Back in February we released the preliminary results of a patent landscape report, which identified both historical and future trends in the horizontal axis, utility-scale wind turbine industry.

We now have a more comprehensive view of those trends as a result of the analysis on the landscape of pending applications. With the completion of this work we have now analyzed over 1,900 US patents and over 1,500 published US pending applications.

There are now as many pending applications as issued patents, with 1,552 issued patents, 387 expired patents, and 1,561 pending applications. This confirms the deep focus on IP as a competitive differentiator in addition to a focus on product strategy. Top tier companies have vastly outstripped their competition in terms of the number of filings.

I. Industry Relevance: GE Leads

Once again an assessment of the relevance of the patent to the industry was performed and results were classified as low, medium, medium/high, and high. Definitions of this classification method are below.

The assessment of industry relevance serves the purpose of indicating the degree to which the patent owner has or is likely to assert their rights and seek licenses or otherwise enforce the patent. This should be an indication of the proverbial landmines to watch out for when navigating a technology and product roadmap through the landscape.

* Low – Not relevant to the currently pervasive set of technologies and products in the industry.
* Medium – May have been relevant in the past, but as technology evolves it is less prevalent. These are likely to shift to low in the future.
* Medium/High – Important items which the industry needs to be cognizant of, but these can likely be avoided / mitigated. Influence of things like technology trends and grid standards will ultimately determine relevance.
* High – Critical item which has been asserted, licensed or enforced, or else it is highly likely to be in the future.

For pending applications there is obviously a certain amount of variability and attempted claim breadth which does not ultimately manifest in the issued patent, if it subsequently issues at all.

Therefore, we are providing an assessment of industry relevance on the basis of the claim set published without investigation of the file history of each pending application to determine the likely scope of the subsequently issued claims at this point.

II. Component Trends: Blade Aero Dominates, Controls & Sensors Surge, Blade Structure/Manufacturing and Offshore Installation Emerge

The majority of the filing trends have been maintained, but a few noteworthy trend differences from the issued and expired patent landscape previously discussed and the comprehensive portfolio including all pending applications are clear.

Controls & Sensors have taken over the #2 spot behind Blades as the most commonly patented component in the wind turbine and this category is making a run at becoming #1.

Meanwhile, for the current #1 category, blade aero performance continues to be the dominant trend, but blade structure and manufacturing has quickly become an emerging trend with more recent applications.

The majority of the other categories have stayed in their relatively same positions when comparing the overall portfolio to just the currently issued patents, but one new category which has emerged is offshore installation vessels. This demonstrates that there is a concerted effort to make offshore more than just an important market segment, but a potential trend in technology development.

III. Technology Trends: Reliability Remains King

As for technologies, very few dramatic changes have occurred towards the top of the list, with Reliability still king in the wind industry.

The interesting trends are the emergence of Construction & Assembly (particularly in the transportation area), Manufacturing, Cost / Weight Reduction, and Service & Repair as wind OEMs, component vendors, and balance of plant (BOP) contractors get into the mix with ways to be more cost effective and improve quality in those areas.

Article by Philip Totaro, Principal at Totaro & Associates, a consulting firm focused on innovation strategy, competitive intelligence, product development and patent search.

Article appearing courtesy Green Patent Blog.

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Lately, China has dominated any renewable energy news that comes out of South East Asia and not without good reason. However, while China is busy surging forward into a future populated in part by renewable energy, other South East Asian nations have been working on some serious projects in both solar energy, wind power, and other renewable energy sectors. Of all the countries making waves, however, South Korea and Thailand have made the most recent developments worth taking notes on.

News coming from Thailand today has outlined a new deal the country has made with a solar energy company to ship solar panels to Thailand as a part of their latest renewable energy plan. The company in question, Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd., has been contracted by Thailand to provide 9.43 megawatts of solar panels in order to complement a larger quantity that had previously shipped to Thailand earlier this year. The solar panels are to be used as a part of Thailand’s plan to build a forty four megawatt solar energy power plant along with the Bangchak Petroleum Public Company. Once completed, the energy will be plugged into the grid in order to supply electricity to a large portion of the surrounding areas.

