Posts Tagged: "wind energy"

America’s aging electrical grid could benefit from smart grid tech

With an average price of 12 cents per kilowatt hour (Kwh) as of January 2016, the American electrical grid system still does a good job of getting electrical energy to consumers in a cost-effective fashion. However, the electrical grid is an aging infrastructure in desperate need of modernization. A 2013 report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers issued a D+ grade to the country’s electricity infrastructure despite increased investment since 2005. A report card synopsis cites the age of distribution systems, some of which were in use during the 1880s, as well as weather events and limited maintenance as serious issues. As more electrical grid resources become connected to the Internet in the race to develop smarter grids, cyber attacks will become an area of growing concern, which utility providers will have to stay ahead of.

Clean energy patent market may offer significant financial gains

With an increase in the number of patents being issued for clean energy technologies, it’s not surprising to see predictions of increased patent litigation in the sector. Patent infringement cases in the clean energy sector have already involved many of the industry’s top companies, including Westinghouse Solar, Zep Solar, DuPont (NYSE:DD) and SunEdison. Although patent issuances have exploded in that field, the market isn’t nearly as crowded as smartphones and other industries where a much higher number of patents have issued, making those sectors more visible to NPEs. With the renewed calls for both private and public investment into clean energy R&D in the wake of the Paris climate change conference, it’s clear to see that intellectual property owners who can successfully navigate the patent market could make significant financial gains.

General Electric doubles down on power and transportation through innovation and Alstom acquisition

In January, the company announced that it would be moving its corporate headquarters from Fairfield to Boston, MA, ending months of speculation that the company would indeed be seeking a new base of operations… Through 2015, General Electric took the 14th spot among all companies earning patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with 1,757 patent grants during that year. This does represent a fairly sharp drop over GE’s 2014 patent totals, when it took in 2,293 U.S. patents and placed 10th among all companies in terms of patent totals. As of the second week in February, GE had taken in 230 patents from the USPTO, according to patent portfolio analysis tools available through Innography. As the text cluster here shows us, much of this innovation has centered upon gas turbines and airfoils.

Picking winners and losers based on innovation design is unsound, unwise, and just plain stupid

On some basic level everything can be characterized as an idea. It is also all too easy for those who are not technically trained to believe, no matter how wrongly, that implementation is a trivial or ministerial act. Just monitor the windmills, if they are operating at a less than optimal level adjust them, tilt the blades a little. No big deal. Anyone could have thought of that, and a college student could have written the code over a weekend. Moreover, windmills are extremely old technology, so merely applying a computer process to something so old can’t be patent eligible.

Department of Energy Pumps Money into Offshore Wind Energy

According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, there is a potential 4.15 gigawatts of energy which can be collected from offshore wind collection around the country’s waters. The total electric generating capacity of the entire nation was 1.01 gigawatts as of 2008. All of this energy can be collected from waters within 50 nautical miles of America’s shorelines… Offshore wind farms face unique problems in seafloor depth and corrosion from ocean water which can cause higher operational costs in the form of maintenance team transport and replacement components. Offshore wind technology development projects are needed to develop tools for engineering modeling and analysis which can spur further innovation and lower the facility costs for offshore projects.