its first appearance at IoG Saltex with a range suited to estate and amenity use. The line-up encompasses lawnmowers and string trimmers, a multi-tool and a pair of brushcutters. Chainsaws, a petrol-engined hedge trimmer, backpack blowers, a handheld blower/vac and three pressure washers join the Genpower generator units for which Hyundai is already known.
"The move into the wider garden, estate and professional grounds-maintenance sector is an exciting and important step for Genpower and for Hyundai Power Equipment in the UK and Ireland," says managing director Roland Llewellin. The company has secured the knowledge and expertise of Mark Osborne as head of sales and marketing.
Makita has introduced a four-stroke, 43cc brushcutter for all-day work with right/left vibration figures of 2.1m/s2 and 2.0m/s2. The benefits include cost savings, less environmental impact and increased user comfort. The engine delivers 2hp at 7,000rpm to drive the cutter head. The machine weighs 8.6kg and is supplied with a full professional harness that includes a rigid back-spreader plate and wide belt.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love skystream, welcome to contact us!
The series already features 20m/s chainsaws and heavy-duty commercial grass trimmers with two-way rotation of the mowing head. Husqvarna has now introduced backpack battery models for those who want to work all day without recharging.
The Husqvarna BLi 520X and BLi 940X are described as high-performance 36V Li-ion batteries. The BLi 520X has 520Wh of energy, a capacity of 14,4Ah and a charging time of 130 minutes. It weighs 5.9kg. For all-day operation, the BLi 940X boasts energy of 940Wh, a 26,1Ah battery capacity, a charging time of 235 minutes and a weight of 6.7kg.
Also new for 2014 is a professional battery hedge trimmer with a pivoting rear handle, cutting length of 60cm and a tooth opening of 30mm. It will be on show for the first time at IoG Saltex.
STIHL has introduced more advanced engine technologies into its product line-up this year and entered two new product groups to make outdoor professionals' tasks quicker and more efficient. Visitors to IoG Saltex can view an extended range of quiet, cordless power tools, a new backpack battery and advanced chainsaws, as well as more hard-working products for brushcutters. A new range of floor sweepers has also arrived this year, plus tools for construction and hard landscaping, including a world first - a two-stroke engine with electronic fuel injection that drives a cut-off saw.
Anyone clearing tough weeds from verges and embankments should welcome STIHL's new backpack brushcutter. The FR 460 TC-EM is the first backpack model to feature the M-Tronic self-tuning engine, making it easy to use and maintain. Its DuoCut mowing heads, which are compatible with all of STIHL's 28 petrol-powered brushcutters, allow the simple insertion of pre-cut lengths of line. The company has also added the FS PROTECT brushcutter trousers to its range. These tough yet breathable trousers provide extra impact protection to the lower leg.
Husqvarna has introduced a range of low-weight, 25cc trimmers and brushcutters aimed at the commercial landscaping and grounds care markets. "Commercial operators need products that not only deliver high work rates and quality finishing, but wherever possible can reduce costly man hours and maximise profitability," says commercial landscaping and groundcare manager Kevin Ashmore.
Featuring a 25cc two-stroke X-Torq engine, these machines focus on being easy to manoeuvre.
The 525LK Combi Unit and 525RJX feature a loop handle and SmartStart. The 525RXT, weighing 5.4kg, comes with comfort handlebars, T35X line head, grass blade and Balance 55 harness.
A new entrant to the power-tools market, Hyundai Power Equipment, makes its first appearance at IoG Saltex with a range suited to estate and amenity use. The line-up encompasses lawnmowers and string trimmers, a multi-tool and a pair of brushcutters. Chainsaws, a petrol-engined hedge trimmer, backpack blowers, a handheld blower/vac and three pressure washers join the Genpower generator units for which Hyundai is already known.
"The move into the wider garden, estate and professional grounds-maintenance sector is an exciting and important step for Genpower and for Hyundai Power Equipment in the UK and Ireland," says managing director Roland Llewellin. The company has secured the knowledge and expertise of Mark Osborne as head of sales and marketing.
Makita has introduced a four-stroke, 43cc brushcutter for all-day work with right/left vibration figures of 2.1m/s2 and 2.0m/s2. The benefits include cost savings, less environmental impact and increased user comfort. The engine delivers 2hp at 7,000rpm to drive the cutter head. The machine weighs 8.6kg and is supplied with a full professional harness that includes a rigid back-spreader plate and wide belt.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love skystream, welcome to contact us!
Sharpsville considers wind farm
Wind farm opponents want the town of Sharpsville in northwestern Tipton County to create a 2-mile zoning buffer around the city limits.
Supporters of the Tipton County Citizens for Responsible Development approached the Sharpsville Town Council with the proposal. Sharpsville currently has no jurisdiction on zoning matters beyond the town boundary.
Sharpsville is located near the proposed Prairie Breeze Wind Farm, which has obtained a conditional use permit from the Tipton County Board of Zoning Appeals.
Wind farm developer juwi Wind has voluntarily moved the nearest proposed wind turbine between three-quarters of a mile and one mile from Sharpsville and the Prairie Acres subdivision.
Since the Prairie Breeze Wind Farm has already received approval, a 2-mile zoning buffer would not impact the project.
Rob Rupe, president of the town council, said the idea was previously discussed during the planning stage for the U.S. 31 bypass around Kokomo, but no action was taken.
“We can have a 2-mile zoning area,” he said. “We’re researching the steps needed to get the zoning jurisdiction.”
Steve Edson, Tipton County planning director, said it would be a lengthy process for the town council to create the zoning buffer. Sharpsville would have to develop a comprehensive plan, appoint a plan commission and a board of zoning appeals.
