First the promise, perhaps a bit overrated:
The article goes on to say:
The borough already has one publicly-owned turbine — a 33ft Air Dolphin turbine at a location off Taylors Lane, Oldbury, near the civic amenities site in Shidas Lane.
Through monitoring the performance of the turbine it was hoped the council would be able to find out how practical it would be to harness wind power on a large scale in the borough
Here is what it looks like:
Interestingly, right below the picture on this sale page for the wind turbine, they say this:
With the average price for 1kWh of electricity in the UK at around 11 pence, this wind turbine is predicted to save its owner just £55 to £154 per year giving a pay back period of 45 to 125 years!
I kid you not, that’s actually what they say. In tips and notes, UK blogger Derek Sorensen calls our attention to this FOI request regarding the production of the very same wind turbine on Taylors Lane, Oldbury.
Source: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/wind_turbine#incoming-163689
Roy Mccauley
Sandwell Borough Council
31 March 2011
Thank you for your enquiry about the Taylor’s Lane wind turbine in
Oldbury. The answers to your questions are as follows:
1) Could you please tell me the total cost spent on purchase and
installation of the 33ft Air Dolphin turbine at a location off Taylor’s
Lane, Oldbury?
£5,000 (plus VAT) was the total cost of the Taylor’s Lane micro wind
turbine in Oldbury, including foundations, tower and connections.
2) Could you also tell me how much has been spent on the turbine since?
Nothing has needed to be spent since it was installed.
3) How much electricity has been generated by the turbine and how much has
been spent monitoring the performance of the turbine – e.g. cost of
setting up a computer/software etc.
No money has been spent monitoring the performance of the micro wind
turbine at Taylor’s Lane.
However, the council paid £750 for 3 years of monitoring an identical
micro wind turbine at Bleakhouse Primary School in Oldbury. We chose to
monitor just one of the turbines to minimise costs. We wanted to track
performance, establish whether predicted wind speeds in Sandwell were
accurate and use the technology and readings for educational purposes in
schools.
For the 12 months between May 2009 and April 2010, the Bleakhouse Primary
School micro wind turbine generated 209 kWh of electricity.
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
request, and should be addressed to:
Freedom of Information Unit
Oldbury Council House
Freeth Street
Oldbury
West Midlands
B69 3DE
Email – [1][Sandwell Borough Council request email]
If you are not content with the outcome of an internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Please remember to quote your reference number above in any future
communications.
Roy McCauley
Sustainable & Economic Regeneration Unit
======================================================
Dereke writes:
Sandwell Borough Council paid £5,000 a pop to install several wind turbines in their area, and then paid another £750 to have the output of just one of them monitored.
The monitored turbine, which was installed on a primary school, generated 209kWh of electricity in the twelve months it was being monitored. That’s about 20 quid’s worth. So each turbine will have to run for 250 years without breaking down or requiring maintainance, just to break even.
Such a deal. Since the FOI request was granted on March 31st, and the Express and Star News story was February 24th, do you think the Sandwell council may have had time to consider these massive energy production figures for their toy £5000 toy turbine?
Which nine days of the month was the 209 KWH generated? The first nine? The last nine? Every third day? Every third hour? Between half-past and 50-past each hour? Maybe three generators would provide full-time power?
How about: screw the power consumer, he’ll just have to exploit the power when it’s available and sit in anticipation when it isn’t.
Paul:
We did read the article, and afterwards were not impressed.
The 209 kWh is not a typo, and for a 33ft system well within what we’d expect given the performance of similar systems observed elsewhere.
We note you say “….as I suspect….the full-scale installation would be highly profitable.” If that were true, then there’d be windmills of that scale already in production, and not due to government subsidies, but private investment. A 20% ROI??? I’d be all over that!
I doubt anyone here is against wind power, all we’re asking is that it be sold with full disclosure, for what it is, and without the veil of snake oil.
Paul Birch
You make some good points but we need to put this into the wider context of the legal requirement for the UK to cut carbon emissions by 30%.
As the author of a peer reviewed article on wave power, it is alarming that in effect wind power is the only game in town as wave/tidal energy is around 20 years behind wind technology.
