The Economist reports on progress made by the Wind Turbine Company in creating a wind turbine which can have the blades downwind rather than upwind as is usual. This dramatically reduces the cost of the turbine, which economically makes it much more interesting to implement windpower. The company claims that with the improved design they could reach power prices as low as 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, a price The Economist says is competetive with with a coal burning power station.
It will be interesting to see if any of the large windpower projects in Europe license this technology or develop rival “backward” solutions.