wind

In 2025, China installed more wind electricity capacity than the US has deployed in its history. And it’s just the beginning

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The world faces a textbook climate contradiction: the planet desperately needs cheap, clean energy, but when someone manages to produce it on a massive scale, Western powers put up barricades. We are witnessing a pattern identical to the one that has already shaken the electric car industry. China leads the most competitive green technology, the West fears it and slows it down with tariffs, and, ultimately, the climate ends up paying the bill for this blockade. The figures speak for themselves. According to the latest data published by Wood Mackenzieglobal order intake for wind turbines reached 215 gigawatts (GW) in 2025. This is the second highest figure in recorded history. And the big winners of this milestone were not going to be anyone else. Yes, we are talking about China. While total global volume saw a slight decline of 8% in 2025 – driven by a strategic pause in the Chinese domestic market – the international expansion of Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) has been relentless. The global consulting firm details that orders from these companies outside their borders skyrocketed by 66% year-on-year, tripling the volumes of 2023. The dominance is almost absolute: eight of last year’s top ten global manufacturers are Chinese, with Goldwind, Envision and Windey crowning the list. But this industrial power cannot be understood without the colossal infrastructure that supports it. China has carried out an engineering feat unprecedented: in 2025 alone, the Asian giant added 542.7 GW of capacity to its electricity grid. In less than half a decade, Beijing has built more energy infrastructure than the United States has deployed in its entire history. From imitation to innovation. The narrative that China only competes by price gouging has expired. The country has made a qualitative leap towards cutting-edge innovation. In these last months we have collected in Xataka the milestones of the Asian country in terms of the construction of large wind turbines in the middle of the sea. This certifies the end of the Western monopoly in emerging markets. While European manufacturers such as Vestas or Nordex maintain leadership in their natural territory, they are losing ground globally to Asian offers with high technical specifications and low costs. For Beijing it is not just about ecology; It is a national security strategy to guarantee the supply of intensive industries, such as Artificial Intelligence, and free ourselves from dependence on imported fossil fuels. This is how they conquer the Global South. Faced with a domestic market that is beginning to mature, the Asian giants have set their eyes on the Middle East, India and Latin America. Finlay Clark, principal analyst of Wood Mackenzie, gives the key to this expansion: Chinese manufacturers are making waves thanks to the rapid deployment of giant platforms of more than 10 MW. These megaturbines allow developers to minimize costs on gigawatt-scale projects. The result is devastating: in 2025, Chinese companies will capture the 95% of regional capacity in the Middle East and Africa. The symbol of this surprise was planted in Saudi Arabia, where the Goldwind company achieved a historic order of 3.1 GW to supply two sites. Furthermore, in its ambition to dominate deep waters—where wind potential is multiplying—China is already manufacturing fully domestic all the key components of its floating platforms. An imminent train wreck. Geopolitics has fully entered the spreadsheet of energy promoters. Wood Mackenzie warns that the policy It is making acquisitions drastically more expensive and complicated. Barriers such as the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the expansion of US tariffs costs are skyrocketing import of steel and heavy components. The market is facing critical tension. On the one hand, regulatory pressure pushes costs up; On the other hand, the profitability of the projects requires increasingly cheaper turbines. Despite this panorama, there are reasons for optimism in the Old Continent: although the intake of offshore wind orders fell by 17% in 2025 due to the restructuring of European tenders, analysts They predict a strong rebound by 2026, boosted by new grant schemes such as the UK’s round 7 auctions. The Western Counterattack. However, China’s apparent invulnerability has cracks. As we detail in Xataka, Beijing suffers from a silent but critical dependence on Western technology. The Chinese wind industry has the muscle to assemble like a beast, but it lacks the “brain”: it needs to import 100% of the logic modules that control the turbines in real time and 70% of the transistor modules for the electrical grid. However, the real obstacle for the West, experts warn, is no longer just capital, but “human bottleneck”: Decades of offshoring have emptied the United States and Europe of engineers and specialized industrial labor. Condemned to understand each other. The energy transition has ceased to be an environmental mission and has become a total geopolitical battlefield. China dominates scale, speed and execution, while the West still holds the keys to critical technological innovation and capital markets. The great irony is that this trade war of tariffs and blockades risks slowing down decarbonization at the most critical time for the planet. At the end of the day, the interdependence between both blocks is their greatest weakness, but also the only guarantee that, sooner or later, they are condemned to understand each other. Image | Land Rover Our Planet (CC BY-ND 2.0) Xataka | China dominates the world of renewable energy, but it has an Achilles heel: it depends on the West more than it admits

A municipality in Cáceres has waited more than 30 years for its bridge with Portugal. After moving wind and tide, it is already on its way

