Sam’s Club in California Installs 17 Micro Turbines

Posted on April 30, 2010
Filed Under Green Business, News, Wind | Leave a Comment

sams-club-turbines-small1No, those aren't giant pinwheels: A Sam's Club in Palmdale, California, has added 17 micro wind turbines to the tops of light poles in its parking lot, parent company Walmart announced yesterday. The turbines will provide an estimated 76,000 kWh of clean, renewable energy for the facility each year. In a press release, the company says it chose the Palmdale store for the installation -- the first of its kind in the United States -- because of the area's "great wind resources." The turbines were supplied by DeerPath Energy, a renewable energy company based in Massachusetts that specializes in "scalable small wind." The release notes that the turbines will generate enough energy "to power more than six average American homes for a year." Impressive . . . although that's only 3-5% of what the store needs to run, according to triplepundit's Kathryn Siranosian. Kind of staggering, when you really think about it -- but the project fits into Sam's Club's larger sustainability goals, which include working towards eventual use of 100% renewable energy. A similar project is taking shape at a Sam's Club store in Worcester, Massachusetts. More photos of the wind turbines in action: sams-club-palmdale-2-small sams-club-palmdale-3-small Photos from Walmart's website.

FLASH: Country’s first offshore wind farm approved

Posted on April 28, 2010
Filed Under News, Wind | Leave a Comment

[caption id="attachment_1916" align="aligncenter" width="467" caption="Coming soon to Cape Cod: An offshore wind farm near Copenhagen."]An offshore wind farm near Copenhagen.[/caption] Break out the confetti! Big, historic news for renewable energy in the United States: The country's first offshore wind farm has been approved, paving the way for a 130-turbine, 420-megawatt project in Cape Cod. Cape Wind, which will be built five miles off the Massachusetts coast in Nantucket Sound, got the green light from U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar earlier today. In a speech in Boston, Salazar said the project "fits with the tradition of sustainable development" in the area: "We believe there is huge potential for offshore wind along the Atlantic. We don't want to be second to anyone." Reuters reports:
Although small in terms of its production -- the $1 billion facility would produce enough electricity to power about 400,000 houses -- its approval raises hopes that other offshore wind projects will follow. Several projects that could power hundreds of thousands of customers have already been proposed for the East Coast and the Great Lakes. The turbines, more than 400 feet high, will dot an area of about 24 square miles, larger than Manhattan, and be visible low on the horizon from parts of Cape Cod.
The approval is a huge victory for a project that had been opposed for years by locals, including Indian tribes and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy -- whose six-acre family compound in Hyannis Port overlooks Nantucket Sound. Opponents generally assumed the turbines would spoil the view and lower property values, affecting tourism in the area. Our two cents: Wind turbines are incredibly cool looking -- and an incredibly powerful symbol of what it means to make a commitment to clean, renewable energy. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, took the words right out of our mouths: "Renewable energy projects like these not only help fight climate change, they can create jobs and play a central role in our economic recovery." We'll take that view any day!

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