It doesn’t get away from the fact however that wind is woefully inefficient and can only compete when an artificially high carbon floor is put in place penalising other forms of energy generation.
In the UK intense cold periods in winter tend to coincide with high pressure with very little wind, so wind turbines are at the least effective at just the time they are most needed.
The UK urgently needs addional forms of base load power-windmills are a side issue.
tonyb
Our town council, in it’s green zeal, installed solar trash compacters along side new trash containers (the amount of sun is limited).
They cost 7000 dollars each.
@nonegatives
I am fine with putting small systems on schools for education reasons.
I’m struggling to imagine what such ‘education reasons’ might be. And why such reasons (if they exist at all) couldn’t be satisfied for a darned sight less than £5K by other means.
‘Look children.. the wind is (or as it maybe – isn’t) blowing’
Ten seconds of learning per kiddiewink. Expensive stuff.
@ur momisugly Sal Minella –
In response to your closing line: “How about: screw the power consumer, he’ll just have to exploit the power when it’s available and sit in anticipation when it isn’t.”
Didn’t you remember that that’s already official policy of the UK government?: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/04/the-empire-strikes-out/
Just watching a Dane talking about a “Floating Wind Turbine.” Ok what about sever weather. does happen. I keep wondering about the the midwest US what about the wind
power projects there?
@paul birch
If the purpose of the installation was to assess the feasibility of wind power in Sandwell, it has spectacularly failed.
Which might explain why the council was obliged to fund it themselves, rather than negotiating a free trial scheme with a potential supplier for the full sized scheme. (Try and buy). The suppliers know where wind will be even remotely sensible, saw the council coming and wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.
With luck this disastrous experiment should be a dire warning to other councils tempted to demonstrate their green credentials by erecting idols of mother gaia to worship.
Wind power doesn’t do what it says on the tin and no matter how much wishful thinking goes on by the feeble minded Greens, it never will.
Sal Minella says on April 27, 2011 at 7:08 am
I think you meant shiver in anticipation when it isn’t.
“So each turbine will have to run for 250 years without breaking down or requiring maintainance, just to break even.”
Priceless! You couldn’t write great comedy like this.
Pointman
John Bosworth says:
April 27, 2011 at 2:23 am
A similar model over here in the states might run you about $1000. And they paid 5000 british pounds each? Somethun’ aint right…
Installation costs can be substantial on these ‘micro generation’ projects. A DIYer might be able to make the economics work out. As soon as you have to hire union scale masons to pour a concrete pad and union scale electricians to hook it all up the price becomes insane. The same goes for roof top solar panels. $1/watt for the panel, $6/watt for installation.
The trial experiment by the local government to find out whether the construction of a large windmill is practical seems like a good idea. But shouldn’t the people who market the wind turbines have that data? Yes, but the information is proprietary so can’t be shared. The economy scale is missing in their plan. The dilemma faced by local governments is real. There are no unbiased consultants on wind energy in most local settings and there is no watch dog agency to protect the local government from being deceived. In my county, to install a wind farm only requires a zoning change. Any other major project, a plant, would require an environmental impact report before committing to a zone change. Could a proposed farm survive an environmental impact evaluation assuming someone cared to read the report? Worse than this is the possibility,(likelihood) that when the wind turbine farm is abandoned by the developer because it is uneconomical, the county and the landowner will be stuck with the remains of dead windmills standing like monuments to a misguided government. If you don’t believe me, just drive through Palm Springs California and observe the graveyard.
[snip. Off topic. ~dbs]
From:
“Kum Dollison
Doesn’t Iowa get 20% of its electricity from Wind?
Maybe the good folks at Sandwell should contact Ames.”
No, Iowa doesn’t get 20% of its power from windmills. The name plate capacity is may approach 20% but not delivered. The local energy companies are trying to build coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants to keep ahead of demand. Just like everywhere else the wind isn’t reliable enough to keep the grid operational.
Typical mathematics of the labour party. Sandwell has been a labour run council since 1983.
Labour love spending other people’s money and cannot add-up numbers to save their own lives, hence why labour were running a deficit every year during the boom years in the mid 2000s. They were warned that if they did not cut their profligate spending back then during the boom, that when the bust came, (which was inevitable when borrowing was increasing every year, much faster than the rise in earnings), that their financial (mis)management would cause a massive fiscal implosion.
Now we (the people) are having repay a deficit the same size as a “black Wednesday” happening every week! [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday ]
The tory government was slated in the media, the City of London’s financial markets and nationally in the homes of voters up and down the land, for the cost incurred by the tax-payer of Black Wednesday. This economic shock was enough to destroy the conservative government’s economic reputation for the next 17 years.
The last Labour maladministration created an annual deficit the size of a Black Wednesday happening every single week!
This windmill experiment seems to be more of the same labour mathematics at play.
Jimbo says:
April 27, 2011 at 2:35 am
“Seeing as they are so concerned about c02 it would be interesting to know how much c02 it produced and how long before it ‘recovered’ that same c02?Here are two recent reminders about the failures of wind – here and here. It seems to me they will only abandon windpower when disaster strikes in mid-winter. From the top two references it shouldn’t be long – they just have to push full speed ahead for the next decade.”
Interesting question on the C02 accounting. To make the accounting go better I’d recommend that the alternative electrical energy generation is from coal- not nuclear otherwise you are likely to find that the wind mill has added to the problem. Actually, given the low output of the unit it is likely the generation of the thing will never breakeven on C02. Just for fun lets see what we might want to include in the tally for C02 generated to make, transport, install (permitting counts too) and maintain the C02 free electrical generation 33ft Air Dolphin turbine at a location off Taylors Lane, Oldbury:
1) CO2 generated (allocated) for the manufacturing of the components of the wind mill.
1.1) CO2 generated (allocated) for the transportation of the components of the wind mill to the assembly location(s).
1.2) CO2 generated (allocated) for transport of the wind mill from the assembly location(s) to the Taylors Lane location.
2) C02 generated (allocated) in site preparation (concrete pad I assume, some electrical infrastructure put in place- no costs for the monitoring as it doesn’t have any)
3) No allocated CO2 for the say 2 to 4 council meetings to decide the wind mill was a good investment as they would of had the meetings anyway. I assume the UK is like CA in that you need a permit from you local government offices to install such a device on the grid. Hence we should allocate some CO2 for transport off all the important documents relating to the project down to the permit office(s). Hopefully the Taylors Lane location is close to the government offices as we should count the CO2 for the inspector to come out to the site (once, twice, ?) to ensure the device was installed to code.
4) CO2 generated in the yearly (?) maintenance visits to ensure the unit is operating properly.
5) I assume the ribbon cutting event celebrating the council’s investment in green energy was a small affair and it wasn’t televised by some local TV station. Hence we can just give a CO2 pass for this event. Heaven forbid if we had to account for the CO2 load of a ribbon cutting event………..
@John shively
I find your post full of special pleading about just how flaming gormless and useless local governement officers are. In particular you say:
‘There are no unbiased consultants on wind energy in most local settings and there is no watch dog agency to protect the local government from being deceived’.
WTF I ask politely, is the purpose of Sandwell’s sustainability unit. Might we reasnably expect them to be knowledgeable about sustainability? To understand the pitfalls? And the bennies? To advise the council members about their options?
Or is it all too much for their little brainsand they need a Wathdog to keep them safe from the Big Bad World Anyway in Sandwell they are probably too busy passing out fines for littering to be able to spend even ten minutes educating themselves about wind power. They are only council officers after all.
In case they are reading now (it is 16:15 in UK so they’ve probably all gone home, but I’ll give it a go), here is Uncle Lat’s Guide to Wind Power for Council Officers:
1. It Doesn’t Work.
2. Don’t Do It
3. In case of doubt return to 1.
So simple even a sustainability officer can understand. Capice?
The really sad thing is that these sort of calculations are not difficult but the MSM just doesn’t do it. The financial times in particular blathers on and on about how wonderful green energy and electric cars are – without ever doing the basic maths to justify them. They never seem to query the low EU or UN prices of carbon used to justify their legislation
A cynic might assume that the number of advertisers from government – or companies seeking government grants with environmental adverts – made the press unwilling to take the issue on. That is the issue here – the spraying of taxpayer cash at anybody who is supposed to be questioning government policy.