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Cedillo, the westernmost town in Extremadura, has been separated from its Portuguese neighbors for more than thirty years by a river that, paradoxically, has always united them. The solution is easy: build a bridge. The issue is that its approval and construction has been in the works for years. Now it seems that things are finally moving forward. The problem. Cedillo (Cáceres) and Montalvão-Nisa (Portugal) are separated by just 13 kilometers in a straight line. But by car, any trip between both towns requires a detour of between 100 and 120 kilometers. The reason: the dam that Iberdrola manages at the confluence of the Tagus and Sever rivers. Until 1995, residents on both sides could cross it freely. That year, with the entry into force of Schengen AgreementIberdrola closed access citing security reasons. Since then, it has only opened on weekends, with a security guard and at controlled hours. “We are brother peoples absurdly separated,” counted in 2021 to El País the mayor of Cedillo, Antonio González Riscado, who has been in office since 1987. How did it get here? The bridge project has been circulating through offices and negotiation tables for decades without finally coming to fruition. In 2011, the Provincial Council of Cáceres, then in the hands of the PP, renounced some European funds destined for the work, according to account The Country. When the PSOE recovered the institution in 2015 and requested them again, Europe had already denied them. The project became a political bargaining chip for years. The turning point came in March 2023, when the Ministries of Transport of Spain and of Territorial Cohesion of Portugal signed a joint declaration committing to promote the initiative. Just over a year later, in October 2024, both governments signed in Faro an international agreement which established the definitive legal framework to build the bridge. According to this agreement, Portugal assumes the design, construction and financing of the main structure, while Spain facilitates the permits and procedures in its territory. The works have already started. In October last year, the machines began to move on the Portuguese side with the first land preparation work. The award went to the company Alexandre Barbosa, according to counted The Extremadura Newspaper. The bridge will be about 160 meters long and 11.5 meters wide, with two twin concrete arches that avoid placing pillars in the riverbed. In fact, as the media reports, this last technical solution was key for the bridge to obtain the favorable Environmental Impact Declaration. The total cost exceeds 19 million euros. Spain does its part. In November of last year, the Ministry of Transport and the Government of Extremadura they signed an agreement to coordinate the work on the Spanish side. The Board assumes the bidding, construction and financing of the accesses to the bridge in Extremadura territory, with an estimated budget of just over 5.1 million euros distributed between 2025 and 2028. Once the work is completed, the infrastructure will become the property of the Board of Extremadura, which will also be responsible for its maintenance. What this means for the area. The bridge is going to solve a problem that has been on the lips of the surrounding towns for decades day after day. Just like counted El País, there are residents of Cedillo who have been hearing about the bridge all their lives and whose lives have been conditioned by that barrier. According to collect El Periódico, the bridge will also shorten the distance between Cáceres and Lisbon by about 70 kilometers and half an hour. “It is a bridge that we need no matter what,” the mayor of Cedillo told the media. What remains pending. On the Spanish side, the access to the bridge was still pending bidding when Portugal already had the machines running. Both countries will coordinate the work through a Joint Technical Commission. The agreement between the Ministry and the Board has a maximum validity of four years, extendable. If the deadlines are met, Cedillo could have his bridge before the end of the decade. Cover image | The Extremadura Newspaper and Google Maps In Xataka | Spain built its roads thinking about extreme heat: the rains are showing how vulnerable they are

Yes, the DGT has limited the maximum speed to 80 km/h and has prohibited overtaking. And there’s a good reason for that: wind.

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In Spain the weather is bad. I don’t know if you had noticed but we have had rain, snow and very strong winds for a month and a half. Meteorological events that are impacting all types of sectors. Also that of mobility, where closed roads, incidents on the road and restrictions are being the general trend. If you go to your favorite social network and read that the DGT has limited the speed to 80 km/h, don’t panic. It’s normal. At 80 km/h maximum. And overtaking prohibited by order of the DGT. It is a headline that has been repeated in the last two days and has spread across social networks. Headlines that hid an essential word to understand the information: temporal. Meteorological storm, because the restrictions are due to the clash of storms that we have chained for days and weeks in the Iberian Peninsula. And temporary because the restrictions are not definitive, they are simply used to maintain safety on the road. The restrictions. One of the provinces that found the most restrictions of this type during the past weekend was Castellón. The region has had to live with an orange alert for wind and the DGT decided that the maximum speed at which one could drive on Saturday was 80 km/h on three roads in the province, where overtaking was also prohibited. The trucks They were also not allowed to circulate on the AP-7. Yesterday, Sunday, normality was recovered. These restrictions have obviously been temporary. And, effectively, the DGT can apply temporary restrictions on speed or overtaking for meteorological reasons, just as can close a road to traffic due to snow or it can be restricted to those who They drive with chains or winter tires. For security. The wind is a danger on the road and overtaking is critical when there are very high wind gusts. In particular, some are very dangerous: Screen effect: when you drive through a tunnel or infrastructure that cuts off the side wind and it disappears. At that moment, a gust of wind can move the car to one side of the road and If we are caught off guard the movement will be sharper. Overtaking: something very similar happens when we overtake a large truck or van. In this case, if we are fighting a crosswind, passing a vehicle will automatically cut off the force we receive. You have to be careful because normally we have been moving the steering wheel to the right slightly to counteract the force of the wind. By overtaking the truck, that resistance disappears and we can go against the vehicle on our right, adding that the truck or van fights not to go to the left, which can end in contact. Furthermore, when overtaking, we will again feel the screen effect described above, so we must be careful and remain attentive. Trailers: Both situations are especially dangerous if we drive a vehicle with a trailer since, in that case, the car does not receive the same forces as its rear part and, in an extreme case, movement angles that are difficult to manage can arise. What does the DGT recommend? The first thing we must do is adapt our speed to the traffic circumstances. The DGT has the power to reduce the speed of the road to 80 km/h and prohibit overtaking, but the logical and essential thing is to apply common sense and take your foot off the accelerator. Taking this into account, we must remain very attentive to resolve any gusts of wind. If this happens, you have to act gently, calmly. The DGT also recommends circulate in high gears (one lower than usual) to have a greater response from the engine if we need to get out of trouble. And remember that the more voluminous and taller a vehicle is, the more risk it has of overturning, the more complex it will be to control it and the more care we must take when overtaking it. Photo | Theo Lonic and DGT In Xataka | Everything I learned the day I was surprised by the snow: tips for driving on ice when the situation gets complicated