The Tipton County Board of Commissioners would have to approve the creation of any zoning jurisdiction around Sharpsville.
Emily West, spokeswoman for the CRD, said the group doesn’t want wind turbines located next to anyone’s residence.
“Everyone needs a 2-mile protection around their homes,” she said. “We understand Sharpsville’s desire to have room for the town to grow.”
West said the group believes in equal protection for all property owners regardless of where they’re located in Tipton County.
At the Aug. 5 meeting of the Howard County Commissioners, the town of Converse said it too was considering a 2-mile zoning jurisdiction around the town.
Converse, which straddles the Miami and Grant county line, is in the proximity of the proposed second phase of the Wildcat Wind Farm being developed by E.ON Climate & Renewables in Howard County.
E.ON has not applied for improvement location permits for the placement of wind turbines.
Converse is in the process of amending its comprehensive plan and already has a plan commission and board of zoning appeals.
Glass and metal are well established, well researched packaging materials. With the tremendous global success of PET bottles, themes like barrier effect have emerged. Much innovative research is being carried out to develop ever more effective barrier layers.
This is an important theme, because PET is becoming more and more popular and is increasingly being used in the filling of alcoholic drinks like beer, wine and spirits. Even the beer keg market is now opening up to the use of PET.
PET kegs allow drinks companies to deliver drinks anywhere in the world at a fraction of the previous cost, opening up new market opportunities. These lightweight kegs come in 15, 20 and 30 litre capacities for drinks including beer, cider and wine, and are also available in preforms, which can be distributed, blown and filled locally.
Petainer, which works with customers including Carlsberg, says its PET kegs cost less than 10% of the price of the alternative steel keg, and offer many other major cost, environmental and quality benefits too.
With the general tendency towards smaller and lighter-weight pack sizes and the increasing problem of theft of the traditional stainless-steel kegs (because of its valuable raw material), lightweight disposable beer barrels are now attractive.
Recently the first PET bevcan also came out on the market, but at this stage it is only available for aerosols. Perhaps the PET bevcan will already have made its mark on the beverages market in time for Drinktec 2013?
Another world first is a cardboard can in which for the first time carbonated beverages can be filled into cardboard material. Cellulose-based packaging for non-carbonated drinks has been on the market for some time, but this is a brand new development for carbonated beverages. Further news on this front may well be available at the show.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind power generators, welcome to contact us!
Supporters of the Tipton County Citizens for Responsible Development approached the Sharpsville Town Council with the proposal. Sharpsville currently has no jurisdiction on zoning matters beyond the town boundary.
Sharpsville is located near the proposed Prairie Breeze Wind Farm, which has obtained a conditional use permit from the Tipton County Board of Zoning Appeals.
Wind farm developer juwi Wind has voluntarily moved the nearest proposed wind turbine between three-quarters of a mile and one mile from Sharpsville and the Prairie Acres subdivision.
Since the Prairie Breeze Wind Farm has already received approval, a 2-mile zoning buffer would not impact the project.
Rob Rupe, president of the town council, said the idea was previously discussed during the planning stage for the U.S. 31 bypass around Kokomo, but no action was taken.
“We can have a 2-mile zoning area,” he said. “We’re researching the steps needed to get the zoning jurisdiction.”
Steve Edson, Tipton County planning director, said it would be a lengthy process for the town council to create the zoning buffer. Sharpsville would have to develop a comprehensive plan, appoint a plan commission and a board of zoning appeals.
The Tipton County Board of Commissioners would have to approve the creation of any zoning jurisdiction around Sharpsville.
Emily West, spokeswoman for the CRD, said the group doesn’t want wind turbines located next to anyone’s residence.
“Everyone needs a 2-mile protection around their homes,” she said. “We understand Sharpsville’s desire to have room for the town to grow.”
West said the group believes in equal protection for all property owners regardless of where they’re located in Tipton County.
At the Aug. 5 meeting of the Howard County Commissioners, the town of Converse said it too was considering a 2-mile zoning jurisdiction around the town.
Converse, which straddles the Miami and Grant county line, is in the proximity of the proposed second phase of the Wildcat Wind Farm being developed by E.ON Climate & Renewables in Howard County.
E.ON has not applied for improvement location permits for the placement of wind turbines.
Converse is in the process of amending its comprehensive plan and already has a plan commission and board of zoning appeals.
Glass and metal are well established, well researched packaging materials. With the tremendous global success of PET bottles, themes like barrier effect have emerged. Much innovative research is being carried out to develop ever more effective barrier layers.
This is an important theme, because PET is becoming more and more popular and is increasingly being used in the filling of alcoholic drinks like beer, wine and spirits. Even the beer keg market is now opening up to the use of PET.
PET kegs allow drinks companies to deliver drinks anywhere in the world at a fraction of the previous cost, opening up new market opportunities. These lightweight kegs come in 15, 20 and 30 litre capacities for drinks including beer, cider and wine, and are also available in preforms, which can be distributed, blown and filled locally.
Petainer, which works with customers including Carlsberg, says its PET kegs cost less than 10% of the price of the alternative steel keg, and offer many other major cost, environmental and quality benefits too.
With the general tendency towards smaller and lighter-weight pack sizes and the increasing problem of theft of the traditional stainless-steel kegs (because of its valuable raw material), lightweight disposable beer barrels are now attractive.
Recently the first PET bevcan also came out on the market, but at this stage it is only available for aerosols. Perhaps the PET bevcan will already have made its mark on the beverages market in time for Drinktec 2013?
Another world first is a cardboard can in which for the first time carbonated beverages can be filled into cardboard material. Cellulose-based packaging for non-carbonated drinks has been on the market for some time, but this is a brand new development for carbonated beverages. Further news on this front may well be available at the show.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind power generators, welcome to contact us!
