The 2.5 MW Liberty Wind Turbine was the largest wind turbine manufactured in the United States when it was first installed in 2007. [1] It was developed through a partnership with U.S. Department of Energy and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory for Clipper Windpower. [1]
The design of the turbine was meant to reduce problems with power train components that have been experienced in other machines. [2] [3] A two-ton crane within the nacelle simplifies maintenance thereby reducing costs. The size and weight of the Liberty allow it to be constructed with crane of the same capacity as used with most 1.5 MW turbines. [1]
Commercial sales for the new Liberty turbine started in June 2006. [1] Liberty turbines were placed into service in the first quarter of 2007 at Steel Winds, a wind energy project located on the coast of Lake Erie in Lackawanna, New York, south of the City of Buffalo in Erie County. [4] Sales stopped in 2012 as the model was experiencing problems with power train components that had cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars in warranty repairs. [5]
Liberty Wind Turbine uses an 80 meter tall tower as a standard in its design. The rotor diameter varies amongst particular versions of turbines. The diameter for version C89 is 89 meters, 93 meters for version C93, 96 meters for version C96, and 99 meters for C99. Blade lengths are 43.2m for C89, 45.2m for C93, 46.7m for C96 and 48.2m for C100. Liberty Wind Turbines use 4 generators that have permanent magnets. Each generator delivers 660 kW at 1133 RPM at a voltage of 1350 Vdc. [ citation needed ]
Vestas Wind Systems A/S is a Danish manufacturer, seller, installer, and servicer of wind turbines that was founded in 1945. The company operates manufacturing plants in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, India, Italy, Romania, the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Australia, China, Brazil, Poland and the United States, and employs more than 25,000 people globally.
Wind turbine design is the process of defining the form and configuration of a wind turbine to extract energy from the wind. An installation consists of the systems needed to capture the wind's energy, point the turbine into the wind, convert mechanical rotation into electrical power, and other systems to start, stop, and control the turbine.
Wind power in California had initiative and early development during Governor Jerry Brown's first two terms in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The state's wind power capacity has grown by nearly 350% since 2001, when it was less than 1,700 MW. In 2016, wind energy supplied about 6.9% of California's total electricity needs, or enough to power more than 1.3 million households. Most of California's wind generation is found in the Tehachapi area of Kern County, California, with some large projects in Solano, Contra Costa and Riverside counties as well. California is among the states with the largest amount of installed wind power capacity. In recent years, California has lagged behind other states when it comes to the installation of wind power. It was ranked 4th overall for wind power electrical generation at the end of 2016 behind Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma. As of 2019, California had 5,973 megawatts (MW) of wind power generating capacity installed.
Nordex SE is a European company that designs, sells and manufactures wind turbines. The company's headquarters is located in the German city of Rostock while management is situated in Hamburg. Production takes place in Rostock as well as in China and in the city of Heroica Matamoros Matamoros, Tamaulipas, state of Tamaulipas, México for a brief time in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The company was founded in 1985 in Give, Denmark. Since then the company steadily grew. In 1995 Nordex was the first company to mass-produce a 1 MW turbine booster. The company Südwind Babcock-Borsig has been fully implented into Nordex on October 1, 2001. Nordex began also producing the turbines of the manufacturer Südwind, which had previously gone bankrupt. Nordex started producing turbines in the 1.5 MW class from 2001 - originally from "pro + pro Energiesysteme" developed the S70 and later the S77 - under license.
Clipper Windpower is a wind turbine manufacturing company founded in 2001 by James G.P. Dehlsen. It designed one of the largest wind turbines in the United States, manufactured in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was working collaboratively with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Steel Winds is a wind energy project located on the coast of Lake Erie in Lackawanna, New York, just south of the City of Buffalo in Erie County. Its first phase was operational in 2007 and the second phase came online in 2012, for a combined production capacity of 35 MW. The unique project was built on part of the brownfield of a former Bethlehem Steel plant. By using much of the existing infrastructure of roads and transmission lines, it could reduce project costs. It is one of the largest urban wind farms in the world and uses turbines manufactured in Iowa.