Cabo de Gata explodes against an electrical network from the 80s that cannot withstand the wind

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In a place known for its calm, the sound of metal hitting metal became a cry for help this Sunday. Carmen F. Peña, president of the Neighborhood Association of San José and El Pozo de los Frailes, describes the reality of the area: “The blackouts are silent, everything stops and is silent.” However, to break this paralysis, the neighbors decided it was time to make noise. In the words of Peña collected in a local opinion columnthe protest was “the metaphor of a scream”, a sound action to combat the darkness that paralyzes their lives. The scene experienced this weekend reminded, according to the graphic description of the local pressto a “herd of fifty heads of cattle” crossing the population centers; an “infernal melody of protest” composed of pans, pots and saucepans that thundered in unison to send a clear message: satiety is absolute. Although the atmosphere was vindictive and to a certain extent festive, as the chronicles tellthe background was marked by a “deep malaise.” Living disconnected in the 21st century. The problem transcends the inconvenience of not being able to turn on a light bulb; It is a matter of economic survival and security. Juan, spokesperson for the El Playazo de Rodalquilar Neighborhood Association, explained to the press the anguish of isolation: “The last outage was on Thursday and we were without electricity for 24 hours. There is no electricity supply, there is no telephone, we are totally cut off.” This neighbor tells how he tried to call 112 and 062 without success due to lack of signal, forcing them to travel by car to obtain information. The economic impact is direct and devastating. According to the Almeria pressRestaurant 340 had to throw away all its fish after a whole day without power, just after opening for the season. Dataphones stop working and appliances “burn out” due to the constant surges and drops in voltage. The feeling of abandonment is such that the Neighborhood Coordinator describes the situation as “third world” and typical of “the Middle Ages, with candles and oil lamps.” They warn of the real risk to healthIf a dependent person suffers an emergency during a blackout, the lack of telephone coverage prevents them from calling for help. The excuse of the weather versus the reality of the cables. While it is true that the recent storm “Kristin” hit the province With winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour, aggravating the situation and causing poles to fall, residents and the City Council insist that the weather is only the excuse, not the root cause. According to those affectedthere is no need for a big storm; cuts occur with simple wind or rain. This is a structural problem: the electrical infrastructure in the area is “30 or 40 years” old. In addition to the major blackouts, the towns have been enduring “dozens of daily microcuts” for more than a month and the lack of a private television signal for almost two months. The mayor of Níjar, José Francisco Garrido, has pointed out that the problems in centers like Agua Amarga are a “constant in both winter and summer”, which suggests that the network is unable to support seasonal demand. The “great national traffic jam.” What is happening in Níjar is the local symptom of a national disease. Spain faces to a “great electrical traffic jam”: the country has accelerated the installation of wind and solar parks, but the system has hit an invisible wall, the lack of cables to transport that energy. The Spanish electricity grid has administratively “collapsed” and, for practical purposes, is closed to new projects in many areas. This bottleneck explains why solutions take so long. There is a chronic lack of investment in the basic infrastructure: while Europe invests on average 70 cents in networks for every euro of renewable generation, Spain remains at just 30 cents. This has unleashed an open war where the large electricity companies accuse Red Eléctrica of having invested below what was planned, causing the current precariousness. The situation is so critical that the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has had to delay three months the publication of capacity maps due to the panic that 90% of the network nodes will appear with zero capacity. That is to say, although improvements are demanded in Níjar, the national system is experiencing a bureaucratic and physical “thrombosis” that makes any rapid progress difficult. Patience has run out. The Neighborhood Coordinator has started a collection of signatures on the Change.org platform demanding an immediate action plan and supply guarantees. They warn that, if there is no progress, they do not rule out “intensifying the protests with the call for a unitary demonstration.” At the institutional level, the Níjar City Council has sent a formal letter to the distribution company, E-Distribución Redes Digitales SLU (a subsidiary of Endesa), demanding explanations. Sources from the electricity company have indicated to news agencies that a meeting is scheduled this week to detail the reform programs, ensuring that “many of which have begun to be processed.” However, skepticism reigns among the neighbors, given that it has already remained a similar meeting in July 2025 without tangible results. A problem that goes beyond Níjar. The situation in Cabo de Gata is not an isolated case, but appears to be part of a broader pattern of energy poverty and lack of investment in infrastructure in southern Spain. According to journalistic investigationsneighborhoods of Seville and Granada, as well as areas of Almería capital such as La Chanca or Pescadería, suffer daily power outages, especially in summer. In these cases, as in Níjar, residents denounce that “Endesa does not have any maintenance” and that the facilities are obsolete, leaving thousands of people unprotected in the face of extreme temperatures. The difference in Cabo de Gata is that the blow directly affects the waterline of a key tourism industry. As the mayor of Níjar emphasizes“we cannot normalize continuous cuts in a municipality that has a strong dependence on … Read more

