As many know, I was on a road trip for two weeks. On my return into California, I traveled a road I had done many many times – California Highway 58 through Tehachapi pass, one of the windiest areas of California, and loaded with wind turbines like you see in this photo from www.wind-works.org which seems to be taken during 2003. All the turbines seem to be spinning.
But, the reality I encounter when I drive through there is much different than what you see in the photo above. I often drive this road, but always wished I had a video camera with me to show how many turbines are inoperable since this doesn’t show up well in still photos. Unless you have a slow shutter speed to show “blade blur”, they all look inoperable.
But this day was different. I did have a video camera with me. Plus, the day I drove through, Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 was near perfect for wind turbines. There was a front coming in, and strong winds ahead of it.
Here’s the wind data from the ASOS at the Tehachapi airport during the time I drove through:
The wind data displayed above are measured at 1000′ lower elevation than the wind turbines on the top of the ridge, where the wind velocity will be higher.
And here is what I saw of the wind turbines along the ridge top, there were quite a few inoperable on this windy day. This video was taken right about 11AM PST:
There were many more inoperable turbines, but could not be filmed from a safe vantage point along the highway. This video was take from the semi-truck staging area near the agricultural inspection station.
My best guess from the video and others I saw that I could not film is that about one in four turbines were not operating.
The problem is maintenance. The location, while perfect for wind, is treacherous for work and support equipment. Even on a flat terrain, like in Texas (shown below) where I photographed these turbines, doing maintenance on gearboxes and generators high up on a post isn’t easy.
Imagine the complications on a mountain ridge for maintenance.
On the wind-works.org website “tour” section, they lament the condition of the Zond (Enron) wind power sites:
Wind Plant Maintenance Items to Note
Throughout the Tehachapi-Mojave area look for turbines without nose cones, turbines without nacelles (blown off and not replaced), oil leaking from blade-pitch seals, oil leaking from gearboxes, road cuts in steep terrain, erosion gullies, non-operating turbines, and “bone piles” of junk parts. One Zond bone pile of abandoned fiberglass blades is visible on the east side of Tehachapi-Willow Springs Rd. near Oak Creek Pass. (Kern County doesn’t permit on-ground disposal of fiberglass.) While touring wind farm sites look for blowing trash and litter (plastic bags, soft-drink cups, bottles, electrical connectors, scrap bits of metal, and so on). These all reflect management’s attention to maintenance and general housekeeping. At the better sites, you won’t see any of this.
Even on the valley floor, the smaller four turbines just west of the Tehachapi airport that greet visitors who drive in from Bakersfield had a problem, and these are on flat ground and accessible:
In Palm Springs, CA, another windy place, they have similar problems:
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Florida’s broken windmills: A California problem
The permit allowing windmills to go in didn’t say they could sit there broken. Palm Springs is getting tough. If windmills are going to exist in the city they must be operational. A city that has welcomed windmills since it was first approached about them in the early 1980’s is finding that many of those windmills are no longer working and it wants them fixed. The question is who’s responsible for fixing them? Florida Power and Light (FPL), the owner of the inoperable windmills, was allowed to install and operate local windmill farms under a conditional use permit (CUP) stipulating if the windmill does not run for six months, it’s declared a public nuisance and without a hearing, must be abated.
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Here’s a video showing the inside operations of a wind power facility in Washington State
And, the lack of maintenance problem is not just in California. In 2001, I visited Kamoa wind farm near Southpoint in the big island of Hawaii. The wind is so strong there, trees grow horizontal like this one:
As much as I was surprised by the horizontal trees, I was equally surprised to see dead wind turbines there. It was my first experience with a wind farm.
From this American Thinker article “Wind energy’s ghosts”:
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Built in 1985, at the end of the boom, Kamaoa soon suffered from lack of maintenance. In 1994, the site lease was purchased by Redwood City, CA-based Apollo Energy.
Cannibalizing parts from the original 37 turbines, Apollo personnel kept the declining facility going with outdated equipment. But even in a place where wind-shaped trees grow sideways, maintenance issues were overwhelming. By 2004 Kamaoa accounts began to show up on a Hawaii State Department of Finance list of unclaimed properties. In 2006, transmission was finally cut off by Hawaii Electric Company.
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Image from Waymarking.com
Again, like in California, Hawaii’s turbine problem is lack of maintenance.
But isn’t that the way it always has been with windmills?
It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same:
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UPDATE: It appears Idaho is getting set for putting a wind power moratorium in place:
State Lawmakers Look At Wind Energy Moratorium
Mar 18, 2011 6:16 p.m.
BONNEVILLE COUNTY, Idaho — Construction of wind turbines may be coming to a halt in Idaho.
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would prevent the construction of any new wind farm for the next two years.
Over the last year, dozens of new wind turbines have gone up on east bench just outside Idaho Falls, but many of the neighbors and their legislators want to put a temporary end to new construction.
When the legislature adopted the 2007 energy plan, it did not envision so many energy companies wanting to build wind farms in Idaho.
Bill sponsor Erik Simpson said he and both his Republican and Democratic colleagues agree they need to take a look at the long-term consequences.
“Local governments need some direction as to what should be included in some of their ordinances, recognizing some of the impacts that are out there on wind, and we need to find out what those impacts might be,” said State Affairs Committee member Tom Loertcher.
To conduct the study, the bill proposes a two-year moratorium on wind farm construction.
“It may be a problem mostly in eastern Idaho now, but it’s likely to be a problem in (other legislators’) communities as well unless we take this two year pause and study this a little more in depth,” Simpson said.
Wind power is not the cheapest way to produce energy, and lawmakers want to make sure their constituents don’t have to pay top rate.
“Utility rate payers are paying more for this unreliable intermittent energy source,” Simpson said.
Many are also concerned about the environment.
“A lot of these projects are going up in pristine wildlife areas,” Simpson said.
But not everyone agrees. Some local people like Bonneville County farmer Tory Talbot want to continue to see more turbines.
“The moratorium will basically limit businesses wanting to come into Idaho. Southeastern Idaho and southern Idaho has a huge wind energy potential,” Talbot said.
The State Affairs Committee plans to continue the debate on Monday when they hear from utility companies and energy companies.
They will then vote on whether they should move the bill to the House floor.
If the bill passes, any project already approved would be allowed to move forward.
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UPDATE2: The maintenance problem also extends to Germany:
From: jcwinnie.biz
“Gearboxes have been failing in wind turbines since the early 1990s. Barely a turbine make has escaped. The problem reached epidemic proportions with a massive series failure of gearboxes in NEG Micon machines. At the time, the NEG Micon brand was the most sold wind turbine in the world. The disaster brought the company to its knees ; It was taken over by Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, which still is challenged by gearbox and rotor failures.
As previously noted, a large number of gearboxes have had to be replaced “in large numbers.” Der Spiegel reports that the German Insurance Association is none too happy…
“In addition to generators and gearboxes, rotor blades also often display defects,” a report on the technical shortcomings of wind turbines claims. The insurance companies are complaining of problems ranging from those caused by improper storage to dangerous cracks and fractures… The frail turbines coming off the assembly lines at some manufacturers threaten to damage an industry that for years has been hailed as a wild success.
At Spiegel Online, Simone Kaiser and Michael relay a concern about installed wind turbines:
After the industry’s recent boom years, wind power providers and experts are now concerned. The facilities may not be as reliable and durable as producers claim. Indeed, with thousands of mishaps, breakdowns and accidents having been reported in recent years, the difficulties seem to be mounting. Gearboxes hiding inside the casings perched on top of the towering masts have short shelf lives, often crapping out before even five years is up. In some cases, fractures form along the rotors, or even in the foundation, after only limited operation. Short circuits or overheated propellers have been known to cause fires. All this despite manufacturers’ promises that the turbines would last at least 20 years.
We did a road trip last september.
we flew into San diego from the UK then drove to alaska via yellowstone , so I was impressed by your 700 mile in one day stint Anthony.
We saw the beauty of your country, and some breathtaking panoramas. The one sight we will never forget, with horror, was driving into SF past the total eyesore that you have shown above
it made my eyes bleed
EO
Irony – maintenance too dangerous when wind is blowing???
And if you think wind turbines are difficult and expensive to maintain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/8387558/Worlds-largest-tidal-turbine-project-in-Sound-of-Islay.html
“World’s largest tidal turbine project in Sound of Islay”
And so the stumps of defunct windmills slowly disintegrate, are assimilated in the soil, buried, rotting, and miliions of years later…
…we have COAL!!
