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?
Colin says:
April 28, 2011 at 10:26 am
“Paul Birch, no, installations around the world do not routinely produce 20-30 per cent. to cite just one example, the Gaspe projects of Hydro Quebec have never produced better than 19 per cent despite having one of the most favourable wind regimes on the continent.”
19% is close to 20% (note what I said: “very few fall much outside this range”). We are not talking about just a few percent under, but a factor of ten, down to 2.3%. And for a turbine on a 10m mast in an ordinary location, that’s absurd.
“Your efficiency claims are still rubbish. I explained to you above where the heat losses occur.”
I’m afraid that it’s you talking rubbish. It’s obvious that you do not understand the basic physical concepts, so you keep conflating unrelated factors or constraints with an efficiency limit. It would be quite easy to design a wind turbine with aerodynamic, mechanical and electrical efficiencies in the high nineties. Rolling friction could easily be brought below .001 with roller bearings, even without ultra-low friction devices such as magnetic bearings, long thin aerofoil sections could get L/D>60, gears can be eliminated, velocity changes could be kept small. But as I have pointed out several times already, maximum efficiency is not the design driver of operational wind turbines.
“Rolling friction could easily be brought below .001 with roller bearings, even without ultra-low friction devices such as magnetic bearings, long thin aerofoil sections could get L/D>60, gears can be eliminated, velocity changes could be kept small.”
Utter and absolute fantasy.
And with performance, wake up and smell the coffee. Gaspe’s performance is typical of wind fleets, not off the low end. There’s a drop of nearly a third between the median of your range and what the actual performance is.
As for physics, it’s become obvious that you know nothing about it, so that topic is simply not worth pursuing.
Latimer Alder says:
April 28, 2011 at 10:59 am
“Nope. What I ‘d prefer is that they stopped b….gg..g about with windmills and sustainability officers and all the flimsy paraphenalia of token greenism entirely and just got on with the jobs they are paid to do….empty the bins, sweep the roads, and cut the grass in the park. ”
You are living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Councils are paid – and required by law – to do the green thing. You may not approve of that, but it’s a fact. Unless they can show that they have attempted to meet nationally and supranationally set targets for recycling, energy conservation, renewables, etc., they will be fined (and also lose considerable quantities of grant money), the result of which will be higher council taxes.
“So they can also save £50K a year on employing a guy who (according to you) is incapable even of transcribing numbers correctly in a FOI request.”
Anyone can make typos. You yourself have made quite a few in this thread (as have I).
“Mr Pickles (the Local Government Secretary) has still a long way to go to deflate the vast egos and wasteful habits of local councils. More power to his rather large elbow!”
Westminster politicians always pander to the mob by pretending they will eliminate “waste” in local government, but it’s drivel. Councils do things the way they do because that’s what the law and the government demands. Most of them do about as well as they reasonably could under the impositions of our socialist welfare state. So put the blame where it belongs; with the EU, with the LibLabCon in Parliament, and with the electorate that foolishly keeps voting them back in.
Gary Hladik says:
April 28, 2011 at 12:53 pm
“And let’s not forget, folks, that the £5,000 Taylor’s Lane wind turbine wasn’t monitored, and so told the council nothing about wind power potential at its site. The council could have gotten exactly the same result by paying just the £750 to monitor the school turbine for three years (for which they report just 12 months of data in at least 22 months of operation…WUWT?).”
I pointed that out many replies ago (and the likely reason why it happened that way). However, although the rubbish dump turbine may not have been specifically monitored, its grid tie (and the rebate from the electricity company) will have told them how much electricity it produced over the period. That data must be around somewhere in the system. I don’t see anything strange in reporting just one year’s result when the monitoring had been in operation for less than two years.
From dave ward on April 27, 2011 at 11:22 am:
“A primary school has been forced to switch off a £20,000 wind turbine because it keeps killing passing seabirds.”
“The turbine, at Southwell Community Primary School, Portland, was installed 18 months ago thanks to a grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
“It provided six kilowatts of power an hour…”
Apparently it helps to have customers with a suitable grasp of electrical theory when selling £20,000 wind turbines. Six KW per hour?
It looks just like this “grid connect” turbine and inverter package with a 6KW nameplate rating, current US pricing converts to £9254. Spec sheet has 230VAC inverter output, 50 or 60HZ. Sample list of commercial customers is UK dominated.
http://www.solarhome.org/provenenergy6kwgridconnectturbine-300vproven6300.aspx
Gee, if they really wanted to be “green” a 6KW diesel generator is going for around US$1200-1500, they could work on running it on the used vegetable oil from the kitchen. And with that at least you know you can get a full 6KW from it, whenever you need it. The wind turbine, probably not.
Colin says:
April 28, 2011 at 1:47 pm
“As for physics, it’s become obvious that you know nothing about it, so that topic is simply not worth pursuing.”
Sorry. As a physicist, I do know what I’m talking about. You don’t. Unfortunately you are clearly not willing to learn, perhaps because you might learn something that conflicts with your pathological hatred of wind power.
racookpe1978 says:
April 28, 2011 at 1:15 pm
“The original deadly “smog” (from “Smoke and Fog”) that hung around London for weeks at a time in years past PROVES that regions can – could – and still do have long periods of zero velocity with stagnant air. Winds above 15- 18 knots are needed for power generatin – and worldwide averages are regularly below 20% for so-called “wind generators.” Many days – but certainly not all days – yield power under 1.5% for entire countries.”
Irrelevant. The point is that annual output is seldom much below 20% of nameplate. It could not get as low as 2.3% unless the turbine was out of order for most of the year.
Smokey said at 6:58 am……… critters and water.
Smokey,
My well produces about 35 gallons per minute. Hence I go without a holding tank (just the pressure tank) as I like the water cold and don’t like to deal with various things that seem to get into tanks of water.
I have had gophers, moles, voles, etc. eat through my irrigation lines in a small vineyard and garden area multiple times to get a drink. I have redone the vineyard’s irrigation lines to above ground and I leave a bucket of water out for the critters- this seems to keep the critters from eating through the lines. I am not looking forward to going with above ground irrigation in the multiple garden areas………
It sounds like your Scotts Valley place was close to the big earthquake local… I experienced that one on and quickly off a deck in the Evergreen area of SJ.
Paul Birch says (April 28, 2011 at 2:09 pm): “However, although the rubbish dump turbine may not have been specifically monitored, its grid tie (and the rebate from the electricity company) will have told them how much electricity it produced over the period.”
Er, then why spend an extra £750 to monitor an off-site turbine when the information is (allegedly) at hand for the site of interest?
“That data must be around somewhere in the system.”
Well, the info was apparently unavailable for the council’s FoI reply. I wonder how much of the council’s expensive time and effort will be required to actually retrieve the numbers?
Paul Birch:
Concerning the fact that wind is so variable that on some days it is too low to power a wind turbine, at April 28, 2011 at 2:27 pm you assert:
“Irrelevant. The point is that annual output is seldom much below 20% of nameplate. It could not get as low as 2.3% unless the turbine was out of order for most of the year.”
No! It is NOT “irrelevant”. It is the most important point concerning wind turbine output.
If you do not know why then read my above post at April 27, 2011 at 3:27 pm which explains the matter.
You are attempting to force the discussion onto your unjustified assertion that the performance information in the FOI was wrong when that information is trivial whether it is wrong or not.
Richard
@paul birch
I juts checked with my local council about their ‘environmental initiatives’.
They are of the opinion that they can meet their statutory obligations by reducing their own energy consumption within the town hall by 10%. A laudable aim..and one that can be achieved for the price of a few Post-It notes saying ‘please switch the lights off whne leaving the office’. And they are one of the better run councils in England with a good track record of well-delivered and mostly well-accepted services.
So I just don’t believe that councils would be fined if they didn’t bugger about playing with windmills on their rooftops. They may choose to do so because they feel it is the right thing to do, because they are interested in it or because they have employed a ‘sustainability officer’ who now has to be given something to do.
But pretending that doing so is forced on you against your better judgement them by the big bad EU or the evil Westminster government is ‘stretching the truth’. There is no statutory obligation on each concil to investigate wind power. Any council that chooses to do so is making a local decision and should be locally accountable for the money they waste on doing so.
It will only take about ten minutes reading for any councillor or council officer to rediscover that all the literature agrees with Latimer’s Helpful Hints for Wind Power for Councillors.
I will restate them in case they have escaped your attention:
1. Wind power does not do what it says on the tin
2. Don’t do it
3. In case of doubt refer to 1.
And Sandwell Council have provided a fantastic public demonstratio of the proff of those laws. By spending in excess of £5,000, they have generated £20 worth of electricty in a year. This is not a good idea. If they had heeded Latimer’s Helpful Hints they would be £5,000 better off.
It is slightly disingenuous of Cllr. Paul Birch to reprsesnt himself as just an ordinary councillor, strugglign to bring benefit to his constituents.
According to this public record from Hayle Town Council, apart from his local duties, he has been employed by Penzance Town Council as a Finance Officer sine 1995
http://www.hayle.net/southward.htm#pb
I think his remarks should be viewed in that light. An absolute slap bang local government establishment insider from a big city…not only as an elected representative from a dog and pony town council.
More power to Mr. Pickles!
I’m really hoping on this side of the pond that Dems will once again beat the drum of subsidized green technology as the political ticket to vote for in 2012. Now that the subsidized money trail has been traced to our picked back pockets as we continue to sink into record government spending, I can’t imagine a single out of work democrat voting their own ticket. And maybe ever again.