A wind farm in Tudela is going to lose most of its wind turbines. And despite this it will produce much more energy

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The useful life of wind turbines is between 20 and 25 depending on the location and can reach up to 30 with some investments. The old blades are then removed and They are recycled in the most diverse ways and the wind turbines (some) are replaced by others. Or almost not, because the iconic Montes de Cierzo wind farm in Tudela is practically going to stay bald. Paradoxically, it will produce almost double. The skyline of Montes de Cierzo is going to change a lot. One of the autonomous communities that previously and most intensively opted for wind energy was Navarra, reaching become the Silicon Valley of wind turbines. Its deployment began in 1994 in the Sierra del Perdón, covering its territory from north to south that decade. What does that mean? Taking into account its useful life, in recent years there has been a renewal of its machinery. Latest, that of the Montes de Cierzo in Tudela. On the Statkraft roadmap is removing these veteran wind turbines from the Navarre park this year, removing 41 wind turbines to replace them with four latest generation models. Before, in the first phase of this renovation project, had already retired 44 machines to replace them with 10. In short, the park is going from 85 wind turbines to 14, with what that means in terms of visual impact. For this purpose, the company will allocate 40 million euros and has already been selected to receive aid of up to 24% from the IDAE. Less mills, more energy. Of course, the wind turbines will have a nominal power of around 6.5 MW (standardized by common companies such as Siemens Gamesa either Nordex). Thus, when the park is operational, there will be 84% fewer wind turbines disturbing the horizon of the Ebro Valley, but that will not mean that Monte del Cierzo takes a step back in energy supply, quite the contrary. We are facing a full-fledged repowering: the installed power will go from 60 MW to 90 MW, growing by 50%. Annually, the production estimated by the Norwegian company will go from 145 GWh/year to around 300 GWh/year, almost double. This change of wind turbines will be accompanied by storage systems. Repowering with hybridization. Having fewer mills and producing more is the standard for updates, but this project hides a technical singularity: the incorporation of a lithium ion battery system with 14.26 MW of power and 28.51 MWh of capacity. In fact, it is one of five projects by a Norwegian company to combine sun or wind and storage. only in the Spanish state. With a loading and unloading capacity of two hours, the park will be able to carry out peak shaving and energy shiftingor what is the same, smooth out production peaks and be able to move energy at times where it is needed or the price is higher. In addition to better peak management and improving efficiency, the company explains that this system will allow you to reinforce the security of supply. Why is it important. Because although there are fewer machines, power increases by 50% and production doubles. Furthermore, with this system the wind farm will function as if it were a bank: if there is excess energy, it will be stored for when the wind stops or there is high demand. In this way, it minimizes one of the endemic evils of renewable energy such as wind or solar, which depend on external and unrelated factors such as the climate. On the other hand, cleaning the horizon by almost decimating the number of wind turbines is also important from an environmental point of view. Finally, Statkraft has explained that will prioritize companies in the area in the construction of the project, which will directly generate employment in 2026. In Xataka | The solar miracle that went wrong: Spain produces more electricity than it can manage In Xataka | We have a problem with heat in buildings. A Navarrese investigation knows how to cool them without air conditioning Cover | Statkraft

