Turbines up, not all running
Credit: By Monica Graham, The Chronicle Herald, thechronicleherald.ca 11 January 2010
The wind turbines atop Dalhousie Mountain began sending electricity to the power grid late last month, but not all the vanes will spin all the time throughout January.
Although they’ve been operating since Dec. 23, each of the 34 identical machines must undergo a turbine reliability test to demonstrate it can produce a given amount of power in a given wind, RMSenergy president Reuben Burge said Sunday.
The tests need certain wind speeds, so January’s variable weather has created challenges in trying to complete the process. But Mr. Burge expects the tests will be completed by the end of the month. The tests mean that some turbines will be shut down at various times.
“On and off, you’ll see them,” Mr. Burge said during a cellphone interview as he headed toward the Pictou County site to continue the tests.
A breeze of 20 to 25 kilometres an hour is enough to produce electricity, but more wind doesn’t produce more electricity, he said.
“Once it gets to a certain point, it doesn’t matter how strong it is,” he said, adding that the vanes are designed to let high winds slip past. If the wind is too high, the turbines operate roughly.
The RMSenergy wind farm, Nova Scotia’s largest, can produce a total of 51 megawatts of power when all the 1.5- megawatt turbines are running.
That’s enough electricity for 17,000 homes.
The electricity is sold to Nova Scotia Power through a long-term fixed-price purchase agreement, a method designed to stabilize energy costs.
The project has generated intense community interest, Mr. Burge said.
It created more than 100 summer and fall construction jobs and 10 full-time jobs to operate the wind farm. Local workers have filled most of the jobs.
Mr. Burge said he plans to operate the site for the next couple of years while assessing opportunities.
“If the market and the economics make sense and the wind blows as it’s supposed to, then I’d plan for another phase,” he said.
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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