High cost of wind energy

Letter to the Editor, The Times (London), Nov. 14, 2005:

Sir, The figure quoted for the payback time of wind turbines (letter,
November 7) is strictly for the manufacture of the turbine itself and takes no account of the huge energy costs involved in making the massive foundations, the access roads, transmission lines, the re-engineering of other generating plant to enable switching in and out of intermittent supply, nor a share of the costs of back-up conventional plant on spinning stand-by. It is these costs that make wind energy not so attractive and make financial pay-back time more like seven years. For a lifetime of some 25 years per structure this is far less attractive and were it not for massive subsidy the current scramble to despoil our upland areas would not be taking place.

PHILIP BROWN
Brampton, Cumbria

Note that the writer limits himself to the financial payback time. It is probable that the wind turbines never pay back the energy their manufacture, transport, installation, and operation require. See "The Low Benefit of Industrial Wind" at www.aweo.org.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism

"The Aesthetic Dissonance of Industrial Wind Machines"

Here's an excerpt from a thoughtful essay about the aesthetics of industrial wind turbines, "The Aesthetic Dissonance of Industrial Wind Machines," by Jon Boone, at the online journal Contemporary Aesthetics. (Click on the title of this post for the complete essay.)

Perhaps only the US highway system has the scope and scale to match the aesthetic pretensions for industrial windpower. It certainly has transformed the landscape, as well as much of the culture, penetrating into nearly every aspect of life on the continent. Moreover, its functional success has allowed it to become part of the accepted natural background, much in the way Prof. Saito hopes for the windpower machines. People generally take the interstates for granted these days. Still, despite its ubiquity, the American highway system should present many "thick value" difficulties for philosophers of aesthetics. These difficulties were rather artfully exposed by Godfrey Reggio in his film, Koyaanisqatsi. Here, Reggio shows our highways as foreboding corridors of frenetic technology in service to unbridled consumption, scarring the earth with terrifying consequence and for no compelling reason. He could just as well been documenting industrial windpower, pointing out similarities with factory farms and noting how each corrupts the economy, diminishes the ecosystem, and blights the landscape.

And from one of the footnotes:

... photograph taken several miles away from four of the twenty 375 foot wind turbines atop a 2700 foot ridge over the town of Meyersdale, PA. But the height and elevation are only part of the story. The differentially moving propeller blades dominate the visual experience, taking away the sense of the mountain itself.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism

More cons than pros

Kristin Calkins Rowe wrote in the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press ("Wake up on wind power," Nov. 7, 2005), "It doesn't take a genius to figure out there are more cons than pros in this debate." The most glaring cost of big wind is the industrial development of rural and wild areas, which inarguably degrades rather than improves our common environment. That is impossible to justify if the benefits claimed by the industry's sales material are in fact an illusion, propped up by subsidies and artificial markets for "indulgence credits" which allow the flouting of emissions caps and renewable energy targets.

Why do utilities generally support wind as a renewable power source?

Actually, they don’t. In Japan, as reported by Asahi Shinbun on May 18, 2005, utilities severely limit the amount of wind power on their systems, because, as documented above, "introducing too much of the electricity, whose supply can fluctuate wildly, can cause problems for utilities' power grids. ... If there is no wind, the utilities must rely entirely on other facilities. And even when wind power can satisfy all of the demand, they must continue operating thermal generators to be ready for any abrupt shortfalls in wind power."

With the movement away from vehicles such as the Clean Air Act, which actually reduced emissions, to so-called market solutions such as renewable portfolio standards (RPS), utilities must buy a specified proportion of their power from renewable sources or buy credits equal to their shortfall. As long as they can say that, for example, 20% of their power comes from wind, it doesn't matter if they're burning as much nonrenewable fuel as ever to back it up. Most importantly, however, "green credits" are generated in addition to actual electricity. They are an echo of the renewable energy already sold that is given as much, or even more, value than the real thing. Burdened with the directive to buy renewable energy, utilities want to be a part of wind power development so they can share in the lucrative sale of the credits.

Ironically, analyses for New Jersey utilities and by the U.S. Energy Information Agency have shown that the only effect on emissions that an RPS might have is to drive down the cost of exceeding emissions caps or missing renewables targets.

With rising fuel prices, however, many utilities have started to demand actual useful energy targets from wind facilities. As Renewable Energy Access reported on Nov. 7, 2005, from an American Wind Energy Association financing workshop in New York City, this has worried investors. Wind turbines produce only the very marketable appearance of green energy, not actual relief from other sources.

[Read the rest of this paper at www.aweo.org/LowBenefit.pdf.]

categories:  wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont

"Onerous" demand that wind turbines actually work

The American Wind Energy Association sponsored a financing workshop in New York last week. As reported by Renewable Energy Access:

Another major theme of the workshop was the effect that high natural gas prices are having on the wind power market. In general, the high fossil-fuel prices will be very good for the wind power market, most agreed, as utilities and investors that want to limit their fuel-price risk start looking for other energy technologies that can be built quickly. However, that interest is making project development more difficult in some ways, as well. As utilities try to define power output from a wind project more and more precisely, they are tending to make power purchase agreement terms more onerous -- too limiting in some cases to make the project viable.