It has been so windy in Spain that the wind turbines have been disconnected

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Spain woke up this Wednesday, January 28, 2026, under the effects of a storm of cold, snow and wind that has gone beyond the collapses on the roads. The storm Kristin has not only covered in white the center of the Peninsulacausing major traffic jams and a rise in teleworking in Madrid, but has also forced the system operator, Red Eléctrica de España (REE), to execute emergency measures to prevent the electrical balance from being compromised. Two hours of tension. Between 08:00 and 10:00 in the morning, REE was forced to activate the call Active Demand Response Service (SRAD). The reason was a specific but severe mismatch between generation and available demand. According to operator datathe system suffered a deficit of just over 2 gigawatts (GW). The forecast pointed to an operating power of 38,526 MW, but reality remained at a peak of 36,517 MW at 08:50 hours. This imbalance, which is technically known as a problem in the so-called “morning ramps“was due to a paradoxical phenomenon: excess wind. Although wind power is a key piece of the electricity mix, when gusts exceed certain safety thresholds, the wind turbines must be disconnected to avoid structural damage. The “wind blackout.” This phenomenon made the actual production would plummet to 7,500 MW, compared to the 12,500 MW initially planned. Added to this factor was a “secondary effect” from Portugal, where the storm also caused havoc, forcing imports to be reduced of electricity to Spain from 2,300 MW to just 800 MW. As wind energy expert Sergio Fernández Munguía explains on their social networksthis disconnection is not an anomaly, but rather an automatic protection mechanism. In situations of extremely strong winds, higher than the operating limits of the wind turbines – around 25 meters per second, about 90 kilometers per hour – the turbines are stopped preventively to guarantee their integrity. A physical limit that makes extreme wind an operational risk factor for renewable generation. The “red button” for the industry. The SRAD is the successor to the old “interruptibility”. This is a mechanism included in Operation Procedure (OP) 7.5 which allows REE order large industrial consumers to temporarily reduce or stop their consumption to relieve the network and guarantee reserve levels. Around thirty companies from different sectors and sizes participate in the service, with a minimum demand of 1 MW. These companies receive a reward both for being available and for each effective activation. In the last auction, held on November 28, 2025, 1,725 ​​MW were awarded for the first half of 2026, with a total cost of 255 million euros that ends up having an impact on consumers’ electricity bills. This Wednesday’s execution took place in two blocks. The first, 865 MW, at a price of 116.47 euros per MWh; and a second block of 860 MW at 120.90 euros per MWh. In total, 1,725 ​​MW of industrial power was paralyzed, the maximum available in this period. The role of gas and criticism of the system. Given the fall of wind power and practically no solar production at those early hours, the system depended on gas backup. The combined cycles went from generating about 3,000 MW at 6:00 in the morning to more than 8,000 MW at 9:00. However, this effort was not enough to fully offset the loss of renewable generation. According to industry sources consulted by The Energy Newspaperaround twenty combined cycle plants – around 8,000 additional MW – were not coupled or in immediate operational reserve, which prevented their rapid entry into the system and precipitated the order to stop industrial consumption. What can we expect in the coming months? Despite the spectacular nature of the measure, the official message is one of calm. Electrical Network has underlined in its statements that “the continuity of supply has not been compromised at any time” and that the activation of the SRAD has the sole objective of guaranteeing the system’s safety reserve levels. However, the scenario for 2026 poses relevant challenges. The operator estimates that during this first half of the year around twenty SRAD activation orders could be issued if similar stress situations are repeated. This mechanism is not the last link in the security chain, but it is a critical defense against abrupt power variations in a system with a high penetration of variable renewable energies. The challenge of intermittency. What happened this Wednesday once again puts on the table the challenges of operating an electrical system that is increasingly dependent on the weather. The rapid activation of the SRAD and the support of gas prevented greater evils, but the episode reinforces the need to have firm reserves – such as hydraulics and combined cycles – and industrial flexibility mechanisms capable of shielding the network against unforeseen meteorological events in the future. Image | Unsplash Xataka | Inspecting an offshore wind turbine no longer requires stopping it: the drone that uses AI to ‘x-ray’ moving blades

Wind turbines planted in the middle of the ocean were a maintenance challenge. Until the scanner drone appeared

