See a Gaia-Wind 11kW Small Turbine in action and hear how quiet it is.

The Gaia-Wind 11kW Small Turbine is the cost effective turbine with a Danish pedigree for profitable wind generation in rural and urban fringe locations.

You can meet the owners, members of the supply team and consultants who provide planning and support services for Gaia-Wind installations and prepare to install your own wind turbine.

For more information and to book a place at the reception by the 12th of September.:

Telephone 0845 8714242
Email david.roe@gaiawind.com

Gaia-Wind are pleased to announce their participation at the Sustainable Energy Fair at the Scottish Agricultural College, Auchincruive. This event will focus on renewables and energy efficiency, as well as waste management, transport and sustainable house design. It is organized by Ayrshire, Dumfries & Galloway’s Energy Agency who have organised events such as the Renewable Energy Fair in 2007. The format will include information stands and demonstrations, a variety of presentations throughout the day, on-site catering, free parking and plenty of opportunities to talk with organisations at the forefront of renewable and sustainable technologies.

More information on The Sustainable Energy Fair 2008 can be found at:

www.energyagency.org.uk

Craig MacMillan will be answering your questions in the Gaia-Wind stand.

“We are very happy with the expeditiousness and efficiency of the installation of the Gaia-Wind turbine and look forward to putting it through the testing program”, said Trudy Forsyth, Senior Project Leader at NREL.

The main objectives of the NREL testing program are to monitor and record the performance of various small wind turbine models in five different IEC standard compliant tests over a period of approximately 18 months. Furthermore, the program is focused on small wind turbines that demonstrate the potential to achieve commercial success in the US market. With over 180 worldwide installations representing more than 1,000 years of combined operational history, Gaia-Wind possesses an established track record in the small wind turbine industry.

Gaia-Wind A/S was established nearly 20 years ago in Denmark. In 1996 the Gaia-Wind 11 kW turbine was the first turbine to receive the Danish HB certificate for small wind turbines.. In 2006, Gaia-Wind relocated its administrative headquarters to Scotland in order to penetrate the UK and other international markets. The turbines continue to be manufactured in Denmark.

Gaia-Wind 11kW wind turbines have been developed according to “Danish design”, which incorporates more than 30 years of wind power industry experience and is the design basis for most utility-scale wind turbines in use today. Notable design elements include a gearbox, passive stall, three-tier safety system, tip brakes, amongst others. The turbine’s oversized rotor generates makes it suitable for low to moderate wind speed areas. In such wind regimes, the turbine generates an annual energy output that is superior to other machines with a comparable - and even higher - power rating.

In addition to the ongoing NREL program, Gaia-Wind is presently engaged in various initiatives intended to strengthen its presence in the US market. More specifically, the company is undergoing various certification processes in order to qualify for relevant state-sponsored grant schemes. In terms of marketing, Gaia-Wind is currently exhibiting at WindPower 2008 in Houston, and will participate in a number of similar events throughout the year. Please refer to the company’s website, www.gaia-wind.com, for relevant news updates

the gaia wind 11kw turbine at the nrel test site in colorado

More information on WINDPOWER 2008 can be found at:

www.windpowerexpo.org

Please come and visit us at booth 3453. Our stand will be manned by Johnnie Andringa, Gaia-Wind’s managing director, and Andres Bluhm, in charge of business development for the United States. Preliminary information requests can be emailed to

usmail@gaia-wind.com

We look forward to meeting you in Houston!

Johnnie Andringa, managing director of Gaia-Wind, identified three main hurdles for small wind turbines:

• Economic
• Technical
• Planning

He argued that, provided these three hurdles are properly addressed, small wind turbines can play a significant role in the UK Energy policy.

The webcam shows a Gaia-Wind turbine together with another small wind turbine (left in the background) and a micro turbine (right, far in the background). Apart from these live images, also online data of the performance of the Gaia-Wind turbine can be seen. Further the website gives a number of background documents, pictures and videos. Please note that all material is in the Italian language.

Regarding the siting of the turbine; the average wind speed on this site is rather low. Due to vicinity of the mountains (Trento is at the foot of the Brenner pass in the Alps) the winds are changing over a day; typically from 2 pm until 8 pm there are strong winds where the rest of the day the wind speed is very low. The turbines therefore often only operate during the afternoon, but during that period they do work at significant power levels.

Due to the digital quality of the webcam the blades of the turbine, while rotating, get a curved-banana shape. In reality the blades are straight, as for instance can be seen on another video, which was made with a higher quality camera.

More information can be found on:
http://www.greenenergyawards.co.uk/

For Gaia-Wind it is already a huge support to be nominated for this prestigious award. It underlines our business model and the quality of our product. Typical for the Gaia-Wind 11 kW turbine is the large rotor, giving it an excellent performance in moderate wind areas. The economics of the wind turbine (at a typical gross price of £0.75 per kWh per year) represents a step improvement compared to competing products. The business model (all manufacturing outsourced and making supply chain management a core competence) guarantees both the scalability of the business and the incorporation of the superior component quality of OEM’s.

The 11 kW Gaia-Wind turbine was developed 10 years ago, in-keeping with the ‘Danish design’ - well known as the design basis for large wind turbines. Since then, some 150 Gaia-Wind turbines have been erected, most of them in Denmark.

Over the years, the performance of these turbines has been logged in a public database, showing a consistently high production output.

The high output is driven by the large rotor diameter of 13 metres, which makes it some 50% larger than usual for this class of machine. It is eight years since the Gaia-Wind turbine received Danish HB-Standard’s approval, making it the only small wind turbine to do so. In addition, the low rotational speed of the wing conforms to Denmark’s strict planning regulations with regard to noise production.

Mita-Teknik A/S, the leading supplier of controls for large wind turbines, has owned Gaia-Wind A/S for the past 6 years and during this period has stamped its professionalism on the organisation.

As expected with Mita-Teknik’s background, it has brought the control of the Wind turbine to the highest standards, as found in large wind turbines. This allows Gaia-Wind turbines to be monitored over the internet through the use of its advanced safety system.

The leading investor and Managing Director of the new Gaia-Wind is Johnnie Andringa. With a background in large wind turbine design, Mr Andringa founded Mecal BV in his native Netherlands and spent 12 years as Managing Director of the company.

More recently, he gained additional experience in the management of a small wind turbine company, operating in the fast-growing United Kingdom market.

Holger Anderson, Managing Director of Mita-Teknik A/S, comments: “We are proud of the design of the Gaia-Wind turbine and are very pleased that this new ownership will allow the company to move forward in the way the customers deserve and the market requires”.

“Furthermore, we are pleased to announce that although we will lose ownership, we will remain as a partner in the future development of the controllers for the Gaia-Wind turbines.”

Johnnie Andringa added: “I am very excited to be part of this new and promising venture. In the short-term we will work hard on servicing our existing customers and expanding our business in Denmark through Gaia-Wind A/S in Århus. At the same time, we will start selling Gaia-Wind turbines to customers in the United Kingdom through Gaia-Wind Ltd in Glasgow.”

“Over the next few years we intend to make the company the leading supplier of competitively priced high performance small wind-turbines.”

More information on Gaia-Wind can be found at www.gaia-wind.com and e-mail enquiries can be sent to mail@gaia-wind.com.

Although several other videos have appeared on the YouTube website, this is the first time one of the earlier Gaia-Wind turbines has been shown.
The turbine is clearly running smoothly and the customer sounds very content.

If you feature your own Gaia-Wind turbine (or you know of somebody who does) in text, picture or video on a public website, please send us the link at mail@gaia-wind.com. We will be happy to give it some attention and create a link to it from our website!