LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Turbine flaws soon repaired 

A lateral crack three meters wide and 10 feet long on one of the blades was cause to shut down one of the turbines south of Fairmont.

The crack, believed to be a factory flaw, was found in mid-February. Around the same time, another smaller crack was discovered on the blade of a second turbine.

The repair job was delayed by a number of factors, but things should be getting on track soon – if the wind isn’t too strong for workers to do their job. Weather permitting, work on two of Fairmont’s four wind turbines was scheduled to start this week.

The rotor, which consists of three 131-foot long blades and the hub, weighs 43,000 pounds. Taking it down is no small task – two 300-ton capacity cranes are needed for the job. The cranes were held up by road construction. Then when the cranes finally arrived, no workers were available to fix the damaged blades, according to Tom Kueritz, public utilities director.

The cracks should be epoxied, and the rotor hoisted back in place in a matter of three weeks, Kueritz hopes.

“We’ve lost a lot of generation off those with the winds we’ve had,” Kueritz said.

Figuring out how much energy and dollars were lost during the past four months is difficult, according to Larry Johnston with Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, the agency that owns the turbines.

“How many kilowatt hours we’ve lost in the production process – that’s really hard to get a handle on without going through each of the daily wind speeds and trying to come up with that and applying it to the power curve for those turbines,” Johnston said.

Johnston did make a very rough estimate of “4-5 million kilowatt hours that we’re probably missing during the down period of time.”

And time is money. While the repair work is under warranty through Vestas of Denmark, Johnston wasn’t certain if the company will reimburse SMMPA for the lost energy.

“We’re currently looking through our warranty and taking a look at how those things are impacted and trying to get our hands on those next steps to see what they are,” Johnston said.

“The most important thing to us of course is we’ve got cranes back on site and we can get them up and operating,” he added.

The two damaged 1.65 Megawatt turbines have been running since 2005. The other two turbines, on the west side of the highway, went up in 2003.

By Megan Feddersen
Staff Writer

The Sentinel

19 June 2007

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon