From The Buffalo News
Just a few years after the New York State Thruway Authority spent about $5 million on five wind turbines, four of them stand dormant. This is the wind turbine at Thruway Exit 59 at Fredonia. (Mark Mulville/Buffalo News)
Thruway Authority sues maker of wind turbines that don’t work
By Jonathan D. Epstein | Published 1:05 p.m. December 27, 2018 | Updated 7 hours ago
Four years after spending $5 million to install wind turbines at four highway exits, the New York State Thruway Authority is now suing the company, contractor and consultants who installed them because the machines haven’t worked since last year.
The authority on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Vergnet Group S.A., Prudent Engineering LLP, Ravi Engineering & Land Surveying PC, Kandey Company Inc. and CHA Consulting Inc., citing the failure of four turbines along the Thruway in Chautauqua and Erie counties. The machines are located on authority property at exits 61, 59, 58 and 57A.
The turbines were installed in 2013-2014 as part of a renewable energy program designed to generate enough power to save the authority as much as $420,000 a year on energy bills. The authority spent $500,000 on design and up to $4.8 million on installation. But the machines went offline between October 2017 and January 2018 because of mechanical issues.
The suit alleges negligence, professional malpractice, breach of warranty and breach of contract. The authority seeks to recoup $8.1 million from the installation and operation of the two-blade machines, plus interest, costs and collection fees. The state Attorney General’s Office is handling the litigation for the authority.
According to the lawsuit, West Seneca-based Kandey was selected to install the turbines through a competitive bidding process, and hired Vergnet, a French company that manufactured the machines. But Vergnet was placed in receivership more than a year ago because of severe cash flow problems, and was taken over by a consortium of five companies led by asset management firm Arum International.
Albany-based CHA Consulting – formerly Clough Harbor & Associates LLP – provided preliminary engineering services, final design services and construction support for the project, while East Syracuse-based Prudent Engineering provided construction inspection services for the installation. Prudent also served as a subconsultant to Ravi Engineering for program management, monitoring and maintenance services.
Joe Kandefer, vice president at Kandey, the general contractor on the project, said the company has not yet received the lawsuit, but insisted that Kandey had “complied in all respects with the contract documents,” which required purchase of the specific windmills from Vergnet, “with no substitution allowed.”
“We were not negligent in any way whatsoever,” Kandefer said by email. “Kandey Company purchased the windmills from Vergnet, as required, and properly installed and tested them. At this time, we are unaware of the details as to why the windmills are offline, but Kandey Company is confident that we did nothing wrong and will be vindicated in court.”
None of the other companies could be reached for comment Thursday except for Ravi, which declined to comment.
A fifth turbine, installed near Exit 60 at the Westfield Maintenance Facility, was manufactured by a different company, Northern Power Systems of Vermont, and is still operating. It is not part of the lawsuit.
HT/TJ
Only a Govt authority would spend $5.3 million to save $420 k per year on wind turbines. If the figures are correct, which they probably are not, that is a payback period of 12.6 years… which is not far short of the actual life span of the machines.
That is just crazy!
12.6 years doesn’t include interest on the loans needed to buy and construct the things.
Nor does it include any kind of maintenance on the ones that aren’t already broken beyond fixing.
I’ll bet it also doesn’t cover decomissioning costs.
Nice to see that the American made turbine is still operating.
Well they look like 200kW size turbines which if running at the typical efficiency of 25% of installed capacity would yield just 50kW each which at $0.20/kWh gives a value of $10/hr gross. That would only produce about $90,000/year per turbine. All five working at max efficiency would provide only $450,000/year gross. even using domestic NY rates for electricity? I am sure the NY authorities don’t pay 20 cent/kWh so the return from these Green Pillars of Virtue, would be even less than my estimate.
If you add in the cost of maintenance and monitoring plus the lost investment income from the projects capital cost of $5 million, there was never any possibility those turbines would yield a saving of $500,000/year.