2013年8月14日 星期三
The 3-foot-talL ROBOT
The 3-foot-talL ROBOT looks like a Roomba vacuum cleaner with a cardboard tower on it, a small electronic tablet for a head. The face is a video of me, watching the thing roll up, then reverse back toward the work table, where Gerald Knight sits in front of a laptop with the same video playing on it.
“Normally, robots like that are like $10,000,” Knight, a middle-aged African-American guy in a ball cap and glasses, says. “This is $350. The tablet is from Walmart.”
We’re at the Baltimore Hackerspace on a Wednesday night. The location, on Landay Avenue, between the Player’s strip club and a business that seems to involve moving a lot of empty pallets around on forklifts, is not indicative of the nation’s glorious and soon-to-be resurgent high-tech manufacturing future. The building itself is like a tall garage, with a big overhead door in front that looks out on cracked pavement, and a semi truck parked on wood blocks.
But looks deceive. All around us, cool things are happening.
There are guys playing with a big speaker filled with corn starch mixed with water. There are guys working on computer code, and guys—key guys, actually: Paul King and David Powell, two of the founders of this hackerspace—messing with an amplifier kit. There is a guy putting the finishing touches on a scratch-built model helicopter with eight rotors.
This is Knight’s second trip to the Baltimore Hackerspace. He says the men here were central to getting his robot built. Ten weeks ago he started the project. It is perhaps indicative of the progress he made working by himself that, two weeks ago, he brought a pile of parts to Landay Avenue. “The guys have been wonderful,” Knight says. “Paul said, ‘Let’s crack this thing open,’ and boy, did he. We certainly voided the warranty.”
Baltimore is awash in DIY spaces where tinkerers can gather and share ideas and tools, sip beer, and void warranties. Called “makerspaces,” the concept started in Germany in the mid-1990s, when a group called the Chaos Computer Club founded an open-membership space in Berlin called c-base. MIT expanded on the concept in 2001, snagging a National Science Foundation grant for its Fab Lab, which then spread to 34 countries. Baltimore has seen an explosion of new spaces in the past few years. Besides the Hackerspace, founded in 2009 and now on the far east side, there is The Node in the Station North Arts District, and last month The Baltimore Foundery [sic] opened on the 200 block of South Central Avenue. All offer tools for metalworking, wood, computers, and robotics, but each has a slightly different focus.
And they’re not the only choices. For two-and-a-half years the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville has offered an MIT-affiliated Fab Lab with similar amenities and then some. Security-minded programmers founded the Unallocated Space out near BWI airport, and in late 2012 Dr. Tom Burkett founded BUGSS, the Baltimore Under Ground Science Space, at 101 N. Haven St. That bio-tech-focused group teaches how to build genes and make new organisms.
There is even a roving kid-centered makerspace bringing instruction to middle and grade school kids and their parents throughout Maryland, D.C., and Northern Virginia. “There is a big confluence of high-tech people in Baltimore,” says Matt Barinholtz, founder of FutureMakers.
“Baltimore has got the progressive families that want to see their young people have genuine experiences.”
“Part of it is there’s a resurgence in the whole notion of making,” says Jason Hardebeck, the landlord and co-founder of The Foundery—so named because it aims to develop business founders, in part, by literally shaping and casting molten metal. “My little brother—he’s 40—asked me what a makerspace is. I said it’s what the hipsters call workshops.”
But unlike grandpa’s workshop, makerspaces are explicitly collaborative. The open collective model allows—almost forces—collaboration among people who might not otherwise have met, and the tool-sharing promotes multidisciplinary competence.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine web! If you love wind generator, welcome to contact us!
“Normally, robots like that are like $10,000,” Knight, a middle-aged African-American guy in a ball cap and glasses, says. “This is $350. The tablet is from Walmart.”
We’re at the Baltimore Hackerspace on a Wednesday night. The location, on Landay Avenue, between the Player’s strip club and a business that seems to involve moving a lot of empty pallets around on forklifts, is not indicative of the nation’s glorious and soon-to-be resurgent high-tech manufacturing future. The building itself is like a tall garage, with a big overhead door in front that looks out on cracked pavement, and a semi truck parked on wood blocks.
But looks deceive. All around us, cool things are happening.
There are guys playing with a big speaker filled with corn starch mixed with water. There are guys working on computer code, and guys—key guys, actually: Paul King and David Powell, two of the founders of this hackerspace—messing with an amplifier kit. There is a guy putting the finishing touches on a scratch-built model helicopter with eight rotors.
This is Knight’s second trip to the Baltimore Hackerspace. He says the men here were central to getting his robot built. Ten weeks ago he started the project. It is perhaps indicative of the progress he made working by himself that, two weeks ago, he brought a pile of parts to Landay Avenue. “The guys have been wonderful,” Knight says. “Paul said, ‘Let’s crack this thing open,’ and boy, did he. We certainly voided the warranty.”
Baltimore is awash in DIY spaces where tinkerers can gather and share ideas and tools, sip beer, and void warranties. Called “makerspaces,” the concept started in Germany in the mid-1990s, when a group called the Chaos Computer Club founded an open-membership space in Berlin called c-base. MIT expanded on the concept in 2001, snagging a National Science Foundation grant for its Fab Lab, which then spread to 34 countries. Baltimore has seen an explosion of new spaces in the past few years. Besides the Hackerspace, founded in 2009 and now on the far east side, there is The Node in the Station North Arts District, and last month The Baltimore Foundery [sic] opened on the 200 block of South Central Avenue. All offer tools for metalworking, wood, computers, and robotics, but each has a slightly different focus.