In light of that fact, investors and developers are starting to look toward merchant wind plants -- those built without a long-term supply contract. In some markets, especially those with high renewable energy credit prices and predominant use of natural gas for electricity, merchant plants look as though they may be more profitable than those with supply contracts locked in. However, with the exception of a few cases, there has been little action on the merchant plant front yet.

In other words, a wind facility is only attractive to investors if it is not actually expected to produce useful electricity!

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms

"The Sheaves"

The Sheaves Where long the shadows of the wind had rolled, Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned; And as by some vast magic undivined The world was turning slowly into gold. Like nothing that was ever bought or sold It waited there, the body and the mind; And with a mighty meaning of a kind That tells the more the more it is not told. So in a land where all days are not fair, Fair days went on till on another day A thousand golden sheaves were lying there, Shining and still, but not for long to stay— As if a thousand girls with golden hair Might rise from where they slept and go away. —Edwin Arlington Robinson

"Noisy turbine annoys neighbours"

From the August 11, 2003, Christchurch (New Zealand) Press. According to a campaigner in the area, the problem has not yet been resolved.

Windflow Technology is shutting down its Gebbies Pass [500kW] wind turbine each night because of noise concerns. ...

The turbine looms over a ridgeline above photographer Julie Riley's McQueens Valley property.

Ms Riley, who objected unsuccessfully to the project at its resource consent hearing on the basis of noise and landscape values, said the turbine was much louder than expected.

Windflow was not able to stick to its resource consent, and people 3km from the wind turbine could hear it whenever it was running, she said.

"They said it would be quieter than 30 decibels and we would only be able to hear it 3 per cent of the time.

"They would have had a lot more people complaining at the resource consent hearing if people down the valley knew they were going to be affected.

"We are hearing it almost 100 per cent of the time when it is running," Ms Riley said.

Two noises were emanating from the site, just more than 1km from her house.

"Two hydraulic pumps run all the time. I can hear those at night," she said.

"When they have the blades going it is terrible. It sounds like 'grind, grind, grind'. It obliterates the bird sounds and all the nature sounds that we have all come here for."

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind turbines

Wind turbines require high maintenance

It's not just the gearbox. You've got 40 tons of rotor blades turning and changing pitch, attached to a 70-ton nacelle which turns on top of a 250-foot-high tower to catch the wind. A mechanical challenge in any environment to be sure.

The following is from John Galambos, "Brooklyn wind turbine performance over 12 years," presented at New Zealand Wind Energy Association Conference, 31 August 2005. Remember that this single turbine near Wellington (N.Z.) is a demonstration installation, with all the money necessary thrown at it to keep it going. Since most of the financial benefits in the U.S. disappear after a few years (6 years for accelerated depreciation, 10 years for production tax credit), the more likely scenario for most facilities is abandonment, as with many of those in Altamont Pass, California, and the sad specimens at South Point, Hawaii.

TECHNICAL ISSUES DURING OPERATION
Years 1 and 2

Gearbox oil issues with build up of black gunge

• oil type changed

Part of skylight roof section vanished during 1994 storm

• 38.5 m/s 10-sec average
• Estimated 45m/s 3-sec gust, turbine rated for 70m/s 3-sec gust
• Anemometer cup vanished (years 5 and 11 also)

Slip coupling operating too frequently, required replacement

• High wind shutdown changed from 25 to 22 m/s

Blackening of gearbox oil

Years 3 and 4

Blade inspections revealed gel coat failures

• Appear to relate to damage from thrown stones

Tower to foundation ring flange-to-flange bolts started failing

• Managed by monitoring and change out

Numerous minor factory technical upgrades continued

• Driven by Service Bulletins not issues on site

Yaw drive issues, noisy

• motors and worm drive gears replaced

Years 5 to 9

Pitch accumulator leaking - replacement with production loss

Controller required Y2k modifications

Yaw drive gearboxes replaced

Ongoing issues relating to EMC

• Susceptible to strong local FM radio transmission

Gearbox low speed shaft stiffener fitted

• Factory modification for high winds
• Internal expansion sleeve to hollow shaft
• Too late, damage done, gearbox would require replacement before long.

About year 10

Gearbox high speed shaft bearing failed at 9+ years

• Noisy gearbox operation
• Before original gearbox was replaced

Weather mast guy hardware failed

• Repair can have safety implications

Gearbox replaced at 10 years

• Refurbished unit, "as new", with warranty
• Shaft end floats outside maintenance tolerances when delivered
• Bearing replaced after 3 months
• Gearbox replaced again after 13 months
• Condition monitoring trials unsuccessful

Years 11 and 12

Nose cone replaced

• Disintegrating

Tower section joining bolts corroded

• Replaced at 11 years

Pitch linkage connections failed,

• Rods damaged and replaced

Yaw ring and yaw gears failed

• Long outage
• No local parts

Other

• Numerous control card replacements/updates to Service bulletins
• Included fans to control cards, oil filtering etc
• Communications issues at times – not turbine related
• Distribution disturbances have tripped the turbine
• Some misc contactor failures, replacement repairs, consumables etc.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines