Visualizing Energy

Workers put the finishing touches on a concentrated solar power pilot plant in Bad Aibling in southern Germany.

Source: Maximilan Mutzhas, Protarget AG / ESTELA

Experienced service technicians and intelligent maintenance strategies help maintain reliable wind turbine output throughout the entire estimated lifespan of up to 25 years. In the Gunfleet Sands III offshore wind farm in southeastern England, Siemens installed two 6 MW offshore wind test turbines in 2013.

Source: Myrzik & Jarisch, Siemens AG

Aquamarine Power’s first Oyster wave energy converter was made in Nigg, Scotland, and installed at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, Scotland, in 2009.

Source: Aquamarine Power

This ocean power system is about to be installed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Santander, Spain. IBERDROLA, Spain’s leading energy group, has a total installed capacity of 45,000 MW and supplies 211,000 GWh per year to some 100 million people. This has meant investments of almost $110 billion from 2001 to 2013.

Source: IBERDROLA

Cables connect offshore wind farms to onshore electricity grids and are increasingly used for subsea and underground energy transmission. These high-voltage direct current cables are being prepared for deployment at the Meerwind loadout warehouse in Hartlepool, U.K.

Source: Steve Morgan

This pull-in high voltage export cable from the C-Power wind farm in Bredene, Belgium, connects the offshore turbines in the North Sea with onshore electricity networks.

Source: Tom D’Haenens, C-Power N.V.

A crane lifts a rotor to the nacelle on the top of a wind turbine pylon. The nacelle is about 15 meters long and 6.5 meters in diameter. More than 11,000 MW of wind power capacity was installed in the EU during 2013 — worth between $17 billion and $25 billion, according to the European Wind Energy Association.

Source: Siemens AG

At the aqua park of the Grand SPA Lietuva — a wellness complex in Druskininkai, Lithuania — 10 heat pump units warm the swimming pool and domestic hot water with a total capacity of 310 kW.

Source: Alpha-InnoTec AG

The company ANDRITZ’s “Large Hydro” division supplies equipment and services for large hydropower plants, like this machine — a “Francis turbine runner.” The Austrian company claims that only about 30 percent of global hydropower resources have been developed so far.

Source: Klaus Faaber / ANDRITZ Hydro

Hydropower is generated by releasing water from the valves of dams that cause rivers to pool up into reservoirs. The environmental impact of dams can be significant, which is why hydropower is considered renewable (from water) but not always sustainable (causing ecological alterations). This is a scenic view of the Limmernboden reservoir in Switzerland.

Source: ANDRITZ Hydro

The European Investment Bank partly financed the expansion of the Hellisheidi geothermal plant Iceland. In Europe, geothermal energy is used primarily in Italy and Iceland. According to ECOHZ, those countries have a combined excess of 1,400 MW of installed production capacity.

Source: Gunnar Svanberg Skúlason / EIB

The world’s first BioDME advanced biofuels process plant units are lifted into place in May 2010 in Sweden. Biofuels comprise a controversial but officially renewable source of energy.

Source: Markus Tiburzi / Chemrec