That then begs the question, who authorised them and who did the number?
I hope the law suit goes forward, because the logic behind these projects and who is responsible will have to be revealed in open court.
I have a dumb question. Why do they use giant blade design instead of small scoop design? I recall a small-windmill design from many moons ago that was basically a halved 55 gallon drum, used because it was spectacularly efficient even at ground level, especially in low wind conditions. Seems to me this would require a lot less engineering if only because it’s not subject to so much dangling-way-the-hell-out-there stress.
scoop designs are heavier and very ineffective at converting wind into power. They also experience a lot of drag in high winds. This means the supporting structure needs to be much stronger. Overall all vertical axis wind turbine are less effective and cost more and produce less power than the current 3 blade horizontal wind turbine.
OOPS! So this “Throwaway Authority” having just thrown away a load of dosh is now hell bent on growing away a load more into the hands of the lawyers.
Must be a blow to the budget ho ho ho just stand a few politician’s in front of them, they’ll wiz around in no time.
When I travel through windmill country, Rosinante like, I am very distracted counting and estimating the fraction of non-functioning windmills. Usually about 10% are not turning with their neighbors, very seldom do I see all the windmills in a development turning.
Has anyone ever heard a private windmill owner brag on their ROI? Nyaah, windmills are a tool of touts, salesmen, and crooked investment advisors.
I travel through South Shropshire once every week, there is a wind turbine in a very prominent position that has not turned a blade in over a year and counting.
I will keep you posted.
Take that propeller, add 7 more to make 8, put ’em on a giant spruce-wood airplane, and now you GOT something!
Maybe they need to sue the person (probably a government worker), who sole-sourced the windmills in the first place. I just wonder if there were any kickbacks involved.
I’m old enough to remember back when the NYS Thruway (and NJ’s Garden State Parkway) were to be toll free as soon as the bonds to build them were paid off. Per Wikipedia:
I recall promise dates much earlier than ’96; and that tolls would be reduced as those bonds fell away year by year.
It is interesting to read about the “father” of the concept of creating “authorities” as self contained entities (Robt Moses) to take funding (and most of the approvals thereof) out of the hands of state legislators. But like most things in the natural world “authorities” found their way back to state control (and a source of state funds).
Yep, there’s a wind farm about 20 miles away with about 40 turbines, and about half of them are inoperational at any time, an even mix of turning and inert windmills. But whenever you see a TV reporter talking about wind power, you always see 100% turning windmills behind them. How long does it take them to figure out a spot where they can get such a background, in the midst of so much failure? Fake News!
Can anyone comment on whether vertical axis wind turbines offer any promise as more reliable and simpler – engineered turbines – for instance they don’t have to turn to face the wind, axle stresses are lower and the gearing assembly is much lower down, making maintenance and repair easier:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_axis_wind_turbine
Vertical axis turbines have been tried many times and have never live up to expectations. Additionally they as significantly less effective at converting wind energy into electrical energy. Also the design means the blades are closer to the ground were the wind is more turbulant and not as strong.
If you go to the airport and look at aircraft you will see most look about the same . Over many years the industry has concluded that todays common design has the best overall performance. Same applies to wind turbines. Most sold today are horizontal axis wind turbines. And the vast majority have 3 blades. Why they simply work better than vertical axis and 3 blades work better than 4, 2, and 1 blade designs that were all tried in the 1970s.
While this was in Central New York, the wind turbine aka “Pinwheel” industry and their supporters have a lot of ‘splaining to do. https://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/120-foot_blade_falls_off_windmill_that_previously_topped_in_madison_county.html
Should change their name to New York State Throw-Away Authority.
NY is a magnet for green things that don’t work. Has anyone seen any of the Tesla solar roof tiles lately from the mega solar factory in Buffalo?
Virtue signaling is not supposed to spin or produce electricity. It just sits there signaling like store music in the head while silently enriching the instigators.
Ravi needs to be investigated.