The plant is expected to substantially add to Thailand’s overall plan of achieving twenty percent renewable energy by 2022. So far, Thailand has thrown most of their support behind solar energy projects in the belief that they could possibly one day power the entire nation exclusively with solar energy. While they have only just started down the road towards adopting renewable energy, many have said that Thailand has done well in quickly identifying and adopting the technologies that work best for them and that the country should be on track to attain their goal.

In South Korea last week, the plan was released for the construction of a 2,500 megawatt offshore wind power plant in the Yellow Sea. The announcement of the plant comes not too long after China’s own announcement that they would be building a 1,000 megawatt offshore wind power plant. The plant is expected to cost a staggering $8.2 billion and to be built over the course of three stages that would end sometime in 2019. Once completed, the plant should help push South Korea towards the lead of nations that are adopting clean energy technology.

With both Thailand and South Korea making huge strides towards renewable energy, it would seem that South East Asia is in good hands. This is especially true considering the multitude of other nations, like China or Japan, that are working towards renewable energy goals. It will be interesting to see just how far each country has gone to reach their goal, or even to surpass it, in the next ten to fifteen years.

Article by Richard Cooke, appearing courtesy Justmeans.

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As renewable energy moves steadily into the future, the possibilities that exist thanks to tidal and wave energy are becoming more and more widely accepted by countries hoping to adopt such technologies. While tidal and wave based projects are found around the globe, Europe has been home to several for example, the United States has traditionally preferred to avoid such projects in favor of wind and solar based energies. However, considering the amount of locations found within the United States, particularly in the Northeast, that have been found to be perfectly suitable for tidal or wave projects, it falls now to those supporting the renewable energy type to gain support and push for the testing and installation of the technology.

In Massachusetts, one such group has been formed between researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and various state officials to promote tidal and wave based renewable energy in an area south of nearby Martha’s Vineyard. The idea is to use a tract of ocean to create a sort of testing area for offshore renewable energy technology companies that would allow them to work with their equipment. First proposed in 2008, the area would be approximately twenty seven square miles of ocean and seafloor that has been deemed suitable for renewable energy projects. Massachusetts state officials believe that by founding this research and development area, they will be making the state the leader in offshore, wave, and tidal based renewable energy development in the United States.

There has been some concern by critics of the project that the research and development project could permanently damage the nearby fishing industry. They believe that all of the testing that will be going on after the area has been established could have negative effects on nearby fish ecosystems. Similar concerns over a project in New Hampshire eventually led to the state officials cutting their support for a wave and tidal renewable energy project. If the assessments do not go as well as many believe they will, this project could have the same fate. The leaders of the project are hoping to being work on the area in full sometime next year after the battery of assessments are completed that they believe will ensure that the area will not be detrimental to the local ecosystem or currently existing shipping and fishing businesses.

The project is both being led and receiving support from the New England Marine Renewable Energy Center that consists of several New England based universities and organizations with interests in offshore renewable energy. So far, the organization has received nearly $750,000 for the establishment of the Martha’s Vineyard project and is likely to receive more Department of Energy based grants as the project continues. With the researchers and state officials ready to go ahead, it is only a matter of time before the Northeastern United States becomes a hotbed of offshore renewable energy. With the sizable offshore wind farms already undergoing research or construction, the addition of tidal and wave based renewable energy would be welcome indeed.

Article by Richard Cooke, appearing courtesy Justmeans.

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The US wind power industry is facing huge problems that have led analysts to forecast a 60% drop in installations this year. This will be the first year since 2004 that the industry will not grow. The main reason for this set back is that we have nearly run out of high wind areas with easy access to transmission. This combined with extremely low prices for natural gas have led the industry back to the drawing board.

Luckily, several companies, such as Siemens and Vestas are responding with more efficient turbines that can function in lower wind areas. While innovation is certainly coming, it is difficult to say how long it will take before the industry rebounds. It is not out of the question that US wind could continue to struggle for the next few years especially if Washington does not take more assertive measures to support them.

The governments of Great Britain and China, however, have taken bold steps to support wind power with plans to develop 25 and 30 GW of offshore capacity by 2020 respectively. Given this situation, the ideal wind company for an investor today would be a British or Chinese firm that is financially healthy and efficiently managed. If one could be found that was also trading at a discount, all the better.