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Until very recently, performing a “health check” on an offshore wind turbine was a complex, slow and, above all, expensive logistical process. The industry standard dictated that to inspect the blades, the turbines had to come to a complete stop while specialized technicians traveled by boat to perform manual inspections. This practice represents a direct interruption in the generation of clean energy and loss of income for operators. However, this scenario has changed thanks to Danish startup Quali Drone, which has successfully completed the first contactless drone inspection of a fully operational offshore wind turbine. The landmark in the Baltic Sea. The setting for this advance has been the Rødsand 2 offshore wind farm, operated by RWE since 2010 off the coast of Denmark. There, the AQUADA-GO project team showed that it is possible for a large drone to fly autonomously at a short distance from the blades while they rotate at high speed. As detailed by RWEthe solution has gone from a laboratory experiment to an operational concept successfully demonstrated in real offshore conditions. “We have shown that it is possible to inspect offshore wind turbines with a drone equipped with a visual camera while the turbine is operational,” says Jesper Smit, CEO of Quali Drone. More in depth. To operate in the hostile conditions of the sea, no conventional equipment has been used. The drone is an advanced hardware platform designed for high-precision missions. State-of-the-art sensors: The drone is equipped with high-resolution cameras, infrared thermography and artificial vision systems. Autonomy and precision: It uses mission planning software and an online data infrastructure that allows the drone to track the movement of the blades autonomously. Digital Twins: The technology employs “Digital Twins” to document errors and ensure reports meet industry standards. Subsurface Inspection: Unlike traditional optical methods, this system can scan the internal layers to find damage that is not visible from the outside. Beyond the drone: what the human eye cannot see. The drone is not limited to taking photographs; It is an advanced diagnostic platform. As Xiao Chen explainsassociate professor at DTU (Technical University of Denmark), have developed artificial intelligence models that use algorithms deep learning to identify anomalies. This “digital brain” is capable of detecting everything from surface erosion to internal structural fractures through the use of thermography. Additionally, the AI ​​model learns with every flight: each inspection feeds the system with new data, making it smarter and more accurate each time it is deployed at a wind farm. A paradigm shift. This breakthrough is not just a technical feat; It has profound economic and environmental implications. According to Energy Cluster Denmarkthe impact of the AQUADA-GO project is summarized in compelling figures: Cost reduction: Savings in inspections of at least 50% are estimated in the future. Energy efficiency: By not stopping the turbines, green electricity production is maximized and the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is reduced by 2% to 3%. Safety and Climate: The risk for workers is reduced by avoiding the deployment of ships and technicians at height, also cutting CO₂ emissions associated with maintenance by between 30% and 50%. Economic driver: This technology is expected to generate between 33 and 55 new full-time jobs and increase the revenue of the companies involved by up to 230 million Danish crowns after commercialization. Towards a smart wind industry. What started as scientific research in Denmark is today a “market-ready commercial solution”, in the words of Jesper Smit. The ability to monitor blade health continuously and without interruption could be the missing piece to make offshore wind energy even more competitive and safer. Image | RWE Xataka | Northern Europe has launched itself into offshore wind. The problem is that there are countries that ‘thieve’ wind

The countries of northern Europe are full of offshore wind. So they’ve started to steal the wind from each other

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The world has thrown itself into the arms of renewables to meet the goals of decarbonization. Each country is developing its strategy And, if in some the photovoltaic takes the lead, in others it is the wind that splits the cod. The problem is the commitments: fill the plate field implies that crops receive less sunlight. And fill the world with wind turbines – apart from visual impact, for fishing and for the birds-, is causing something as curious as it is problematic. Countries that are stealing the wind from their neighbors. Wake effect. When the wind hits the wind turbine bladesthese rotate, generating kinetic energy and electricity. The wind continues its path, but after passing through a wind turbine, it does so with less force. Multiply that by fields full of these mills and we have what is known as the ‘wake effect‘ or ‘wake effect’. This air that has already passed through a wind turbine station does so with a lower speed and greater turbulence. And if this is important, it is because the wind takes time to recover: the wakes can extend more than 100 kilometers after crossing a field of windmills. wind thieves. These facilities are usually far from each other to better take advantage of the currents, but if under certain circumstances they extend tens of kilometers, and up to the aforementioned hundred, imagine the consequences for the wind turbines that remain behind that installation that receives the first “hit” of wind. It is not an assumption: there is measurements by SAR satellite that confirm that, if a wind farm is built upwind of another, the wind speed it receives is 9% lower, causing it to have a reduction between 10% and 20% compared to that first installation. This is what is known as “wind theft,” a colloquial term for something that is easy to understand, but not so easy to fix. This GIF of The Telegraph illustrates it perfectly: Princess Elisabeth. As we read in BBCthe lawyer Eirik Finseras, specialized in offshore wind energy, “is a somewhat misleading term because you cannot steal something that you cannot own. Nobody owns the wind” – del Sol, yes, a Galician -. But of course, the fact that no one owns the wind does not exempt that park on the windward side from suffering the effects of the park built on the leeward side. In the North Sea, this is already becoming a problembecause the denser and larger the wind farm, the more intense the wake effect will be. Belgium is building Princess Elisabeth, a huge park that will add a whopping 3.5 GW of offshore wind capacity to the country’s accounts. It is a really huge offshore facilitybut although it will allow the addition of those 3.5 GW, it will also affect the existing Belgian parks due to a wake that will extend 55 kilometers beyond the installation. According to the accounts of the University of Leuven, the oldest Belgian facilities located to the east will experience: An 8.5% reduction in annual electricity production. Losses of up to 15% on very windy days. Impact. That in Belgian parks, but of course, it is also an international problem because the wind does not understand borders. By 2030, it is estimated that the current capacity of offshore wind energy in the North Sea will triple. This implies that thousands of turbines will be erected in a very short time with Belgium, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands willing to obtain, in total, 65 GW of offshore wind energy. The problem is knowing what will happen to these trails, since it is estimated that the 1,400 MW installation in the Dutch area of Borssele will cause a reduction of 2.7% on average in some Belgian wind farms. It is a very clear case of how the Netherlands is “stealing” the wind from Belgium. It is logical to understand the interest in offshore wind Bigger blades. In a report by BBCPablo Ouro, a civil engineering researcher at the University of Manchester, points out that they have been seeing wake effects for years, but that “the problem is that, to achieve emissions neutrality, we will need to triple offshore wind capacity and some of these new turbines will operate very close to those already in operation. There will be more and more crowds and the wake effects will have a greater impact.” And it is no longer a question of the number of mills, but of their dimensions. In the North Sea we are seeing efforts to achieve both greater heights for the mills themselves (to take advantage of other currents that are not being taken advantage of right now, such as larger blades that receive even more force from the wind. They are imposing mega-constructions that will also affect this wake effect, aggravating the problem. Solutions? Different countries are doing calculations. For example, in the United States, esteem that the planned offshore wind farms will produce a devastating wake effect: losses in the annual electricity production of other farms by up to 48.5 TWh per year. And there are already accusations: the Netherlands says that Belgium takes advantage of its wind, Germany says that the Netherlands is harming them… and the United Kingdom’s offshore parks stealing wind each other. The solution? Nothing simple, especially when many of these parks have either already been built or are under construction, but even so, research is being carried out to optimize the facilities. For example, adjusting turbine angles and optimizing the space between them, manufacturing higher power turbines to produce more with less or creating buffer zones between parks And, perhaps, the most difficult thing: that countries cooperate to carry out joint studies to place their facilities in the most efficient way for everyone. Images | ESMAP, G B_NZ In Xataka | In the great battle for wind turbines, Spain goes against Europe: it wants them further away than ever

