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According to a press release, the Berkeley-based startup Nordic Windpower expects to change the landscape of wind farms. Within a few years, CEO Tom Carbone says, Californians may expect to see vistas altered by the erection of 300-foot-tall turbines equipped with two enormous blades that rotate more slowly than their three-bladed counterparts.

Just one of Nordic Windpower’s 1-megawatt turbines, Carbone said, can do the work of 8 to 10 of the Altamont models — and produce enough power for 250 to 300 households. Nordic also claims that its technology is more durable and reliable than rival two-blade turbines.

Nordic this week announced $38 million in a third-round of funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation by New Enterprise Associates and other investors. Its total funding has not been disclosed.

The company is hardly typical of Silicon Valley. Founders Steve Taber and Jim Walker are renewable energy veterans who, recognizing the global demand for more turbines, did a global search that found a Swedish technology that included a flexible “teeter” hub and other advances that enabled the turbine to function more smoothly than rigid turbines.

Nordic’s founders initially were interested in licensing the technology, Carbone said, but ultimately raised money from London-based Goldman Sachs International to acquire it. To date, Nordic has shipped five of its turbines, including three to a utility in Uruguay. It has orders for 14 more. They are built in Pocatello, Idaho. Khosla partner Jim Kim joined Nordic’s board with the investment.

Back in June we reported on a futuristic design of wind power generators: vertical axis turbines.

Now researchers at the University of Virgina are developing a smaller, more efficient wind turbine uniquely designed to generate power in low-wind-speed areas. And they are building these turbines with a vertical axis, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The group is still seeking funding to create a full-size model that will have blades that extend 100 feet in diameter and spin along a vertical axis. Most wind turbines in operation today have much larger blades that extend up to 200 feet and spin along a horizontal axis.

“Most of the larger turbines are set for 14 to 15 miles per hour,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is get something that will work effectively in the 11 to 12 mph range.”

The design also will feature a turbine shaft levitated with magnets, which will reduce friction and consequently increase efficiency, says UVA mechanical engineering professor Jim Durand. Durand is also codirector of the Jefferson Wind Energy Institute

The overall design, Durand said, “is a combination of things that are aimed and optimized for low wind speeds.”

Paul Allaire, and UVA professor and the other codirector of the JWEI, will bring to the project his expertise on magnetic bearings. Allaire told the school’s newspaper, the Cavalier, in October that the goal is to first operate a 8-feet tall scale model in a wind tunnel that generates wind up to about 12 miles an hour. He said model was mainly a proof-of-concept step. “It’s very small and won’t generate much energy, so the plan is to build a 150-foot version, [which] would look like a cell tower.” The ultimate goal is to develop a system that can of produce 50 kilowatts of power.

Even with growing interest in wind power worldwide, the U.S. market for home wind turbines remains small, less than 0.002 percent of the national market. According to the American Wind Energy Association, however, this small wind turbine market is expected to grow dramatically over the next four years - from a total of 80 installed megawatts in 2008 to 1,700 MW in 2013. Already, installations in 2008 - 17.3 MW - marked a 78 percent increase over 2007.

Via press release, Siemens has secured a contract to supply 70 wind turbines to one of Mexico’s largest wind farms, the Los Vergeles project, in a deal that marks its first major turbine order in Latin America.

Grupo Soluciones en Energias Renovables, a Mexican wind-energy developer, will pay Siemens $270 M for the SWT-101 turbines, rated at 2.3 megawatts each. The 160 MW Los Vergeles project will be built in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

“The Latin American wind power market is expected to grow significantly in the years to come,” says Andreas Nauen, chief executive of Siemens’ wind division.

The deal marks the largest order of Siemens’ new 2.3 MW turbine, launched in March 2009. The new turbine, which boasts a swept area of 8,000 square meters, is intended for use in low-wind areas. Siemens claims low-wind areas will soon account for one-third of global turbine sales.

It’s not often that wind turbines malfunction to the point of destruction. Recently it happened twice in the same week.

According to the Copenhagen Post, in late October in Esbjerg, Denmark, a defective axle caused a 120-foot turbine to throw off all of its blades with one slamming into a power transformer. This was followed by an incident Nov. 2 in southwestern Sweden when another turbine — this time one from Vestas — threw off a blade that landed on a hiking trail.

Two Vestas in the U.K. also reportedly failed within weeks of each other in late 2007 and two more apparently failed in Denmark in early 2008.

Since 2000, there have been only 27 incidents in Denmark of turbine blades coming loose. However, as the rate of construction increases dramatically for this source of clean power, the frequency of turbine inspections is also coming under scrutiny. Denmark recently passed a law this year requiring inspections to take place at least once a year; and the wind turbine industry in Sweden has now proposed setting up a commission to investigate incidents.

Note: Video above is from a turbine that malfunctioned in Denmark in early 2008. The turbine was not designed to spin this rapidly, and the rapid spinning indicates a probable brake failure.

Zayas stands next to advanced blades being tested at Bushland, Texas.

I just learned that Jose Zayas, manager of the wind energy technology program at Sandia National Laboratories, will be leading a tutorial session on materials and wind energy applications at next year’s Materials Challenges in Alternative Energy 2010, aka Energy2010, slated for Feb. 21-25, 2010 in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

Zayas has been involved with a number of wind-related efforts. Recently, his group has been working with Purdue University to develop improved accelerometer systems for wind turbines blades that monitor blade motions and structural health. Such a system is important for alerting operators that blade modifications may be required to avoid damage. In a recent interview with U.S. News & World Report, Zayas said the Sandia-Purdue project was aimed at identifying the best types of sensors and the best blade locations.

He also served as project leader on the development of the Accurate Time Linked data Acquisition System (ATLAS II). This is a small, reliable, continuously operating system that capable of sampling a large number of signals at once to characterize the inflow, the operational state and the structural response of a wind turbine – using off-the-shelf components

“The system provides us with sufficient data to help us understand how our turbine blade designs perform in real-world conditions, allowing us to improve on the original design and our design codes,” says Zayas.

Atlas units can be placed at various locations on the turbine. Data streams from the different units are merged into a single data stream at the base of the turbine where the ATLAS II software compressed the data and stored them onto a local computer. Data can be monitored in real time via an internet connection.

In the USNWR story, Zayas said, “Wind is very random; it’s very active. You get gusts, you get all kinds of phenomena. Machines need to be designed to withstand all those variabilities.”

Energy2010 will focus on materials challenges and innovations in areas of solar energy, wind power, hydro, geothermal, biomass, nuclear and hydrogen, along with special sessions of advanced battery technologies. To learn more about the meeting and submitting papers, visit the Energy2010 web page.