A-Power Generation Systems, Ltd (APWR), a Chinese firm based in Shenyang, has a market cap of 414 million and 167 million of cash to only 21 million of debt. They are rapidly expanding with 54% year-on-year quarterly revenue growth. All of this amounts to a very healthy company. With a 35% return on invested capital, it is also meets our criterion of being efficiently run. Finally, its price-to-earnings ratio is below 6, which makes it an extremely good bargain. It is my belief that the market overreacted to the possibility of this company going under during the global financial meltdown of 2008 (the stock dropped from over $30 in June ‘08 to under $4 by Nov). The stock has not fully recovered and still has a lot of room to grow.

Article by Ambrose Desmond, a green investment advisor who also runs sustainablog’s green investment subdomain, and specializes in holistic financial counseling.

photo: Chris Lim at Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license

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The catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico has been portrayed as a one-of-a-kind disaster, a perfect storm of bad equipment, bad planning and bad luck.

But it’s far from the only spill that’s taken place this year – or even the only spill occurring in the Gulf right now.

On June 7, the Mobile Press-Register reported that the Ocean Saratoga rig has been leaking into the Gulf since April 30. Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff confirmed the next day that “small amounts of oil” were leaking from the wells beneath the rig, about 10 miles from Louisiana’s southeastern coast.

Taylor Energy, the well’s owner, said in a statement that it was engaged in an “ongoing well intervention plan” with the government to fix damage caused by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and that no significant new spill had occurred.

The Deepwater Horizon isn’t the only recent spill for BP, either. On May 25, according to Reuters, an accident on the Trans-Alaska pipeline spilled thousands of barrels of oil and forced the pipeline to be shut down for more than three days. BP is the largest owner of the pipeline operator, controlling 47 percent. (Read our story about BP’s troubled history in Alaska and its other U.S. operations.)

In addition, there was the Jan. 24 spill in Port Arthur, Texas, when an Exxon-Mobil tanker collided with an outgoing vessel and dumped nearly half a million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

If it seems as if oil spills – and particularly offshore spills in US. waters – are on the rise, that’s because they are.

A USA Today analysis of federal data found that spills from offshore oil rigs and pipelines have more than quadrupled in the last decade. From the 1970s to 1990s, offshore facilities averaged four spills per year of more than 50 barrels. From 2000 to 2009, the annual average soared to 17.

The report also found that the rate of oil being spilled was increasing faster than the growth in production. From USA Today:

In the 1980s, an average of about 2,900 barrels of oil and other toxic chemicals spilled a year. That figure rose to more than 4,400 in the 1990s and to more than 6,100 in the 2000s. Offshore oil production increased during that time, but the rate of barrels spilled per barrels produced continued to increase.

The company with the most spills in the last decade was BP, which had reported 23 spills of over 50 barrels without counting the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

Why are offshore oil facilities spilling more in recent years than they have in the past?

One possibility is that regulators haven’t been able to keep up with the surge in offshore drilling. The Washington Post reported Thursday morning that the Minerals Management Service has only seven more inspectors now that it did in 1985, even as offshore drilling projects have skyrocketed. From the Post:

Although the number of exploration rigs soared and the number of deep-water oil-producing projects grew more than tenfold from 1988 to 2008, the number of federal inspectors working for the Minerals Management Service has increased only 13 percent since 1985.

A message left for MMS this morning has not been returned.

Stefan Mrozewski, a drilling engineer with Columbia University’s Borehole Research Group and a former oil industry employee who once worked on the Deepwater Horizon, said the increase may in fact be driven by a very different dynamic – better voluntary reporting of spills by the industry.

Oil companies and service companies in the Gulf of Mexico “have – at least over the past 10 years – been extremely conscientious about report [sic] spills, incidents, hazards, etc,” wrote Mrozewski in an e-mail. “I would venture that the same attitude did not prevail in the 90s, and certainly not in the 70s.”

David Miller of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association for the oil and gas industry, said that offshore drilling was heavily regulated by the government, citing the MMS’s extensive guidelines for deepwater drilling.

“There’s quite a few regulations that the industry has to follow to be in compliance with the MMS,” said Miller.

Another possibility is that oil is simply harder to reach now – that increased consumption has led companies to turn to deeper waters and riskier procedures to satisfy the ever-expanding demand for energy.

“While the point of “peak oil” may or may not have been reached, what Michael Klare, a professor at Hampshire College, has dubbed the Age of Tough Oil has clearly begun,” wrote the New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert on May 31.

