admin answers:

I don’t know of any wind farms in West Australia yet; but there would be good sites for them to the south, exposed to the roaring forties winds. There are several wind farms in South Australia and Victoria, taking advantage of the reliable winds in the Great Australian Bight and Bass Strait.

Or are you referring to Washington State?

admin answers:

Solar Energy

Solar energy is light and heat energy from the sun. Solar cells convert sunlight into electrical energy. Thermal collectors convert sunlight into heat energy. Solar technologies are used in watches, calculators, water pumps, space satellites, for heating water, and supplying clean electricity to the power grid. There is enough solar radiation striking the surface of the earth to provide all of our energy needs.

There are two main ways of using solar energy to produce electricity. These are through the use of solar cells and solar thermal technology. Using solar technologies to generate electricity is, at present, more expensive than using coal-fired power stations, but it produces much less pollution.

Solar cells are photovoltaic cells that turn light into electricity. Solar cells are used in three main ways. They are used in small electrical items, like calculators, and for remote area power supplies, like telephones and space satellites. They are also used on a larger scale to supply electricity through energy authorities such as energex and Ergon.

Solar cells are used to a limited extent in the development of solar-powered vehicles. Solar thermal technology uses heat gained directly from sunlight. The best known use of this technology is in solar water heating. Solar thermal electric generating plants use reflectors to collect heat energy to make steam which drives a turbine that produces electricity.

Australia is in an ideal position to develop and use solar energy. Some areas in central and western Queensland are among the best sites in the world to develop large scale solar electric generating plants.

Wind Energy

Moving air turns the blades of large windmills or generators to make electricity, or to pump water out of the ground. A high wind speed is needed to power wind generators effectively. While wind generators don’t produce any greenhouse gas emissions they may cause vibrations, noise and visual pollution.

While wind-generated electricity does not cause air pollution, it does cost more to produce than electricity generated from coal.

Wind pumps and generators have been used in remote areas of Australia and in other countries around the world for many years. More recently, wind turbo-generators on wind farms have been providing electricity for cities and towns in more than a dozen countries. The United States of America and Denmark produce most of the world’s wind-generated electricity. Australia has some small wind farms. The largest of these is at Esperance in Western Australia.

In Queensland, wind farms operate at Atherton Tablelands and Thursday Island.

A large wind turbo generator needs a minimum annual average windspeed of about 25 km/h. Sites need to be clear of tall vegetation and are often on prominent hills and headlands or in coastal areas. The southern states in Australia are in a good position to use wind generators because of a strong wind called the ‘roaring forties’ that blows across the south of the continent.

Large wind generators can be more than 110 metres tall with blades spanning 130 metres. They can sometimes make a low-frequency sound that cannot be heard by humans, but which can rattle windows. Wind farms can be a danger to migrating birds flying at night and can cause TV and radio interference in nearby homes. Because of their size, some people think wind generators are ugly and spoil the scenery, however in some places they are a tourist attraction.

Tidal/Wave Energy

If a dam or barrage is built across a river mouth or inlet, electricity can be obtained by the flow of water through turbines in the dam as the tide rises and falls. The movement of waves can also drive air turbines to make electricity. Although tidal and wave energy don’t produce pollution, they can cause other environmental problems.

Biomass Energy

Biomass is plant and animal material that can be used for energy. This includes using wood from trees, waste from other plants (for example, bagasse from sugar cane) and manure from livestock. Biomass can be used to generate electricity, light, heat, motion and fuel. Converting biomass energy into useable energy has many environmental benefits. It uses waste materials that are usually dumped, and uses up methane (a greenhouse gas). Fuels such as ethanol can be made from biomass and used as an alternative to petrol to power motor cars.

All plant and animal matter is called biomass. It is the mass of biological matter on earth. We can get (biomass) energy:

Directly from plants, for example burning wood for cooking and heating. O Indirectly from plants, for example turning it into a liquid (alcohol such as ethanol) or gas (biogas) fuel.
Indirectly from animal waste, for example biogas (mainly methane gas) from sewage and manure.
An increasing number of renewable energy projects using biomass has been developed. Most of these use waste products from agriculture, so they solve a waste disposal problem and, at the same time, create energy for use in homes, farms and factories.

Logan City Council collects biogas from a landfill site at Browns Plains, and uses it to generate electricity. Four companies in Ipswich are working together to use energy from landfill biogas. The biogas will be processed and piped to nearby Swanbank Power Station.

Biogas can also be produced from livestock manure and human sewage. Farms where animals graze and sewage plants are ideal places to produce energy from biogas. Waste peelings from food processing plants can also be used to produce biogas.

An example of agricultural waste being used to produce electricity is the recent Mackay Sugar Cooperative Association bagasse project. Bagasse (solid waste from sugar production) from four mills will be processed and used instead of coal to produce electricity.

