Wind Power News: South Carolina
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They are the products of the organizations or individuals noted.
Is the future of the state's electric power blowing in the wind?
Five years from now, 210-foot-tall wind turbines could be spinning off South Carolina’s coast, generating electric power.
That’s the prediction from the S.C. Energy Office, which was recently awarded a $500,000, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study the potential for generating wind energy off the coast. Clemson and Coastal Carolina universities and the Savannah River National Lab are also participating in the research.
“The purpose of this (grant) is to develop all the necessary regulations . . .
Pickens stands to win big from wind
T. Boone Pickens has made billions by being an astute investor and businessman, so when he begins touting wind energy, people listen intently. They would be well advised to remember that Mr. Pickens is first and foremost an investor and businessman, and not a philanthropist.
What better new business to invest in than one that gives him not only valuable tax breaks, but one whose purchase by utilities the government has mandated.
Wind does not always blow, thus the power generated is . . .
Firm building coal plant erects test towers to gauge the wind
A large tower that went up Wednesday on Goat Island in Georgetown County is a possible link to safer, cleaner energy generated by the brisk coastal winds.
At a time when the plans for a new coal-fired generating plant near Florence are being reviewed by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, Santee Cooper is working to find other, natural sources of energy, said Santee Cooper spokeswoman Molly Gore. A similar, 50-meter tower went up last year on Waties Island . . .
Wind-power project expands to Georgetown
Georgetown County will be the site of the third wind-power test site along the state’s coast, aimed at showing whether it is feasible to make electricity from wind.
The announcement was part of an update Thursday on research conducted by Coastal Carolina University’s Burroughs and Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies, Santee Cooper and Clemson University.
The wind-power test location will be built at Hobcaw Barony in cooperation with the Belle W. Baruch Institute and Clemson’s Restoration Institute.
Santee Cooper, the state-owned . . .
Exhibit seeks to spark interest in wind energy
Vestas and Lego Group partnered to produce a “Wind is Free” exhibit, featuring a Statue of Liberty built of Legos and holding aloft a windmill, to entice children to learn about wind as an alternative power source.
The exhibit will be at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport through August and will spend several years touring national and international airports.
Four mini exhibits — representing urban, desert, forest and offshore potential for wind energy — surround the main exhibit. They are interactive and include . . .
Institute researching how state could use wind power to generate electricity
The South Carolina Institute for Energy Studies at Clemson University has begun studying the feasibility of harnessing wind power to generate electricity in the state, according to Nick Rigas, Institute director.
SC Launch!, a South Carolina Research Authority collaboration, gave the Institute a $15,000 grant for the South Carolina Wind for Schools demonstration project. SCRA works with demonstration projects and helps create new companies around new technologies, said Bill Mahoney, president.
One of the sectors in which the organization has been active . . .
Government wants feedback on floating wind farms at sea
CHARLESTON –The government wants to know what people think about generating energy from wind, currents and waves off the S.C. coast.
The idea is to harvest energy from wind and water turbines and send the power back to shore through cables.
The greatest potential for wind energy is beyond three miles off the coast, outside state territorial waters, said John Clark, a spokesman for the state Energy Office.
While some people may not like to see a field of spinning wind turbines offshore, . . .
Offshore wind farm unlikely but studied
The notion is almost surreal — rows on rows of mammoth propellers, each blade taller than a football field is long, whirling offshore just above the horizon.
The chances of seeing a wind farm in the ocean off South Carolina might be just that fantastic, even though it’s getting a good hard look.
The cost of fitting the sea with wind turbines is too much to be worthwhile in the Southeast, where only winter winds approach the sustained strength needed to make . . .
S.C. to use wind power?
Scientists, lawmakers and utility executives from three states will gather in Charleston this month to debate the merits of offshore wind turbines, a technology that is revolutionizing the energy industry in Europe but running into resistance in the United States.
A lot of breezes could be harnessed and put to use as an alternative power source if generators between 98 and nearly 500 feet tall were placed 8 to 10 nautical miles off the coast, said Nicholas Rigas, director of S.C. . . .