Article by Sasha Chavkin appearing courtesy ProPublica

photo: Travelling Steve

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The word from MSNBC and The AP is that Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of the offshore drilling regulator Minerals Management Service, has been fired.

Birnbaum has only been head of the agency since July 2009—that’s less time than her boss, Ken Salazar, has been at his post as Secretary of the Department of Interior, which oversees MMS. We’ve put in a call to MMS to confirm these reports.

It’s also worth pointing out that just yesterday, The New York Times ran a profile on Birnbaum, calling her “the oil spill’s invisible woman.” The Times noted that her background is mostly with environmental organizations, and when she took the MMS’ top job, she “had virtually no experience with the oil and gas industry, but that was seen as a plus.”

News of Birnbaum’s departure from MMS follows the resignation of MMS associate director Chris Oynes, announced earlier this month.

We’ve been covering the troubles over at the Minerals Management Service for a while now. The agency’s problems run the gamut, from lax regulation of “good friends” in the oil industry to recurring sex, drug and porn problems. Secretary Salazar has announced plans to shake up the structure of MMS to mitigate the agency’s conflict of interest, but many continue to question whether this move will be enough.

Article by Marian Wang appearing courtesy ProPublica

photo: US Department of the Interior

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To date not a single offshore wind turbine been built in the United States. Meanwhile Europe, China and Japan are far along in developing a water-based wind power industry. All one needs is a strong and steady wind as well as a relatively easy way to connect o the power grid so as to transmit the power gained from the wind. Most people think of wind power from various land based operations. However, it can be done by basing the wind turbine in the sea.

A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used for production of electric power. Individual turbines are interconnected with a medium voltage power collection system and communications network. At a substation, this medium voltage electrical current is increased in voltage with a transformer for connection to the high voltage transmission system.

Near shore turbine installations are on land within 5 miles of a shoreline or on water within ten miles. These areas are good sites for turbine installation, because of wind produced by convection due to differential heating of land and sea each day. Wind speeds in these zones share the characteristics of both onshore and offshore wind, depending on the prevailing wind direction.

Offshore wind turbines are less obtrusive than turbines on land, as their apparent size and noise is mitigated by distance. Because water has less surface roughness than land (especially deeper water), the average wind speed is usually considerably higher over open water.

Spain, Denmark, and Germany are Europe’s main wind energy producers. A large wind farm may consist of a few dozen to several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other purposes. A wind farm may be located off-shore to take advantage of strong winds blowing over the surface of an ocean or lake.

The United States is behind in developing sea based wind farms for many reasons: economic and regulatory uncertainties, local opposition (not in my backyard), and even the relative bounty of cheaper land based wind power resources have all conspired to slow any drive to develop wind power resources on the sea.

One of the proposed projects is the Long Island-New York City Offshore Wind Project. The proposed project would be located in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 13 nautical miles off the Rockaway Peninsula. It would likely be designed for 350 megawatts of generation, with the ability to expand it to 700 megawatts, giving it the potential to be the largest offshore wind project in the country.

The Cape Wind project would lie in the Nantucket Sound off New England. It has been debated for nine years. Some believed the proposed wind farm would cause visual harm to historic sites.

The beleaguered Cape Wind project, which has been struggling to overcome these obstacles for the better part of a decade and now awaits a decision from the Interior Department, is seen as a bellwether for the industry.

Canada may end up with the first North American sea based wind farm.

“Canada is actually in a pretty good place right now,” said Matthew Kaplan, a senior analyst with Emerging Energy Research, a market research firm based in Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Kaplan pointed to the generous incentives for renewable energy development that provincial leaders in Ontario put in place last fall.

This month the Ontario Power Authority announced that it had, in just a few months after introducing the increased incentives, awarded contracts worth $8 billion for development of some 2,500 megawatts of new renewable energy projects — or roughly the capacity of two midsized nuclear power plants.  Among the beneficiaries is Windstream Energy, which plans to build a 300-megawatt wind facility on about 48,000 acres of shallow water near Wolfe Island (Great Lakes region).

The Wall Street Journal noted last week that both sides of the Great Lakes are ripe for wind power development — but whether Windstream, Cape Wind or some other developer will prove to be the first to get an offshore project up and running on this continent remains anybody’s guess.

None of these projects are going to be running soon.