And they’re not the only choices. For two-and-a-half years the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville has offered an MIT-affiliated Fab Lab with similar amenities and then some. Security-minded programmers founded the Unallocated Space out near BWI airport, and in late 2012 Dr. Tom Burkett founded BUGSS, the Baltimore Under Ground Science Space, at 101 N. Haven St. That bio-tech-focused group teaches how to build genes and make new organisms.
There is even a roving kid-centered makerspace bringing instruction to middle and grade school kids and their parents throughout Maryland, D.C., and Northern Virginia. “There is a big confluence of high-tech people in Baltimore,” says Matt Barinholtz, founder of FutureMakers.
“Baltimore has got the progressive families that want to see their young people have genuine experiences.”
“Part of it is there’s a resurgence in the whole notion of making,” says Jason Hardebeck, the landlord and co-founder of The Foundery—so named because it aims to develop business founders, in part, by literally shaping and casting molten metal. “My little brother—he’s 40—asked me what a makerspace is. I said it’s what the hipsters call workshops.”
But unlike grandpa’s workshop, makerspaces are explicitly collaborative. The open collective model allows—almost forces—collaboration among people who might not otherwise have met, and the tool-sharing promotes multidisciplinary competence.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine web! If you love wind generator, welcome to contact us!
Laser Research Optics Introduces
Laser Research Optics is introducing a new line of gold plated copper mirrors for Mitsubishi high power lasers that are available for immediate delivery to minimize production downtime.
Laser Research copper Laser Mirrors are manufactured with > 99% pure gold deposited on OFHC copper and are offered in three plano types: zero phase shift, 90 degree phase shift, and 98.8% resonator mirrors. Featuring OEM quality, they have 1/20 power flatness, 1/40 irregularity at 10.6 μm, and surface quality of < 5nm RMS and 40-20 scratch-dig.
Available in 50mm, 60mm, and 3" dia. sizes with +0/-0.12mm tolerance, Laser Research copper Laser Mirrors for Mitsubishi lasers are suitable for beam bending in all beam paths and beam guidance systems, from simple measurement setup to high performance cutting, claims the firm.
Laser Research copper Laser Mirrors for Mitsubishi lasers are priced from $149.95 each. Price quotations are available upon request.
About Laser Research Optics
Laser Research Optics is a division of Meller Optics, Inc., a leading manufacturer of hard crystalline materials such as ruby and sapphire since 1921. The company maintains one of the largest inventories of stock CO2 optics in the country. Available for immediate delivery, the optics are ideal for direct field replacement in low power CO2 lasers currently being used for laser marking, laser engraving, laser cutting, and low power scribing and welding.
The hope is that everyone will join.
“If you are an individual who likes to experiment with things, try new ideas out, you don’t have to be a techie,” says Knight. “Just to get your hands on something, this is the place to come.”
City Paper visited several makerspaces to compare and contrast, and talk to members and founders about their goals.
The Baltimore Hackerspace is a big warehouse bay in a warehouse district full of guys chewing cigars and driving pallets around on 18-wheelers. Just inside the main door is a concrete floor area with tables and people working on projects. The rules—including Ohm’s Law—are hung on the walls. Picture the garage of a mad scientist who is married to a performance artist. There is an air-conditioned inner sanctum crowded with another communal table and shelves and computers. Mark Haygood is there, chatting with Powell and King, the latter of whom wrote the computer code that controls Haygood’s robot, HEX (“Robocop,” City Folk, May 1).
Powell shows off an amplifier kit he and King are marketing on Ubld.it, the company they just launched. It’s a kit of parts the size of a very big sandwich, with some diodes, a vacuum tube, and instructions. It puts out 8 monophonic watts and it sounds pretty good hooked up to a homemade speaker.
“Our mission is to build a whole bunch of different kits here with good instructions so people can learn and get into the hobby,” Powell says. “We tell you not only, ‘solder this here,’ but also what it does.”
Out in the main space, Knight, a network administrator for Philips Healthcare, explains why he’s building a robot. “We have a telemedicine unit,” he says, and a few months ago his boss asked him to look into getting a rolling robot, head high to a seated person, so medical specialists could potentially examine and interview many patients remotely. That’s how Knight knows they cost $10,000.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind turbines, welcome to contact us!
Laser Research copper Laser Mirrors are manufactured with > 99% pure gold deposited on OFHC copper and are offered in three plano types: zero phase shift, 90 degree phase shift, and 98.8% resonator mirrors. Featuring OEM quality, they have 1/20 power flatness, 1/40 irregularity at 10.6 μm, and surface quality of < 5nm RMS and 40-20 scratch-dig.
Available in 50mm, 60mm, and 3" dia. sizes with +0/-0.12mm tolerance, Laser Research copper Laser Mirrors for Mitsubishi lasers are suitable for beam bending in all beam paths and beam guidance systems, from simple measurement setup to high performance cutting, claims the firm.
Laser Research copper Laser Mirrors for Mitsubishi lasers are priced from $149.95 each. Price quotations are available upon request.
About Laser Research Optics
Laser Research Optics is a division of Meller Optics, Inc., a leading manufacturer of hard crystalline materials such as ruby and sapphire since 1921. The company maintains one of the largest inventories of stock CO2 optics in the country. Available for immediate delivery, the optics are ideal for direct field replacement in low power CO2 lasers currently being used for laser marking, laser engraving, laser cutting, and low power scribing and welding.
The hope is that everyone will join.
“If you are an individual who likes to experiment with things, try new ideas out, you don’t have to be a techie,” says Knight. “Just to get your hands on something, this is the place to come.”