Hydroelectric Energy

Fast-flowing water released from dams in mountainous areas can turn water turbines to produce electricity. While it doesn’t cause pollution, there are many other environmental impacts to consider. Ecosystems may be destroyed, cultural sites may be flooded and sometimes people need to be resettled. There are also impacts on fish breeding, loss of wildlife habitat and changes in water flow of rivers.

Hydroelectricity is produced from falling water. The movement of the water spins turbines which generate electricity.

Places with high rainfall and steep mountains are ideal for hydroelectricity. Canada, Brazil and New Zealand produce most of their electricity this way. In Australia about 8 per cent of electricity is produced from hydroelectricity. Most of this is from the Snowy Mountains Scheme in New South Wales. Queensland has two hydroelectric power stations in the Barron Gorge and Kareeya in far north Queensland.

Most hydroelectricity projects require the building of large dams on rivers, which can be very expensive. When large dams are built the flow of the dammed river is changed radically and large areas of land are flooded, including wildlife habitats and farming land.

Because of the environmental impact of traditional hydroelectric schemes, there has been increasing interest in alternative hydro schemes. Pumped storage systems can be installed on existing dams. There is a pumped storage hydroelectric power station at Wivenhoe Dam, west of Brisbane.

Run-of-river hydroelectric schemes cause less environmental damage. Large dams do not need to be built, as the run-of-river schemes divert only part of the river through a turbine.

Geothermal Energy

Geothermal energy uses heat energy from beneath the surface of the earth. Some of this heat finds its way to the surface in the form of hot springs or geysers. Other schemes tap the heat energy by pumping water through hot dry rocks several kilometres beneath the earth’s surface. Geothermal energy is used for the generation of electricity and for space and water heating in a small number of countries.

admin answers:

A permanent magnet alternator is good for a windmill. It can produce electricity at low RPM. They are sold on the internet by people that make them for use with home made windmill power generation. There are plans on the internet showing how to make a permanent magnet alternator and how to install permanent magnets in the rotor of an automobile alternator. I don’t know anything about availability in UAE.

An automobile alternator is an AC generator with an internal or external rectifier to provide a DC output. The term “permanent magnet generator” could mean an AC generator or alternator or a DC generator with a commutator. A DC generator with a commutator could be used with a windmill and would work well. Such things are probably not manufactured for sale as generators, but there are many permanent magnet DC motors with commutators made for use in automobiles. They are used for fans and other things. They should be easily available, but may not be as large as you would want.

admin answers:

1. Operation Status of Major Sub-industries

1.1 Power Station Equipment

In the first five months of 2007, China’s generator and generator set market and hydraulic turbine and auxiliary equipment market both showed rapid growth with sales revenues increasing by 38.97% and 62.40% and total profit increasing by 82.10% and 287.14% respectively. Meanwhile, boiler and boiler auxiliary equipment market and steam turbine and its auxiliary equipment market showed slow increases, with sales revenues increasing by 12.93% and 12.96%, and total profit increasing by 10.67% and 2.18%. The Gross Profit Margin of China’s power equipment manufacturing industry maintained a steady growth with that of the boiler and hydraulic turbine, increasing by 6.32 and 5.72 percentage points respectively, with generator and steam turbine remaining at the same level as that in the same period a year ago.

Currently, thermal power accounted for too large a proportion in China’s power structure. To change the current structure, NDRC of China managed to control the proportion of power generation projects and attached more importance to the development of hydro-power, nuclear power and renewable energy while it examined and approved the construction of power station projects. According to data in Table 5-1, the revenue and profit growth of equipment related to coal power such as the boiler and steam turbine all slowed during the period of January to May 2007, yet equipment related to other modes of power generation such as the generator and hydraulic turbine still maintained rapid growth.

1.2 Transmission and Distribution Equipment

At present, the upsurge of power station construction in China has gradually disappeared and correspondingly, power grid construction has come to be the keystone in the development of the power industry. In the first five months of 2007, China’s power grid construction sped up and the investment in the transmission and distribution equipment manufacturing industry increased at the same pace with investment in power grid construction, and as a result, most of the transmission and distribution equipment market achieved significant growth in terms of both sales revenue and total profit.

2. Development Prospects

2.1 Demand for installed capacity will decline slightly and power structure will turn gradually to clean and highly efficient energy.

In the past few years, China’s investment in the power industry was mainly concentrated in the construction of power plants, which had driven the dramatic increase of the power generation equipment industry. With gradual alleviation of pressure in power supply and demand, the growth rate of China’s power plant construction will decline in the future, and thus newly increased demand for installed capacity will go down in step.

(1) Clean and highly efficient power generation equipment will still maintain better development.