For further information: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/who-will-build-the-first-offshore-wind-farm-in-north-america/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Article by Andy Soos appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

photo: phault

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China’s offshore oil and gas company CNOOC agreed in early April to buy 3.6 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year until 2030.  The Australian LNG energy project is operated by BG Group. Though the precise value for the deal is confidential, Australian officials confirmed estimates its worth about AU$80 billion (S$103 billion) — the country’s biggest single company-to-company contract ever.

The latest CNOOC deal now makes China the world leader of investments in clean energy. For 2009, China spent $35 billion, double what the U.S. did at $18.6 billion ranking second. China plans to spend even more in the year ahead, ramping up projects in renewable energy, including wind power and solar PV manufacturing, clean water and non-renewable energy sources, such as natural gas and oil. In total more than $162 billion was invested in clean energy worldwide, reports the Pew Research Center Trust.

Countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Canada, Australia, and even parts of Europe, Russia and India are also jockeying to gain a global leadership position in clean energy sectors. In particular, Asia has captured much of the solar PV manufacturing and natural gas industries while Brazil and parts of Europe are heavily investing in biofuel, wind power and hydro ocean wave power. The main goals  of investing in clean energy are to renew long-term manufacturing bases, create export opportunities, jobs and businesses, states Phyllis Cuttino, who directs the Pew Environment Group’s Global Warming Campaign.

Most recently, China has clinched a slew of energy and resource-related deals meant to help ensure access to the commodities needed to keep its fast-growing economy booming. Further, deals include China’s massive push to capture high speed rail contracts worldwide including in the U.S. While it has also bought 60% of the Canadian Oil Sands projects that hold the largest oil reserves on Earth — even more  than Saudi Arabia’s. Additionally, China now leads the world with the largest gold reserves as it divests from the U.S. dollar into valuable commodities for industrial economic recovery.

Just days before, CNOOC announced plans for a US$3.1 billion joint-venture with Bridas Energy Holdings Ltd., a major Argentine energy firm. Then, Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it plans to explore for natural gas with China National Petroleum Corp. in southwestern China’s Sichuan province. That followed news that Arrow Energy Ltd., an owner of gas assets in Australia, had accepted a joint takeover bid from Shell and PetroChina worth US$3.15 billion. Finally, China also signed 15 deals with Russia worth US$1.6 billion. We can expect more to come.

James Rickman is an analyst, author, and expert in business development and sustainable business services with over 30-years experience.

photo: Tianyake

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China’s surging wind power industry will increasingly move offshore, experts say, as the nation’s first offshore wind farm reaches full power this month and government officials push several additional projects.

The 102-megawatt Shanghai wind farm is the first of several offshore wind projects planned by China, which last month opened bids for three to four large-scale offshore wind farms that officials say could generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

Beijing-based energy consultants Azure International predict that by 2020 China will have invested $100 billion to install 30,000 megawatts of capacity off the Chinese coast.That would exceed the capacity already installed in China’s booming land-based wind power market.

According to a recent report by the Global Wind Energy Council, China doubled its wind power capacity last year — from 12,100 megawatts to 25,100 megawatts — an increase that accounted for one-third of global growth in wind power.

Officials said that China’s emphasis on offshore wind will initially focus on tidal flats, including in Jiangsu Province, north of Shanghai, which has 10,000 megawatts of wind power potential.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

photo:dcmaster

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Global investments in alternative energy projects will rise nearly 50 percent in 2010, climbing from $130 billion this year to $200 billion next year.

In a survey of the green energy market, Bloomberg News reports that despite the dim prospects of forging a climate treaty in Copenhagen this month, companies and governments are moving rapidly ahead to build wind power farms, large solar arrays, and other green energy projects.

Thanks in large part to state-funded economic stimulus programs, government spending on green energy will more than double in 2010 to about $60 billion, according to the report.

Analysts said that with China, the European Union (EU), and individual U.S. states aggressively adopting regulations and incentives promoting green energy, the field will continue to rapidly develop even if a global climate treaty is not signed.

“Country by country, state by state, regulations will continue to spur demand independent of what might happen in Copenhagen,” said one U.S. clean technology analyst.

Major renewable energy projects are now underway across the globe, Bloomberg reported, including a $900 million offshore wind farm being built by CLP, Hong Kong’s biggest electricity supplier.

[photo: thinkpanama]

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