| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Testing to begin on Hardscrabble wind turbines
Credit: By Stephanie Sorrell-White, GateHouse News Service, www.herkimertelegram.com 31 January 2011 ~~
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Fairfield, N.Y. – An official with the Hardscrabble wind farm project said testing of the 37 wind turbines has begun.
“They are all standing, but they haven’t reached commercial operation yet,” Paul Copleman, a spokesperson for Iberdola Renewables, said in a telephone interview Monday.
He said he anticipates a commercial operation start date to be sometime in February.
“People may already be seeing all of them turning. That’s still part of the commissioning and testing process which we do at the tail end of construction,” said Copleman.
The Hardscrabble wind farm project is the work of Atlantic Wind, a subsidiary of Iberdola Renewables. After five years of legal negotiations and getting approval from town, school and county boards, the project began the construction phase last summer.
The 37 2-megawatt wind turbines are now connected to the power grid and they stretch across the Herkimer County landscape – 25 in the town of Fairfield and 12 in the town of Norway.
The project also includes 14 miles of gravel access road, 20 miles of buried electrical lines, an interconnection facility in the town of Little Falls, two permanent 77-meter tall meteorological towers and an operations and maintenance facility.
The revenue-sharing agreement includes an annual per megawatt payment of $8,000, with a cost of living adjustment for the payments, with a floor of a 2.5 percent and a ceiling of five percent, and a $400,000 payment that was made to the county within 60 days of the start of construction.
The project sands to be awarded state subsidies after energy production begins.
The project temporarily employed about 200 people in the area for field work through a Minnesota firm. About 12 people will be employed regularly for maintenance once the project is completed.
In November, Iberdola Renewables halted construction temporarily because the concrete foundations did not meet company standards. Copleman said the foundations have since been modified and engineered to retrofit the concrete foundation. He said the 15 foundations that needed modification now “meet and exceed strength criteria.”
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 Contributions |
 (via Stripe) |
 (via Paypal) |
Share:
[ Short URL: https://wind-watch.org/news/?p=45780 ]