Hurrah, dig it up, burn it, generate real electricity! Way to go!
martin brumby says:
March 19, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Agree 100%
Another unmentioned unintended consequence of wind mills is the slaughter of birds flying into the blades. In Palm Springs I read once that 100 golden eagles are killed yearly. And the windmill farms in northern Germany on the Baltic kill 100’s of thousands of migrating birds every year. Northern Indiana is another area that has a blight of these monstrosities. It all comes back to what happens when the wind doesn’t blow and the Sun doesn’t shine. Alternative energy sources have a very limited use but cannot be used to power a modern tecnological society.
Well I’m sure we’ll all learn to love them anyway, given time. We all have to do our bit, to save the planet, after all. (Think of the the children.)
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/
Anthony, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the cost of maintaining these windmills. Its a simple fact that the Us & UK failed to get an early lead in this “industry” because they totally misunderstood the criticality of reliability and maintenance … or perhaps more apt, the way “development” in the UK and US got funded took no account of reliability seeing these as “technology” not engineering.
In contrast the successful countries adopted (sometimes by mistake) funding regimes that concentrated on reliability … mainly by having real customers and not idiots in governments handing out grants for photo opportunities for government ministers.
The real dividing line between success and failure in this market was the terminiology.
Successful countries call them “windmill”, “vindmolle”
Pathetic failures like the US and UK call them “wind turbines”.
I think the difference is that those that call them windmills see them as part of a long development of utilising the wind for mundane tasks. Those that call them “windturbines” see them as some new wonder miracle technology to “save the planet” much in the same way nuclear was sold to the same gullible electorates.
I am glad I am living in the Netherlands. We tear unefficient windmill parks down (Irene Vorrink Windmill park, near Lelystad, built 1997) even when the amortisation period is 20 years.
Then we erect new windmills, hoping these will be more efficient.
The problem is mostly a lack of qualified maintenance technicians and scheduling of cranes required for service.
You don’t keep these things spinning when a maintenance interval elapses. You stop it and wait until the maintenance can be performed because repair is hideously expensive especially the gearbox which is about 20% of the cost of the whole enchilada. So you don’t keep them spinning when they’re due for periodic maintenance.
I don’t know about California but in Texas (which has 3x more wind power than any other state) wind power is not heavily subsidized and power from them is sold on the open market by bid/ask. Wind power is considerably more expensive than natural gas and is on a par with conventional coal (without subsidy) and somewhat less expensive than nuclear. However because wind is fickle there’s often not a good match between supply & demand. No more than 30% of potential capacity is actually sold. So having 20% of the turbines down for periodic maintenance at any one time is not much of a problem and isn’t out-of-line compared with other types of electrical generation – less than 20% downtime is excellent for a nuclear reactor.
What basis do you have for saying that? Windfarm leases call for removal of all equipment and foundations and restoration to approximate original grade
Probably the idea that these windfarm companies aren’t going to be around long enough for the windfarms to merely expire their leases. The companies are likely to be long gone and bankrupt. Bankrupt companies don’t tend to spend money on these obligations… creditors first.
The only reliable permanently spinning machinery are the turbines in hydro generators.
They can work because they run at near constant speed and are very robustly built.
Wind turbines have to be built very light and the load fluctuates constantly, always stressing the machinery. Time to failure is correspondingly low. That should have been factored into the cost estimates, but may have been neglected.
The gap in performance has to be made up by subsidy. When that declines, the economics suffer. This is a common problem with “green” power, it is not close to viable at prevailing prices. What is disappointing is that the gap does not seem to be narrowing very much.
Scottish Sceptic
I think those that call them Wind Mills, are hopelessly confused about what a mill does. And those that call them wind turbines, are hopeless optimists.
….and those that call them wind ‘farms’ don’t live in the countryside and know what a farm is, or are deliberately trying to ‘sell’ the idea, that it’s ok to industrialize all our countryside.
John Kehr says, If the greenies manage to kill nuclear, fossil fuel and hydro (trust me, they are trying because of the impact to fish reproduction) and we have to depend on wind and solar, then we will soon be back to a pre-industrial society. BINGO. Give the man a cigar, that’s what the green religion fruit cakes want, including their current dictator Obama.
Re: Gareth Phillips says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:40 am
To be fair you would have to compare the percentage of wind turbines not working at any time, with the amount of downtime or non-functioning of other energy resources. I suspect any energy generating system is not operating at 100% at all times. Any one have any useful stats?
You are correct. All utilities must “chase the load” in a synchronous electric power system. Typically in the U.S., the “base load” is maintained by the most thermally efficient coal-fired steamers, nukes and large scale combined-cycle-natural-gas-turbines running flat out 24/7. Then the increases or decreases in demand are “chased” up and down with easily throttled hydro, some pumped storage, less efficient gas peaking turbines, some oil fired units and scheduled power exchanges with neighboring utilities that have different demand profiles.
Unfortunately for the utilities and rate payers in the U.S., utilities are required to accept whatever output wind and solar can generate whenever they can generate it (except during system emergencies). That randomness of renewable power output, especially with wind, actually compounds problems with the delicate dance utilities must perform each day to match generation with load. Since wind and solar are effectively “base loaded” from a utility perspective, their capacity factors should appropriately be compared with other base load plants for purposes of establishing economic value. That yields less than 30% for for the best wind farms compared with north of 85% (all in, including refueling and other maintenance downtime) for coal and nuclear. Base loaded combined-cycle-gas-turbine plants typically run well north of 90% capacity factors (all in).
The real concern about wind energy is its Capacity Value (not Capacity Factor).
The CV of wind is well less than 10%. The CV of nuclear (for comparson) is about 99%.
The soundbite: “Wind energy is a high-cost low-benefit solution.”
See EnergyPresentation.Info for details.
Dave Springer,
first, Texas wind is considered to be good for only about 9% of its rated output meaning that in 2007 it only produced 1% of Texas peak power needs.
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/08/texas-wind-power-the-numbers-versus-the-hype-despite-mandates-1-2-share-by-2014/
As far as your statement that Texas wind does not get substantial subsidy, I must assume that you have been indulging in some type of product that produces non-rational cognition:
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/08/texas-wind-power-the-numbers-versus-the-hype-despite-mandates-1-2-share-by-2014/
More on Federal subsidies/credits/handouts:
http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=US13F
Basically wind, even in Texas, is heavily subsidized, almost useless and is probably having the exact effect the envirowhackjobs desire.
Twenty-Five percent of the turbines being down at any given times seems to be on the low-end of the expected range. What percentage of nuclear plants, fighter aircraft, or merchant ships are at sea at any given time?
The expectation that wind turbines would work almost all the time is more a result of marketing campaign and lobbyist, than what any rational engineer or mechanic would tell you.
Anthony,
I am glad that you posted pictures of the derelict and decaying windmills since this is the future of wind energy. Unfortunately, in 2o to 30 years much of the most beautiful landscape will be blighted by these ugly scrap yards.
Windmills are not being erected to reduce CO2 emissions. To date, not a single conventional power station has been closed as a result of all the windfarm built. Windfarms are not being set up because they produce dependable and reliable energy. We know that they cannot produce reliable energy due to the intermitent nature of wind.
Windmills are not being erected because they produce cheap energy. The cost of energy production is many tomes that of coal, gas or nuclear.
Windfarms only exist because of subsidies. Once these run out, windfarms will fall into decay and no one will have the money to de-commission them.
Gradually, due to the energy policy being adopted by western developed nations, their energy prices are soaring in comparison to the developing nations such as china, india and latin america. The effect of this is to make western industry increasing uncompetitive and this will mean losing market share and increasing deficits on the balance of trade (imports/exports). Gradually western countries will become poorer.
The effect of this is that when it becomes apparent that either (i) CO2 does not drive temperatures/climate so there is no need to drastically reduce/restrict CO2 emissions, or (ii) that these windfarms have no practical effect on reducing CO2 emissions, or (iii) that renewable energy is so unreliable that it leads to rolling blackouts and needs to be replaced with something more reliable, Governments will inevitable cut back on the subsidies. Energy firms will no longer have spare cash to decommision these beasts and since they do not provide chaep energy and maintenance costs are high, there will be no commercial interest in keeping them in good repair. Accordingly, unless the Government actually pays for the decommissiing (by which I mean raises tax from its citizens to pay this cost), the country side will be littered with decaying windmills.