a data center that will run on wind energy

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In the silent race that the world is waging to dominate digital infrastructure, every movement matters. And Brazil, far from being a spectatoronce again occupies a strategic place. The arrival of the TikTok project in the Brazilian northeast confirms a shift in the world technology map: critical infrastructures are no longer concentrated only in the United States, Europe or Asia, but are beginning to expand towards regions that offer abundant renewable energy and direct international connection. The advertisement. TikTok have decided to install a mega data center in the Pecém Industrial and Port Complex, in the state of Ceará. The company detailed in its press release that it will allocate more than 200,000 million reais —about 32,000 million euros—, the largest investment it has made in Latin America. Of that amount, 108 billion will be allocated exclusively to high-tech equipment until 2035; the rest will finance infrastructure, energy systems and future expansions. Operations are planned for 2027, and local authorities estimate the creation of more than 4,000 jobs. The infrastructure that the AI ​​era demands. Data centers have become the engine that makes AI, cloud and streaming possible. As Wired remembersthe push of artificial intelligence has skyrocketed the demand for computing and has opened a global competition to build larger and more efficient infrastructures. Brazilian interest in attracting data centers is supported by both its renewable energy matrix – cheap and abundant – and connectivity what Fortaleza offersentry point for most the submarine cables that link the country with the United States, Europe and Africa. A data center powered only by wind. For the initial phase, TikTok will work with Omnia, a local data center operator, and with Casa dos Ventos, one of the largest renewable energy developers in the country. The project is presented as an example of digital infrastructure powered entirely by clean energy. TikTok and its partners will build exclusive wind farms to supply the center, which will allow them not to use energy from the public grid. Depending on the platformthis will avoid any pressure on local supply. Technically, the company states that it will use a closed water reuse circuit combined with air cooling to reduce water consumption. However, as the Government of Ceará has pointed outrefrigeration will be 100% air-based, and the use of water will be limited to human activities and maintenance. Furthermore, the installation will incorporate PG25 technologywhich allows servers to operate at higher temperatures with less need for cooling, substantially reducing energy expenditure. The voices that question the project. Not everything is celebrations. The main resistance comes from the Anacé indigenous people, who denounce, as reported by El Paísthat part of the complex would occupy territories that they consider ancestral. Their organizations affirm that no prior consultation was carried out and express concern about the possible socio-environmental impacts: both on the use of water and on the transformation of the territory. TikTok maintains that it complies with Brazilian regulations and emphasizes that its energy and cooling model will minimize any pressure on natural resources. The Government of Ceará add thatThe companies involved must invest 15 million reais per year in the communities around the Pecém complex. On the global board of digital infrastructure. The megaproject is part of a broader strategy. Lula’s Government approved measures to reduce taxes and attract data centers, with the intention of transforming Brazil into a regional digital hub. In parallel, the United States promotes initiatives such as the stargate project to maintain competitiveness in artificial intelligence, while China accelerates the expansion of its technology companies abroad. TikTok, of Chinese origin, thus fits into a delicate diplomatic balance that Brazil tries to maintain. Beyond the economic investment, a data center of this scale raises debates about privacy, digital sovereignty and local data storage, dimensions increasingly present on the Brazilian legislative agenda. The speed of digitization. The TikTok megaproject in Ceará symbolizes the tension of a world that is digitizing at unprecedented speeds: it promises clean energy, employment and modernization, but it also reopens discussions about territory, regulation and environmental memory. Between the technological ambition of a digital power and the concerns of a community that defends its land, Brazil once again places itself at the intermediate point of global forces and local demands. The contrast is inevitable: while institutions celebrate the promise of a future powered by wind and data, indigenous communities in the northeast remember that the technology that connects the world also leaves footprints on the ground they walk on. At this intersection between progress and complaints the true impact of TikTok’s new digital heart in Latin America will be defined. Image | PXHere and Greenwish Xataka | Researchers removed Instagram and TikTok from 300 young people to see if their anxiety decreased. The results speak for themselves