Although the growth of annual increased installed capacity in China has slowed down since 2007, the ultra-supercritical generator set will be widely used for its characteristics of high efficiency, high reliability, advanced environmental protection features, and better peak load adjustment performance. With China’s government attaching more and more importance to an improved environment and energy, nuclear power and hydropower will undoubtedly enjoy better development opportunities under government support in the coming years.

(2) New energy power generation equipment has entered the stage of rapid development.

Suggestions in the “11th Five-Year Plan” clearly set forth that “we should speed up the development of renewable energy sources such as wind energy, solar energy and biomass energy”. As a consequence, for a long time into the future, China’s new energy industry will develop rapidly; notedly, with more mature technologies and lower cost, wind power will enjoy the most potential in China.

2.2 Power transmission and transformation industry will enter the stage of rapid development.

The phenomenon of “stressing power generation, neglecting power transmission and supply” in China’s power industry construction has led to a lagging behind in power grid construction, causing serious problems by way of weak power transmission capacity. Particularly in recent years, with the quickening pace of power station construction and operation, there has been a more serious structural imbalance between power generation and power transmission and distribution. Although China’s investment in power grid construction during the “11th Five-year Plan” period will double that of the “10th Five-year Plan” period, it will not change the situation of too little a proportion of power transmission and distribution assets in the industry. Therefore, it will be the trend of the times to input more continual investment in power grid construction.

Reasons for outsourcing

Organizations that outsource are seeking to realize benefits or address the following issues:

* Cost savings. The lowering of the overall cost of the service to the business. This will involve reducing the scope, defining quality levels, re-pricing, re-negotiation, cost re-structuring. Access to lower cost economies through offshoring called “labor arbitrage” generated by the wage gap between industrialized and developing nations.
* Cost restructuring. Operating leverage is a measure that compares fixed costs to variable costs. Outsourcing changes the balance of this ratio by offering a move from variable to fixed cost and also by making variable costs more predictable.
* Improve quality. Achieve a step change in quality through contracting out the service with a new service level agreement.
* Knowledge. Access to intellectual property and wider experience and knowledge.
* Contract. Services will be provided to a legally binding contract with financial penalties and legal redress. This is not the case with internal services.
* Operational expertise. Access to operational best practice that would be too difficult or time consuming to develop in-house.
* Staffing issues. Access to a larger talent pool and a sustainable source of skills.
* Capacity management. An improved method of capacity management of services and technology where the risk in providing the excess capacity is borne by the supplier.
* Catalyst for change. An organization can use an outsourcing agreement as a catalyst for major step change that can not be achieved alone. The outsourcer becomes a Change agent in the process.
* Reduce time to market. The acceleration of the development or production of a product through the additional capability brought by the supplier.
* Commodification. The trend of standardizing business processes, IT Services and application services enabling businesses to intelligently buy at the right price. Allows a wide range of businesses access to services previously only available to large corporations.
* Risk management. An approach to risk management for some types of risks is to partner with an outsourcer who is better able to provide the mitigation.
* Time zone. A sequential task can be done during normal day shift in different time zones – to make it seamlessly available 24×7. Same/similar can be done on a longer term between earth’s hemispheres of summer/winter.
* Customer Pressure. Customers may see benefits in dealing with your company, but are not happy with the performance of certain elements of the business, which they may not see a solution to except through outsourcing.

Policy solutions to outsourcing are also criticized.

Security

Before outsourcing an organization is responsible for the actions of all their staff and liable for their actions. When these same people are transferred to an outsourcer they may not change desk but their legal status has changed. They no-longer are directly employed or responsible to the organization. This causes legal, security and compliance issues that need to be addressed through the contract between the client and the suppliers. This is one of the most complex areas of outsourcing and requires a specialist third party adviser.

Fraud

Fraud is a specific security issue that is criminal activity whether it is by employees or the supplier staff. It can be argued that fraud is more likely when outsourcers are involved. In April 2005, a high-profile case involving the theft of $350,000 from four Citibank customers occurred when call center workers acquired the passwords to customer accounts and transferred the money to their own accounts opened under fictitious names. Citibank did not find out about the problem until the American customers noticed discrepancies with their accounts and notified the bank.

admin answers:

Http://www.google.com/search?q=wind+tubine+technician+salary

$60,000-$80,000 annually in the US

admin answers:

Hi Robert, to my knowledge, there are only two college level accredited programs in the United States right now. One is in Southwest Michigan, at a school called Kalamazoo Valley Community College. They actually have a large turbine there and a two year degree program on turbine science and maintenance. I can’t recall the other school right now, but I know the one at KVCC was modeled after a program in Europe where they’ve been using turbines a lot longer than we have. Try googleing that schools name, once you find their website it should be short work to find the program and what its costs and requirements are. Western Michigan will likely be the next large wind turbine installation very soon too, Duke Energy is planning on installing hundreds of turbines along the coast of Lake Michigan. Take care, Rudydoo