"Best Renewable Energy Project": Clipper wind turbines failed after couple months

PennWell announces 2007 Projects of the Year winners

11 December 2007 -- PennWell Corp's Power Engineering magazine announced the 2007 Projects of the Year Award winners at an awards gala held December 10, 2007 at the New Orleans Sheraton Hotel. Each year, the magazine recognizes some of the world's best power projects from four major categories: gas-fired projects, coal-fired projects, nuclear projects and renewables projects. Winners and honorable mention recipients in each category are selected by the Power Engineering editorial committee. ...

The 2007 Best Renewables Project of the Year Award Winner was the Steel Winds Wind Farm, co-owned by BQ energy and UPC Wind. The wind farm, a 20 MW facility consisting of eight Clipper WindPower 2.5 MW liberty series wind turbines, is located on the site of the old Bethlehem Steel Mill, located along the shores of Lake Erie in Lackawanna, N.Y. It is the first commercial deployment of Clipper WindPower's Liberty turbines.

[thanks to Cohocton Wind Watch]

Why are the Lackawanna windmills being taken apart?

(Lackawanna, NY, December 11, 2007) -- ... They all started turning for the first time in June, this Steelwinds Project was the first to use the newest clipper wind turbines touted as the new standard for reliable performance, but by late summer, engineers discovered damage inside one of the gear boxes, and then shut down 5 others, because the timing was off in those gear boxes too.

A Clipper Vice President tells [News 4's George Richert] the plan now is for a crane to arrive next week to take all of the gear boxes down send them back to the factory in Iowa, and then replace them one by one throughout the winter. The towers will still stand but the blades will have to come off of all eight wind mills. It could be March or April before the job is finished.

[thanks to National Wind Watch]

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines

Exploding wind turbine transformer

In response to a Nov. 1 query from a concerned citizen for information concerning reports of an explosion in one of the transformers at the "Maple Ridge" wind energy facility on Tug Hill, N.Y., and a truck working in the middle of the night at the base of each turbine, steven_blow@dps.state.ny.us wrote on Nov. 2:

We've checked out the situation and there appears to be no truth to the report.

But janasca@gw.dec.state.ny.us (Jack Nasca) wrote on Nov. 5:

We spoke to the operators at the Maple Ridge site and have learned:

On July 4, a single pad mounted grounding transformer located at the Rector Road substation exploded and was rendered inoperative. This was one of ten such transformers in the substation. No cause was determined, and the transformer has been sent back to the manufacturer for an analysis to identify the cause. Lightning was not a factor. None of the other nine grounding transformers at the substation had any problems, and there have been no incidents at turbine base transformers.

Unrelated to the above, a program of annual preventative maintenance of transformers at the base of the turbines was conducted over the summer. This included an analysis of the mineral oil used as a coolant. A gas analysis of the cooling oil was conducted, which indicated elevated levels of certain gases in about 30% of the transformers, one of which was hydrogen. A contractor specializing in purging gases from transformer cooling oil was hired to remove the gases identified in the analysis. Because the contractor was very busy (apparently this occurs with some regularity with transformers in any type of transmission facility), they worked 24/7 for a 2 ½ week period to complete the task. So at some point they were working at "midnight." The process involves withdrawal of the oil from the transformer, piping it to a truck with the purging equipment, capture and collection of the gas for disposal off-site, and returning the oil to the transformer. It was stated that there is no atmospheric release of gases from this process.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines

Wind energy proponents burn down opponent's barn

[Removed by request -- could've been hunters, too]

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, human rights, animal rights