DJ says:
April 27, 2011 at 7:11 am
“The 209 kWh is not a typo, and for a 33ft system well within what we’d expect given the performance of similar systems observed elsewhere.”
How do you know it’s not a typo? Have you asked the original writer of the FOI response, or seen the raw data from the monitoring? 209kWh/yr is far below the output that would be expected for a 1.8m dia (1kW) wind turbine on a 10m tower. If it is really that low, then that is a surprising result well worth the small amount of money it has cost the council to obtain it.
“We note you say “….as I suspect….the full-scale installation would be highly profitable.” If that were true, then there’d be windmills of that scale already in production, and not due to government subsidies, but private investment. A 20% ROI??? I’d be all over that!”
There are many wind turbines of all scales in operation in the UK. I have no reason to believe that they are not profitable, and, from the rate at which new ones are being built, despite the difficulty and costs of getting planning permission, have every reason to believe that they are. Not necessarily with a 20% return (that figure was for a small domestic scale device, where the feed-in-tariff is highest). Whether built and operated by a private company, or by a local authority, their profitability has to be calculated in the world as it actually is, not as you might wish it to be; good or bad, the regulatory structure is part of that real world. Moreover, taxes, subsidies and regulatory intervention are so ubiqitous throughout our economy that it is literally impossible to disentangle them and determine what the respective free market prices would be in their absence.
Latimer Alder says:
April 27, 2011 at 7:23 am
“I’m struggling to imagine what such ‘education reasons’ might be. And why such reasons (if they exist at all) couldn’t be satisfied for a darned sight less than £5K by other means.”
Perhaps if you’d had a wind turbine at your school you might have learned about all those other education reasons! Seriously, a wind turbine would be very useful for teaching lots of stuff about engineering, science, geography, meteorology, economics, politics, civics, etc. — cheap at £5000, when upgrading a school to modern requirements costs ~£5million a shot! Especially since the school/local authority would probably get most of the funding in the form of external grants.
Sandwell Council also came up with this, ‘The Public’ – an ‘art’ gallery. http://www.thepublic.com/public which cost around 60M GBP and, despite it’s colour is a white elephant.
“Could provide power to 20,000 homes” Really? If V.J. is correct and the proposed big turbine produces 500 KW, that works out to 25 watts per home. Two or three dinky squiggly light bulbs? I figured it at 2MW, or 100 W/home. And that only 25% of the time, or less. Maybe run a radio in addition to some mercury filled lamps.
Have to wonder what courses the writer majored in …
Latimer Alder says:
April 27, 2011 at 7:32 am
“If the purpose of the installation was to assess the feasibility of wind power in Sandwell, it has spectacularly failed.”
Why do you say that? If it has demonstrated that it is infeasible, it has succeeded. It has also succeeded if has demonstrated that a full scale installation would be profitable. Either way, it has done what it was intended to do – generate information.
“Which might explain why the council was obliged to fund it themselves, rather than negotiating a free trial scheme with a potential supplier for the full sized scheme. (Try and buy). The suppliers know where wind will be even remotely sensible, saw the council coming and wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.”
First off, even if manufacturers had such a “free” scheme (which so far as I’m aware they don’t, because the domestic and industrial scale turbines are manufactured by different firms), it would have cost the council considerably more than the titchy £5000 they did spend to arrange it. Nor would this have been a legally permissible approach, unless, after the trial, the council were free to put out the proposed installation to full competitive tender without unlawfully favouring the trial firm.
Pamela Gray says:
April 27, 2011 at 6:30 am
I see a new job for Al. He needs to schedule a continuous round of public announcements located upwind of each and every wind power plant/tower. With this public service, he could keep these wind turbines turning till he keels over. And if any more towers are built, I think Al should subsidize them.
You’re right Pamela, but your “upwind” caveat is unnecessary. All points are downwind of big Al.
jon shively says:
“The trial experiment by the local government to find out whether the construction of a large windmill is practical seems like a good idea. But shouldn’t the people who market the wind turbines have that data?”
No, not really. Unless they’ve previously installed turbines in that location (and maybe not even then) they won’t know what the local wind climate is like. And, as you point out, such information is proprietary and biased anyway. The onus is on the customer to do his own survey and cost-benefit analysis.