I anticipate that it may be somewhat ironic that the citizen will have been taxed to erect these unnecessary and wasteful structures, and then they will be taxed again to remove them once the Government can no longer cover up what a folly this venture has become.
All that metal & plastic being wasted…
AusieDan says:
March 20, 2011 at 1:34 am
Hi there jorgekafkazar,
Do you understand the concept of return on investment?
Would you like to invest your superannuation money in a wind farm?
It probably is.
The Australian Union run superannuation funds have sizeable investments in “renewable energy” Juliar is looking after them.
martin brumby says:
March 19, 2011 at 11:43 pm
“The people who promote BigWind (not least Buff Huhne and his predecessor Eddie Millipede) are either breathtakingly incompetent (the greenies and politicians) or blatantly dishonest (the companies who build the wretched things)”.
Absolutely agree but I’d include politicians in the latter description as well as the former.
First Minister Alex Salmond has increased Scotland’s target from 50% (because “urgent action is needed to cut emissions which cause climate change”) to 80% of energy from renewables by 2020 (Something I reckon he can only achieve by wrecking our economy). Yet Alex Salmond was also the guy who commented when his Minister for Transport and Climate Change resigned
“At the end of the day, you know, no man can tether time nor tide, and certainly you can’t control the elements. I am very sad that a decent man, a competent minister has been forced to resignation because of the extremities of the climate”!
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/climate-change-minister-resigns-because-of-the-extremities-of-the-climate/
The target for renewables was increased no doubt on the basis of the many thousands of wind turbines that are planned for ‘offshore’ as well as onshore development although it seems that ‘offshore’ can be as close as 4km from the coastline. (Apparently ‘offshore’ doesn’t operate under the same planning restrictions as onshore.)
The Scottish Environmental Assessment of the Draft Plan for Offshore Wind Farms has concluded
“the Draft Plan would have major beneficial impacts on climatic factors as a result of the role of operational wind farms in the long term in reducing greenhouse gas emissions” .
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/03/17170331/7
(Page 9)
Needless to say they don’t inform us as to how they arrive at this conclusion other than to use such meaningless terms as “maximising the contribution” and “expected to generate a significant amount”. There is a total lack of any real analysis.
Nor do I recognise their estimate of negative responses to the proposals as over third to a half – of the many responses I viewed on line my estimate would be closer to 95%.
With the enthusiasm for turbines declining somewhat elsewhere in Europe it seems that Salmond is desperately trying to almost singlehandedly achieve the EU target for them of 20% energy from Renewables by 2020.
I can only assume that by wrecking our economy, countryside and coastline in such a manner for no real gain our senior politicians are simply pursuing ambitions to secure a place on the EU/UN political gravy train.
One day windmill designers will wise up and put the gearbox, generator, and voltage step-up equipment on the ground, and use a 200′ drive shaft from the windmill to the ground.
I know the difficulties of delivering that much torque through 200′ of drive shaft, but in the long run it may be much cheaper when maintenance is taken into consideration.
P. Solar says:
March 19, 2011 at 11:57 pm
“There again probably no one would be stupid enough to build an off-shore wind farm in fault line susceptible to have a mag 9 event. They save those sites for clusters of nuclear reactors. The other difference worth if you want to make stupid comments is that if you have an oil leak on the gear box of wind turbine , you don’t need to evacuate half a million people. ”
Well, how many people do you have to evacuate because of wind farms. Let’s say we want to produce the output of Fukushima, all operational, that’s 5GW, with an onshore wind farm made of wind turbines rated at 2 MW peak capacity, running at 20% load factor. Remember that most of the time they’ll be far below that average and some of the time up to 5 times higher than that average. So, if the average would do we would get along with 12,500 of these wind turbines, but it won’t; so we’ll double that number to 25,000 and hope we don’t get a long lull.
We can place about 200 of these on 80 km^2
( http://www.thebioenergysite.com/news/5151/capacity-expanded-at-whitelee-wind-farm ).
25,000 of them will thus take 10,000 km^2. Considering an average population density of 200/km^2 (That’s a typical European, or US East coast density), we will have to evacuate – or relocate – only 2 million people.
And we’ll get an energy supply that still doesn’t work all of the time.