City Paper visited several makerspaces to compare and contrast, and talk to members and founders about their goals.
The Baltimore Hackerspace is a big warehouse bay in a warehouse district full of guys chewing cigars and driving pallets around on 18-wheelers. Just inside the main door is a concrete floor area with tables and people working on projects. The rules—including Ohm’s Law—are hung on the walls. Picture the garage of a mad scientist who is married to a performance artist. There is an air-conditioned inner sanctum crowded with another communal table and shelves and computers. Mark Haygood is there, chatting with Powell and King, the latter of whom wrote the computer code that controls Haygood’s robot, HEX (“Robocop,” City Folk, May 1).
Powell shows off an amplifier kit he and King are marketing on Ubld.it, the company they just launched. It’s a kit of parts the size of a very big sandwich, with some diodes, a vacuum tube, and instructions. It puts out 8 monophonic watts and it sounds pretty good hooked up to a homemade speaker.
“Our mission is to build a whole bunch of different kits here with good instructions so people can learn and get into the hobby,” Powell says. “We tell you not only, ‘solder this here,’ but also what it does.”
Out in the main space, Knight, a network administrator for Philips Healthcare, explains why he’s building a robot. “We have a telemedicine unit,” he says, and a few months ago his boss asked him to look into getting a rolling robot, head high to a seated person, so medical specialists could potentially examine and interview many patients remotely. That’s how Knight knows they cost $10,000.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind turbines, welcome to contact us!
2013年8月12日 星期一
RBS Gets Heated Over $230m
The taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is risking a renewed political outcry by opposing the restructuring of a major British-based manufacturer that would preserve hundreds of UK jobs.
Sky News has learnt that RBS intends to vote against a proposed takeover of Ideal Stelrad, which makes boilers and radiators, by Bregal Capital, a private equity firm, in a move which will potentially prevent a transition to new ownership.
Bregal has tabled an offer valuing Ideal Stelrad's equity and debt at roughly $230m, a sum sufficient to enable the company's senior lenders to recover their original exposure to it.
RBS, which holds approximately 15% of Ideal Stelrad's shares, is understood to be holding out for a better offer despite the fact that the group's lenders have run an auction lasting well over six months.
Bank of Ireland, another major financial institution that was bailed out by taxpayers during the banking crisis of 2008, is also said to be opposing the deal, although it speaks for only around 5% of the company's shares.
The takeover bid from Bregal is understood to require the approval of at least 75% of Ideal Stelrad's shareholders, but with time running out ahead of an initial deadline on Friday evening, support for the deal is understood to have stalled at around the 70% mark.
Although it is possible for Ideal Stelrad's board to extend the deadline, many of the manufacturer's lenders are understood to be frustrated at RBS's stance and are concerned that Bregal could withdraw its interest.
A spokeswoman for RBS declined to comment, although a source close to the bank said that several options for the future of Ideal Stelrad remained under consideration. RBS did not have the power on its own to block a deal and the bank was intent upon remaining as an investor even after a transaction, they said.
RBS has frequently encountered a political backlash over its lending activities since it was rescued by taxpayers in 2008, with complaints ranging from its choice of customers to its perceived willingness to lend to British companies seeking funds to expand.
Headquartered in Newcastle, Ideal Stelrad has manufacturing facilities in Hull and Mexborough, south Yorkshire. It employs roughly 1,800 people in the UK and at its international operations in countries including Holland, Romania and Turkey, and Bregal is understood to have indicated that it would maintain the manufacturing capacity in the UK.
Ideal Stelrad is one of hundreds of companies in which RBS ended up holding a significant equity stake after the banking crisis and subsequent recession, with these shareholdings apportioned to dedicated teams within the taxpayer-backed bank.
Insiders said that relations between Ideal Stelrad's chairman, Richard Connell, and RBS had been strained for some time.
The bank is said to have been keen for the radiator and boiler divisions of the company to be sold separately in an effort to maximise value. Insiders said on Friday, however, that profits had been in decline at the radiator unit while trade buyers had not made compelling bids for the boiler business.
Bregal is a private equity firm whose investors include the billionaire Brenninkmeijer family, founders of the high street retailer C&A. Its investments in the UK include the fast-growing education company Cognita, and Zephyr, a wind-power generator.
The prospective buyer is understood to have structured its offer to allow existing shareholders to remain owners of up to 24.9% of the company if they wish to remain exposed to it.
If Bregal does succeed in acquiring Ideal Stelrad, it would become the third private equity firm to own the manufacturer in less than a decade.
Previously called Caradon Plumbing, the company was acquired by Montagu, formerly HSBC’s buyout division, for $496m in 2000. The new owners decided to break up the business, selling Twyford Bathrooms for $85m and Mira Showers for $301m, and selling the rump of the group to Warburg Pincus for $227m in 2005.
That investment went awry after Warburg Pincus refinanced Ideal Stelrad at the height of the debt boom in 2007. The company then breached its borrowing agreements and underwent a financial restructuring that culminated in a debt-for-equity swap.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind generator
, welcome to contact us!
Sky News has learnt that RBS intends to vote against a proposed takeover of Ideal Stelrad, which makes boilers and radiators, by Bregal Capital, a private equity firm, in a move which will potentially prevent a transition to new ownership.
Bregal has tabled an offer valuing Ideal Stelrad's equity and debt at roughly $230m, a sum sufficient to enable the company's senior lenders to recover their original exposure to it.
RBS, which holds approximately 15% of Ideal Stelrad's shares, is understood to be holding out for a better offer despite the fact that the group's lenders have run an auction lasting well over six months.
Bank of Ireland, another major financial institution that was bailed out by taxpayers during the banking crisis of 2008, is also said to be opposing the deal, although it speaks for only around 5% of the company's shares.
The takeover bid from Bregal is understood to require the approval of at least 75% of Ideal Stelrad's shareholders, but with time running out ahead of an initial deadline on Friday evening, support for the deal is understood to have stalled at around the 70% mark.
Although it is possible for Ideal Stelrad's board to extend the deadline, many of the manufacturer's lenders are understood to be frustrated at RBS's stance and are concerned that Bregal could withdraw its interest.
A spokeswoman for RBS declined to comment, although a source close to the bank said that several options for the future of Ideal Stelrad remained under consideration. RBS did not have the power on its own to block a deal and the bank was intent upon remaining as an investor even after a transaction, they said.
RBS has frequently encountered a political backlash over its lending activities since it was rescued by taxpayers in 2008, with complaints ranging from its choice of customers to its perceived willingness to lend to British companies seeking funds to expand.
Headquartered in Newcastle, Ideal Stelrad has manufacturing facilities in Hull and Mexborough, south Yorkshire. It employs roughly 1,800 people in the UK and at its international operations in countries including Holland, Romania and Turkey, and Bregal is understood to have indicated that it would maintain the manufacturing capacity in the UK.
Ideal Stelrad is one of hundreds of companies in which RBS ended up holding a significant equity stake after the banking crisis and subsequent recession, with these shareholdings apportioned to dedicated teams within the taxpayer-backed bank.
Insiders said that relations between Ideal Stelrad's chairman, Richard Connell, and RBS had been strained for some time.
The bank is said to have been keen for the radiator and boiler divisions of the company to be sold separately in an effort to maximise value. Insiders said on Friday, however, that profits had been in decline at the radiator unit while trade buyers had not made compelling bids for the boiler business.
Bregal is a private equity firm whose investors include the billionaire Brenninkmeijer family, founders of the high street retailer C&A. Its investments in the UK include the fast-growing education company Cognita, and Zephyr, a wind-power generator.
The prospective buyer is understood to have structured its offer to allow existing shareholders to remain owners of up to 24.9% of the company if they wish to remain exposed to it.
If Bregal does succeed in acquiring Ideal Stelrad, it would become the third private equity firm to own the manufacturer in less than a decade.
Previously called Caradon Plumbing, the company was acquired by Montagu, formerly HSBC’s buyout division, for $496m in 2000. The new owners decided to break up the business, selling Twyford Bathrooms for $85m and Mira Showers for $301m, and selling the rump of the group to Warburg Pincus for $227m in 2005.
That investment went awry after Warburg Pincus refinanced Ideal Stelrad at the height of the debt boom in 2007. The company then breached its borrowing agreements and underwent a financial restructuring that culminated in a debt-for-equity swap.
Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind generator
, welcome to contact us!
Polar explorer on first green expedition
The 57-year-old polar explorer is preparing for an Antarctic expedition in 2015 where he will survive solely on renewable energy during the two-month-long trip.
Swan, who first took the Antarctic journey in 1986, wants to prove that if someone can survive on renewable energy in extreme climatic conditions in the polar region, then it can be replicated anywhere else in the world.
“It will be the first expedition to the South Pole on renewable energy. The whole purpose of undertaking this expedition is to tell the world to switch to environment-friendly sources of energy,” Swan told IANS in an interview. He is in India as part of the Great Himalayan Expedition to open the ‘Third Pole E base’ at Ladakh as part of his ’2041 Campaign’.
“Every year when I go to Antarctic, I find ice of the size of Delhi has broken and is drifting due to the rising temperature … this shouldn’t happen,” said Swan, who has cleaned an entire island in the the South Pole in the last eight years.
Swan says his team is working with experts in the US to devise technology for his green expedition.
“We will be carrying solar panels, a wind turbine and batteries to cook, melt drinking water, run GPS systems, headlamps, charge batteries of electrical devices and instruments. It is a tough task but we are up for it,” said the Englishman, who has been appointed the UN Goodwill Ambassador for Youth.
All expeditions to the poles till now use fossil fuels like gas and coal to survive in temperature as low as minus 70 degrees Celsius.
Speaking about the ’2041 Campaign’, Swam said: “It an effort to raise awareness about the date (2041) when world leaders will start reviewing the moratorium on drilling and mining for rich minerals in the South Pole.”
“As part of the campaign I have been involving youngsters across the world and inspiring them to take sustainable and environment friendly tasks. These young people will become the future leaders who will take forward my task of saving the planet,” said Swan.
Swan has opened third E-Base station at Ladakh after the Antarctic and Pench Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh.
The E-Base is a sustainable green building that serves as a model for educational, environmental and energy issues.
“Its purpose is to inspire the world to tackle the issue of climate change. It shows that if we can survive using renewable energy at the remotest locations of earth, then we can all take such measures,” said Swan.
In India, he has been working with The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) and food processing and packaging solutions company Tetra Pack on two projects SEARCH and LEADearthSHIP.
Project SEARCH is to create awareness among school students, teachers and the school community at large about waste and the habit of refusing, reducing, reusing and recycling.Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind turbine, welcome to contact us!
Swan, who first took the Antarctic journey in 1986, wants to prove that if someone can survive on renewable energy in extreme climatic conditions in the polar region, then it can be replicated anywhere else in the world.
“It will be the first expedition to the South Pole on renewable energy. The whole purpose of undertaking this expedition is to tell the world to switch to environment-friendly sources of energy,” Swan told IANS in an interview. He is in India as part of the Great Himalayan Expedition to open the ‘Third Pole E base’ at Ladakh as part of his ’2041 Campaign’.
