August 12, 2006
With much fanfare Assembly Minister Andrew Davies opened the Cefn Croes Wind Power Station in June 2005.
According to developers RDC (backed by ENRON) this would provide 1% of the electricity for Wales, and power 40,000 homes.
Cefn Croes was touted as the ‘flagship’ and ‘landmark’ project – the ‘exemplar’ for the Welsh assembly Government’s Energy Policy, promoted under TAN8.
Yet, within a year of its official commissioning, the Italian owned power station, with its imported 1.5MW machines is failing to deliver.
Two of the 39 turbines have been static for nearly 3 months. The remainder have been idle for most of the last 10 weeks.
Falck Renewables and Cambrian Wind Energy will not answer questions as to the reason for this malfunctioning.
Local monitors of Cefn Croes have now discovered the reason – faulty blades.
Six, 25 metre rotor blades have been taken down and replaced.
The defunct blades, showing considerable signs of wear & tear are now on trailers around the site, presumably awaiting transport back to the manufacturer on the continent. Meantime, Cefn Croes still isn’t working.
What a good thing we still have generating capacity from hydroelectric, coal & natural gas – reliable sources.
Cefn Croes provides further proof that wind cannot be relied upon to deliver a reliable electricity supply.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2006/08/12/press-release-from-the-local-cefn-croes-monitors/