Feature Article

Wind energy, if improperly sited, can impact wildlife through direct mortality and habitat loss and fragmentation, in contrast to its environmental benefits in the areas of greenhouse gas, air quality, and water quality. Fortunately, risks to wildlife from wind energy may be alleviated through proper siting and mitigation offsets.

A forest generated by residents in Andhra Pradesh's Anantapur district is being destroyed to set up windmills. For two decades people from eight villages in Kalpavalli region in Andhra Pradesh's Anantapur district laboured hard to turn a vast expanse of wasteland into a forest. But the effort seems to have gone waste as the green cover is being ruthlessly destroyed to set up wind farms. Enercon Wind Farms (Madhya Pradesh) Pvt Ltd, a group company of Enercon (India) Ltd, a subsidiary of the German company Enercon GmbH, is setting up a 20 MW wind energy project in the area.

This paper deals with two methods of obtaining 50Hz sinusoidal voltage waveform of constant amplitude same as the amplitude of grid voltage from a variable amplitude variable frequency sinusoidal voltage waveform so that a variable speed wind turbine generator can be joined to grid.

Lufthansa is the world's first airlines to use biofuel on scheduled flights. In the long term, the aviation industry will not achieve its climate goals without biofuels.

Because the price of solar panels is plummeting, large ground-mounted photovoltaic plants are squeezing solar thermal power plants out of the market. Is the future of concentrated solar power already over?

Wind power plants are most productive when nothing blocks their access to the wind. But turbines often take wind away from each other. Repowering and the allocation of new priority sites are aggravating the problems the most.

2011 has been a hard year for clean energy fund managers so far, and there are few signs of improvement any time soon. Investors are shunning the sector in the face of industry-specific issues such as overcapacity and shifts in demand, and they are mindful too of the steadily deteriorating macro-economic outlook.

Biomass Wales is starting wood-pellet production. Thanks to the UK introducing the world's first feed-in tariff for renewable heat, the company can look forward to good sales.

Japan has agreed a feed-in law, but important regulations have yet to be decided. Nonetheless, the industry is expecting a strong upswing.

Residents of Jamsher village in Punjab's Jalandhar district are up in arms against a proposed waste-to-energy plant in their village. At the public hearing on the proposed municipal solid waste management project held on Friday, the residents appeared well-informed and raised pertinent questions. But the district authorities as well as the company consultants were unable to answer the queries. When contacted, the company spokesperson refused to comment.