Making up over 55% of the state's generated electricity in 2021, wind power is the largest source of electricity generation in Iowa. In 2020, over 34 billion kWh of electrical energy was generated by wind power. As of Q3 2020, Iowa has over 10,951 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity with 5,590 wind turbines, ranking 2nd and 3rd in the nation below Texas respectively.
The Titan Wind Project is 25MW wind farm which had a proposed expansion to 5,050 MW, formerly known as Rolling Thunder, based in South Dakota. The project developers, Clipper Windpower and BP Alternative Energy, expected to build Titan in several phases and, when completed, it would have been one of the largest wind farms in the world.
The Sherbino Mesa Wind Farm is located in Pecos County in west Texas. The first 150 megawatts (MW) of the project, which has a potential capacity of 750 MW, is in operation. Phase I utilizes 50 Vestas V-90 Mk.5 wind turbine generators, each with a rated capacity of 3 MW. BP will operate phase I of the project.
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. Wind turbines are an increasingly important source of intermittent renewable energy, and are used in many countries to lower energy costs and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. One study claimed that, as of 2009, wind had the "lowest relative greenhouse gas emissions, the least water consumption demands and the most favorable social impacts" compared to photovoltaic, hydro, geothermal, coal and gas energy sources.
The Enercon E-126 is an onshore wind turbine model manufactured by the German company Enercon. With a hub height of 135 m (443 ft), rotor diameter of 126 m (413 ft) and a total height of 198 m (650 ft), the turbine can generate up to 7.58 megawatts of power, making it the largest wind turbine in the world for several years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by the Danish company Vestas with their V164-8.0 turbine. Their model number is a reference to their rotor diameter.
GE Wind Energy is a branch of GE Renewable Energy, a subsidiary of General Electric. The company manufactures and sells wind turbines to the international market. In 2018, GE was the fourth largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world.
James G.P. Dehlsen is an American businessman, inventor, and entrepreneur. He is a pioneering figure in wind power and renewable energy development in the United States and holds 25 patents.
The Criterion Wind Project is a wind farm located on Backbone Mountain east of Oakland, Maryland, United States. The project has a rated capacity of 70 MW and uses 28 Liberty Wind Turbines manufactured by Clipper Windpower. Each of the wind turbines is about 415 feet tall. The Criterion Wind Project is owned by Criterion Power Partners, LLC, which is a subisiary of Exelon, and interconnected with the transmission system of the Potomac Edison Company. Electricity and renewable energy credits from the project are sold to the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative under a 20-year supply contract.
Soma Wind Farm is an onshore wind power plant in Soma in Manisa Province in the northwestern Aegean Region of Turkey. Built in two phases and consisting of 119 wind turbines with an installed output power of 140 MW in total, it is one of Turkey's largest wind farms.
The Vestas V164 is a three-bladed offshore wind turbine, produced by Vestas, with a nameplate capacity of up to 10 megawatts, a world record. Vestas revealed the V164's design in 2011 with the first prototype unit operated at Østerild in northern Denmark in January 2014. The first industrial units were installed in 2016 at Burbo Bank, off the west coast of the United Kingdom. By 2021, Vestas had produced 500 of the series.
A wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) is a vessel specifically designed for the installation of offshore wind turbines. There were 16 vessels in 2020.
Wind power in Nebraska remains largely untapped in comparison with its potential. In the Great Plains, with more than 47,000 farms and open skies it ranks near the top in the United States in its ability to generate energy from wind. As of 2015, the state had not adopted a renewable portfolio standard. Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) is one of the state's largest purchasers of wind energy.
INOX Wind Limited is an Indian wind energy service provider. Headquartered in Noida, India, the company is a subsidiary of the INOX Group. INOX Wind Limited manufactures Wind Turbine Generators (WTGs) and provides services including wind resource assessment, site acquisition, infrastructure development, erection and commissioning, and long term operations and maintenance of wind power projects. INOX Wind was ranked 167th in Business Today's 2015 list of the 500 most valuable companies in India.
The South Plains Wind Farm, is located between Floydada, Texas and South Plains, Texas, on the high plains of the Llano Estacado in Floyd County. Completed in 2016, the wind farm was constructed in two phases that have a total generating capacity of 500.3 megawatts (MW).