We have a problem with wind blades and another with concrete. Spain has decided to resolve both at the same time

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In the Algete workshops, north of Madrid, the remains of a crushed wind blade await their second life. For years he captured the wind in a park in Cadiz; Today it is part of an experimental concrete slab. Spain is finding an unusual way to unite two environmental challenges: the recycling of thousands of wind blades that accumulate as waste and the urgency of reducing the carbon footprint of concrete, one of the most polluting materials on the planet. From the blades to the ground. Acciona and Holcim have developed successfully a new sustainable concrete made from recycled wind turbine blades. The project, named Blade2Buildis part of a European innovation initiative in the circular economy. The prototype consists of a slab of more than 120 square meters built in the Demoparque of the Acciona Technology Center, in Algete (Madrid). As the company explainsthe composition incorporates materials from wind turbine blades in fiber form as a partial replacement for natural aggregates. In other words, crushed shovels are used to replace some of the gravel or sand normally used in concrete. The mix. The base of the new concrete is an ecological version developed by Holcima type of material designed to minimize its environmental impact. In this case, the formula includes 11% recycled components, including fibers from crushed wind blades. This technology, known as ECOCycle, allows you to reuse materials that would otherwise end up as waste, without compromising the strength or durability of the product. A low CO₂ emission cement is also used, manufactured with less clinker —the substance obtained by heating limestone to more than 1,400 °C and which is mainly responsible for the emissions of traditional cement. According to Holcim This combination reduces the carbon footprint of the final product by almost half. In addition, the glass fibers and resins of the blades act as internal reinforcement, improving the material’s resistance to traction and fractures. The energy that once moved with the wind now settles in the earth. The dilemma of the shovels. In the coming years, thousands of wind blades will stop spinning in Europe. Silent, gigantic, they will remain on dry land after two decades facing the wind. It is calculated which will be about 14,000an avalanche of materials—fiberglass, carbon and resins—that will add up to between 40,000 and 60,000 tons of waste. They are made to last, not to disappear. And that is the great dilemma: their resistance, the same that made them useful, now condemns them. In the United States, the consequences of not planning the end of the cycle have already been seen: in 2020, an aerial photo of a landfill in Wyoming, taken by Bloombergshowed hundreds of half-buried wind blades. The scene went viral and served as a warning to Europe, which is now working on solutions that allow its materials to be recovered instead of burying them. ¿Does it really work? The first trials are promising. According to Holcimthe resulting concrete maintains the necessary structural properties and meets durability standards. The shredded blade fibers not only reinforce the material, but also improve its flexibility and resistance to fracture. It is not the only case. The University of Burgos has been experimenting with its own method for several years, based on the use of TPA (Wind Turbine Blade Grinding), a material obtained by cutting and grinding the blades into tiny fragments. The Sustainable Construction Research group (Sucons) has even paved a 50-meter street on the Milanera campus with this type of concrete. But it is not Acciona’s first project. As part of the #TurbineMade initiative, one of the blades in the Tahivilla park in Cadiz was transformed into a limited series of sports shoes manufactured together with the El Ganso brand. As explained by the companythose recycled soles symbolize their commitment to achieving 100% sustainable materials in their collections. The paradox is unique. The same materials that once helped produce clean energy can now be used to reduce emissions from the most polluting industry. If concrete was the material of the 20th century, perhaps the material of the 21st is the one that manages to build without destroying. And in Spain, at least, they have already begun to do so. Shovel by shovel. Image | FreePik and FreePik Xataka | Spain has become the first European country to break with gas. The only problem is that the invoice says something else.

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