Bigger to come

Looks like global obsession with big is not going away in a hurry. This is so whether you look at mega thermal power plants, or thin film solar plants, or wind turbines.

A year ago the world's largest thin-film power plant was just 10 megawatts. Now one near Cottbus, Germany comes in at 53 megawatts, Renewable Energy World reports: The Lieberose solar park is currently under construction and scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. It will occupy 162 hectares on a former Soviet army site and will consist of some 700,000 thin-film solar modules.

Then there is the 6MW wind turbine in Germany, and the 9MW vertical axis wind turbine that the Scottish reportedly have in the works. Now, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, are up in the air with their gigantic 1.5MW turbine that has just been installed. Check out the picture on the left - yes those are people in the shaft! And even bigger is to follow. Soon, a 2.3 MW Siemens turbine will emerge the largest, generating 30 percent more power than Boulder’s.

Land based turbines are getting larger to meet the demand. But the aerodynamics of these huge machines is still not fully understood.

The question again is: which is better? Big, large plants that generate large amounts of power which is then transmitted across landscapes. Or small units located near point of usage?