The American Wind Energy Association released its annual rankings of industry leaders today, showing that the nation’s wind production companies and turbine manufacturers are growing at warp speed, creating thousands of jobs and helping top wind states provide millions of households with clean energy.

First the states: Texas leads the nation with the ability to produce electricity from wind with 7,118 Megawatts of power capacity, or enough to provide 1.75 million homes in electricity.

The Lone Star state is followed by Iowa (2,791 Megawatts of wind capacity); California (2,517 Megawatts); Minnesota (1,754 Megawatts); Washington (1,447 Megawatts) and Oregon and Colorado (each with just over 1,000 Megawatts).

All together, wind installations were able to provide 25,300 MW of power by the end of 2008 and that is expected to grow in 2009 — with wind capable of powering 7 million “average American homes,” according to the AWEA.

Indiana and Michigan are growing fastest in wind, with Indiana moving from zero capacity to 131 Megawatts of capacity.

Ten new manufacturing facilities came online; 17 were expanded and 30 newly planned operations were announced in 2008, according to the AWEA. These investments affect 24 states, from Pennsylvania and New York to Oregon and Montana, with several Midwest and Southern states also involved in wind and wind equipment production.

The wind association estimates that 85,000 people are now employed in the industry, a 70 percent increase from a year ago, making wind a more powerful recession salvo than many realize.

“The wind energy industry today generates not only clean energy for our economy, but also hope and opportunity for American workers and businesses,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode in a statement. “Whether it is building or maintaining a wind project, or producing wind turbine components, you’ll find people employed in wind power in nearly all 50 states today.”

As for the companies that run these wind projects, NextEra Energy Resources, with wind offices in Minnesota, is the top “project owner” with 6,290 Megawatts in wind power assets — or roughly 25 percent of the total installed in the U.S..

Next on the wind scene are three companies that comprise another 25 percent of the market: Iberdrola Renewables, MidAmerican Energy and Horizon-Energias de Portugal.

Providing the equipment for these projects are GE Energy, which accounts for 43 percent of all the new wind capacity installed in the U.S., followed by Vestas (13 percent), Siemens and Suzlon (9 percent each) and Gamesa (7 percent).

Bode said the wind industry needs strong support from Washington to continue its progress forward.

“We need the right policies in place for our industry to maintain its momentum. A national Renewable Electricity Standard, requiring utilities to generate 25 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025, is vital to provide the long-term, U.S.-wide commitment businesses need to invest tens of billions of dollars in clean energy installations and manufacturing facilities, and create hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” she said.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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Aging wind turbines – some installed more than 20 years ago – are getting a second wind. Towering gracefully among California wind farms, an estimated 10,000 machines are slated to be replaced by more modern and much larger wind turbines.

Instead of laying these wind soldiers to rest, a Massachusetts company is focused on breathing new life into them through what it has coined “The Ultimate Recycling Project.”

Aeronautica Windpower, as part of its business as a wind turbine and tower manufacturer, harvests the better machines from the field and refurbishes them to give them a second life. The firm likens the modern windmills to aircraft, as they’re stripped down to their frames and rebuilt with newer technologies and reporting capabilities to fly for another 20 years.

Plucking the better machines from wind farms and putting them to use after an upgrade helps to save the power equivalent of a couple nuclear power plants, the company says.

Farmers are a target customer for the company’s used wind products. For a wind turbine to work effectively, it requires up to 18 acres and a prevailing wind. And with 2.6 million farms in the U.S., Aeronautica Windpower hopes to find enough homes for each recycled wind turbine.

The company specializes in generating green power. Founded by a group of engineers and businesspeople, Aeronautica Windpower makes and markets both new and used mid-scale wind turbines and towers. Its products offer clean power to industrial parks, ranches, commercial complexes, and small neighborhoods. Rather than selling the utility-scale models that can reach 350 feet tall, Aeronautica Windpower concentrates on selling smaller wind turbines in the 65- to 500-kilowatt size. Its older wind turbines have been rebuilt in the 65- and 108-kilowatt sizes.

The recycled version of the wind turbines are sold at up to half the price of newer models, as well, so there’s an economic incentive to buy them second-hand. Wind turbines include a tower, blade set, nacelle, and rotor. They run from $120,000 for the lowest-end version to $260,000 for the most expensive. The company boasts about 10 dealers to help service its products and it’s looking for more dealers as its customer base extends its reach nationwide.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Nancy Riddick leads a visitor to the power meter on the side of her rural home, set on two acres of prairie land in Hunt County, Texas. The mid-April wind is whipping at 30 miles an hour or more, so the timing of this demonstration couldn’t be much better.

Nancy points as the dial slows to a crawl, then stops. As the stiff breeze continues unabated, the meter actually starts to move backwards.

“I love it when it does that,” she says with a smile.

Small wonder. Thanks to a Skystream 3.7 wind turbine, the Riddicks (for this moment, at least) aren’t paying for electricity. Instead, they are actually creating and capturing it for future use.

Welcome to what just could be the next big thing in personal energy conservation, assuming you have upwards of $12,000 to invest up front and a lot of 1/2 acre or more to accommodate the installation. Skystream isn’t going to eliminate the need for the local power company any time soon, but it just might help take some of the sting out of that monthly bill. Since flipping the switch just after Christmas, Nancy says the Riddicks have enjoyed a 40 percent reduction in their monthly electricity costs compared to the same months in 2007.

The source, in this case: A 33-foot tower located about 80 yards from the back of the Riddicks’ house. At the top, 12-foot rotors catch the force of the wind, and a 2.4 kilowatt generator turns those gusts into energy that feeds directly into their home — or it could be your home or business.

The system works in conjunction with your local utility. When the wind is blowing, Skystream (produced by Southwest Windpower of Flagstaff, Ariz.) provides at least a portion of your electricity. When it isn’t, you tap into your regular power source.

Even better: If Skystream produces more power than you are currently using, the meter actually does spin backwards as you contribute energy to the local grid and earn credits.

Skystream requires an 8 mile per hour wind to get started and a 5 mph breeze to keep going. How much power you generate is completely dependent on how much wind you get. The beauty of the tower and rotors is in the eye of the beholder, but the turbine is surprisingly quiet, producing a low hum that can barely be heard from the Riddicks’ house.

“We had been interested in some form of alternative energy for a long time,” says Nancy, a home-based medical transcriptionist. “We’ve looked at solar, and we’ve looked at the wind. The solar is so bulky and there’s a lot of maintenance to that, and the turbines were so ridiculously expensive.

“The price (on Skystream) finally came down, starting at $11,900. That was the cheapest we’d ever seen it. That’s when we decided to do it.”