Author: Anela Dokso

Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth has concluded the latest round of testing of the BladeBUG inspect-and-repair robot for offshore wind turbine blades. The six-legged blade crawler has now reached a major milestone in development under a £1 million project – BladeBUG 2, partly funded by Innovate UK, enabling technical integration to begin with the MIMRee system for fully autonomous wind farm operations. During the trials, which took place in early March, the robot walked on blade surfaces, proving the stability of its vacuum adhesion technology and its dexterity in adapting its gait to the…

Leeward Renewable Energy has closed $162.9 million of construction financing and tax equity commitment for its Mountain Breeze wind farm located in Weld County, Colorado. Leeward developed the Mountain Breeze wind farm and will own and operate the project for the long-term.  The 170 MW project will utilize GE 2.3 and 2.82 wind turbine generators, installing 62 machines at the site.  Mountain Breeze received unanimous approval from Weld County for the build of the project and has received positive support from the project landowners and members within the community. Construction of Mountain Breeze is currently underway. Leeward entered into a long-term…

SSE Thermal has agreed to sell a 50% stake in its Slough Multifuel project to a fund managed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). The 50MW energy-from-waste facility will now be developed as a 50:50 joint venture between the two companies. SSE Thermal holds existing planning permission for the facility, which will be located on the Slough Trading Estate in Slough, Berkshire, and has been carrying out site preparation works for the construction project since 2018. When completed, Slough Multifuel will be capable of handling around 450,000 tonnes of waste-derived fuels annually, diverting the waste away from landfill and instead using it as…

Morlais, a Menter Môn project, has the potential to become one of the largest tidal stream energy sites in the world with a generating capacity of up to 240MW of electricity. EnergyNews.biz has spoke to Gerallt Llewelyn Jones, director of Morlais, about the project potential, its benefits and the impacts of the current situation in the world with Covid-19 on the project. Morlais project, run by Menter Môn, has a large tidal energy potential. Can you introduce the project to our readers and tell us more about its potential? Morlais is a tidal stream energy project run by not for…

GE Renewable Energy has been selected by DIF Capital Partners to provide a 10-year full-service agreement (FSA) for the 183 MW Idaho Wind Partners wind farms near Twin Falls. The 11 wind farms, which are managed by Longroad Energy, include 122 GE 1.56-82.5 turbines. The 10-year contract provides a suite of GE+s Digital Services including PowerUp, GE’s proprietary controls and performance optimization software, Enterprise SCADA, the operating system that provides real-time visibility, communications and control and Digital Plan of the Day, a field service management tool which increases field engineers’ productivity and fleet efficiencies by gathering and analyzing high performance wind power metrics and analytics. “This…

Pulse Structural Monitoring, an Acteon company, has signed its first contract for the provision of digital structural monitoring and insight services and equipment on an offshore wind farm. The contract, awarded by Ørsted, will see Pulse provide the design, fabrication, yard installation and commissioning of its monitoring instrumentation on three wind turbine foundations to be installed at the Greater Changhua offshore Taiwan. “Being one of Ørsted’s important partners on the Greater Changhua wind farms is a major milestone for Pulse Structural Monitoring. As a company, we have over 20 years’ experience in our core offshore markets and have completed some…

A coalition of researchers and scientists have released the findings of a year-long study into the impacts of sourcing metals to produce battery cathodes and wiring for electric vehicles (EVs).

Orbital Marine Power (Orbital), a developer of floating tidal stream turbines, has named Oliver Wragg as its new commercial director. Before joining Orbital Oliver was the commercial director at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) for over six years. Oliver has been an active board member of Ocean Energy Europe since 2010 and in 2012 was awarded the Lennard Senior Prize for Outstanding Individual Achievement in the field of marine energy. “Oliver joining the team at Orbital is a huge boost for our commercial ambitions. He comes with an unrivalled marine energy network that stretches around the world and I’m…

U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest ‘Monthly Electric Generator Inventory Report’ has shown that the electric power sector installed nearly 23,000 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity in 2019. This new capacity was primarily in onshore wind – 9,100 MW, natural gas-fired – 8,300 MW, and solar photovoltaic (PV) – 5,300 MW technologies. The South region accounted for nearly half of the total capacity additions in the United States last year. In the Northeast region, access to abundant natural gas supply from the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in Pennsylvania and Ohio has led to increases in natural gas-fired power plant…

Vestas plans to lay off approximately 400 employees, primarily located in Denmark, along with stopping certain projects with immediate effect, all due to currently ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Vestas informed that due to the extraordinary situation from the pandemic, additional measures are needed to ensure the organisation executes as strongly as possible on the order backlog and customer commitments in 2020. To this end, Vestas intends to reduce its workforce across functions in Denmark that do not directly support 2020 deliveries. In addition to layoffs in Denmark, a limited number of layoffs is also expected in other locations in Europe. Furthermore, Vestas’…