“Every year when I go to Antarctic, I find ice of the size of Delhi has broken and is drifting due to the rising temperature … this shouldn’t happen,” said Swan, who has cleaned an entire island in the the South Pole in the last eight years.
Swan says his team is working with experts in the US to devise technology for his green expedition.
“We will be carrying solar panels, a wind turbine and batteries to cook, melt drinking water, run GPS systems, headlamps, charge batteries of electrical devices and instruments. It is a tough task but we are up for it,” said the Englishman, who has been appointed the UN Goodwill Ambassador for Youth.
All expeditions to the poles till now use fossil fuels like gas and coal to survive in temperature as low as minus 70 degrees Celsius.
Speaking about the ’2041 Campaign’, Swam said: “It an effort to raise awareness about the date (2041) when world leaders will start reviewing the moratorium on drilling and mining for rich minerals in the South Pole.”
“As part of the campaign I have been involving youngsters across the world and inspiring them to take sustainable and environment friendly tasks. These young people will become the future leaders who will take forward my task of saving the planet,” said Swan.
Swan has opened third E-Base station at Ladakh after the Antarctic and Pench Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh.
The E-Base is a sustainable green building that serves as a model for educational, environmental and energy issues.
“Its purpose is to inspire the world to tackle the issue of climate change. It shows that if we can survive using renewable energy at the remotest locations of earth, then we can all take such measures,” said Swan.
In India, he has been working with The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) and food processing and packaging solutions company Tetra Pack on two projects SEARCH and LEADearthSHIP.
Project SEARCH is to create awareness among school students, teachers and the school community at large about waste and the habit of refusing, reducing, reusing and recycling.Read the full story at scfwindturbine.com web! If you love wind turbine, welcome to contact us!
2013年8月6日 星期二
Councils wrongly opposing wind farms should pay damages
Nick Clegg’s party has said it “supports” developers seeking damages from local authorities that raise objections “in contravention” of Government planning policy.
In a policy paper, the Lib Dems attack Conservative councils that register opposition to wind farms and claim that only 10 per cent of the population are “consistently opposed” to turbines.
Glyn Davies, MP for Montgomeryshire, described the Lib Dem position as “outrageous” and an “insult to local democracy”.
The policy document states: “Liberal Democrats would support developers who seek punitive damages against councils who do not follow National Policy Guidelines in determining consents.”
“For example, many (particularly Conservative) councils have adopted criteria (such as minimum separation distances from dwellings), in contravention of government planning policy.”
Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, has promised to “give local communities a greater say” on where wind farms are built.
The Government issued guidance that officials said would effectively end the spread of turbines, which have been blamed for blighting landscapes.
There were concerns last month that the guidance had been watered down after a separate planning document warned councils not to create “inflexible” turbine-free zones by imposing blanket bans of wind farms being built near houses.
However, sources at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) last night said that ministers remain committed to helping “councils turn down inappropriate wind turbines and resist unwarranted planning appeals”.
Peter Luff, Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire, who last year tried to bring in laws stopping wind farms being built less than 2km from housing, said: “It’s an extraordinary position. The Lib Dems aren’t going to win many friends in rural constituencies.
“Of course there must be national policy guidelines on controversial planning questions…but we also believe in localism and local communities are often better-placed to judge what is suitable for their area.”
He added: “What it so special about wind turbines that Liberal Democrats obsess with getting them built in inappropriate locations?”
And Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “I would be surprised if there weren’t some Liberal Democrat councils seeking to block wind farms.
“It certainly is really unhelpful language to be using. If you care about climate change and if you think that renewable energy has an important part to play in stopping climate change then what you don’t want to be doing is affronting decent people who care about their landscapes because you bring the whole argument into disrepute.”
Jake Berry, MP for Rossendale and Darwen, added: “I am very concerned about these plans for a backdoor stealth tax on councils who stand up for their local residents against big corporate wind farm developers.
“Liberal Democrats' obsession with big business and towering wind turbines is so blinkered that they want to abandon localism and local decision-making.”
The wind farms policy paper will be debated at the upcoming Lib Dem conference in Glasgow. If it is approved, it will become party policy and could become part of the manifesto for the 2015 election
It also claims that in public opinion surveys, wind farms “consistently attract support from around two-thirds of the public” but that “the 10 per cent or so who are consistently opposed are usually more vocal”.
In a policy paper, the Lib Dems attack Conservative councils that register opposition to wind farms and claim that only 10 per cent of the population are “consistently opposed” to turbines.
Glyn Davies, MP for Montgomeryshire, described the Lib Dem position as “outrageous” and an “insult to local democracy”.
The policy document states: “Liberal Democrats would support developers who seek punitive damages against councils who do not follow National Policy Guidelines in determining consents.”
“For example, many (particularly Conservative) councils have adopted criteria (such as minimum separation distances from dwellings), in contravention of government planning policy.”
Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, has promised to “give local communities a greater say” on where wind farms are built.
The Government issued guidance that officials said would effectively end the spread of turbines, which have been blamed for blighting landscapes.
There were concerns last month that the guidance had been watered down after a separate planning document warned councils not to create “inflexible” turbine-free zones by imposing blanket bans of wind farms being built near houses.
However, sources at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) last night said that ministers remain committed to helping “councils turn down inappropriate wind turbines and resist unwarranted planning appeals”.
Peter Luff, Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire, who last year tried to bring in laws stopping wind farms being built less than 2km from housing, said: “It’s an extraordinary position. The Lib Dems aren’t going to win many friends in rural constituencies.
“Of course there must be national policy guidelines on controversial planning questions…but we also believe in localism and local communities are often better-placed to judge what is suitable for their area.”
He added: “What it so special about wind turbines that Liberal Democrats obsess with getting them built in inappropriate locations?”
And Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “I would be surprised if there weren’t some Liberal Democrat councils seeking to block wind farms.
“It certainly is really unhelpful language to be using. If you care about climate change and if you think that renewable energy has an important part to play in stopping climate change then what you don’t want to be doing is affronting decent people who care about their landscapes because you bring the whole argument into disrepute.”
Jake Berry, MP for Rossendale and Darwen, added: “I am very concerned about these plans for a backdoor stealth tax on councils who stand up for their local residents against big corporate wind farm developers.
“Liberal Democrats' obsession with big business and towering wind turbines is so blinkered that they want to abandon localism and local decision-making.”
The wind farms policy paper will be debated at the upcoming Lib Dem conference in Glasgow. If it is approved, it will become party policy and could become part of the manifesto for the 2015 election
It also claims that in public opinion surveys, wind farms “consistently attract support from around two-thirds of the public” but that “the 10 per cent or so who are consistently opposed are usually more vocal”.
Falmouth Board of Health Will Endorse Turbine Bill
Falmouth Board of Health on Monday last week voted to support a bill currently under discussion in the House of Representatives. The bill, filed by State Representative Sarah K. Peake, and sponsored by nine other legislators, including known environmentalists in the State House, would create a 19-member commission to investigate and study the health impacts on individuals living within proximity of wind turbines in Massachusetts.
“I’ve been to hearings and met people who live on the Cape and I believe them that they are suffering as a result of being in proximity,” said Rep. Peake. “I am a believer in wind energy, I just think there are appropriate places for them and this commission will determine if there are places where turbines shouldn’t be placed.”
The bill was brought to the attention of the board by Linda H. Ohkagawa of West Falmouth Highway, who said the bill felt like a breath of fresh air compared to past studies. Ms. Ohkagawa went to the bill hearing on July 9 at the State House, where she was joined by other Falmouth turbine abutters.
Rep. Peake said she realizes there already have been a number of studies done, but the importance of this study, she said, was its dissociation from the Department of Public Health.
The DPH is part of the executive branch, she said, which has been trying to increase the use of renewable energy, and that’s a good thing, but not when testing the adverse effects of these renewable energies.
“With an administration trying to increase wind power while at the same time studying the effects of wind power,” she said, “that’s a little like having a fox in the hen house.”
Members on the commission would include residents who say that they have been affected by the wind turbines , a key voice that Rep. Peake said has been missing from past studies.
“They will have a seat at the table as well,” she said. It is important to give them a voice in the debate, she said. Three who have claimed to have health effects and live 5,000 feet from turbines would be assigned to the commission, appointed by the regional planning agencies of counties in Barnstable, Berkshire and southern Massachusetts.
On the other hand, she is not overly optimistic, stating that these types of bills can be held over for long periods. At the bill’s July 9 hearing, it was passed to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health. The health committee can wait to act on the bill until March of 2014, although Rep. Peake hopes they will move on it long before that.
She said that it is extremely helpful when a board of health sends a letter, proving that there is a broad base of support for the bill. The board of health in Falmouth is especially important, she said, because it has firsthand experience with the turbine issue.
Others in the commission, appointed by the governor, would include one member of Wind Wise-Massachusetts and one from Wind Wise-Cape Cod, two wind energy advocacy organizations; two members from local boards of health in areas with complaints; two physicians considered experts on adverse impacts from turbines; one PhD researcher from the National Institutes of Health specializing in the field of otolaryngology; and one physician who has written an article in an internationally recognized journal on the health effects of turbines.
“I’ve been to hearings and met people who live on the Cape and I believe them that they are suffering as a result of being in proximity,” said Rep. Peake. “I am a believer in wind energy, I just think there are appropriate places for them and this commission will determine if there are places where turbines shouldn’t be placed.”
The bill was brought to the attention of the board by Linda H. Ohkagawa of West Falmouth Highway, who said the bill felt like a breath of fresh air compared to past studies. Ms. Ohkagawa went to the bill hearing on July 9 at the State House, where she was joined by other Falmouth turbine abutters.
Rep. Peake said she realizes there already have been a number of studies done, but the importance of this study, she said, was its dissociation from the Department of Public Health.
The DPH is part of the executive branch, she said, which has been trying to increase the use of renewable energy, and that’s a good thing, but not when testing the adverse effects of these renewable energies.
“With an administration trying to increase wind power while at the same time studying the effects of wind power,” she said, “that’s a little like having a fox in the hen house.”
Members on the commission would include residents who say that they have been affected by the wind turbines , a key voice that Rep. Peake said has been missing from past studies.
“They will have a seat at the table as well,” she said. It is important to give them a voice in the debate, she said. Three who have claimed to have health effects and live 5,000 feet from turbines would be assigned to the commission, appointed by the regional planning agencies of counties in Barnstable, Berkshire and southern Massachusetts.
On the other hand, she is not overly optimistic, stating that these types of bills can be held over for long periods. At the bill’s July 9 hearing, it was passed to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health. The health committee can wait to act on the bill until March of 2014, although Rep. Peake hopes they will move on it long before that.
She said that it is extremely helpful when a board of health sends a letter, proving that there is a broad base of support for the bill. The board of health in Falmouth is especially important, she said, because it has firsthand experience with the turbine issue.
Others in the commission, appointed by the governor, would include one member of Wind Wise-Massachusetts and one from Wind Wise-Cape Cod, two wind energy advocacy organizations; two members from local boards of health in areas with complaints; two physicians considered experts on adverse impacts from turbines; one PhD researcher from the National Institutes of Health specializing in the field of otolaryngology; and one physician who has written an article in an internationally recognized journal on the health effects of turbines.
訂閱：
文章 (Atom)