| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Turbine output gone with the wind
Credit: IAN HARVEY, From Friday's Globe and Mail, www.theglobeandmail.com 28 April 2011 ~~
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Toronto’s iconic wind turbine on the edge of Lake Ontario has been brought to a grinding halt by a combination of a bearing failure and, ironically, high winds.
The lazily spinning, three-bladed turbine at the Exhibition grounds has been frozen since mid-March. It’s the latest hiccup for the project which was launched in 2002 when 427 investors raised $800,000 to buy 8,000 shares in the 750-kilowatt generator.
Windshare, the co-operative which runs the turbine, hopes to get it up and running as soon as the weather co-operates, said president Dianne Saxe.
“The cranes are there, the bearing is there and they’re working on it,” she said adding getting a bearing itself was a challenge. “Every time we’d find a bearing for sale it would be sold. Because of the demand for wind power, demand for these bearings is also high and they sell them as soon as they make them.”
Indeed, the blades were off Wednesday before Thursday’s windstorm hit.
Compounding the issue was the bankruptcy of the Dutch windmill manufacturer, Lagerwey, which rendered the maintenance contract and warranty useless, said Ms. Saxe.
While Windshare’s original investors split dividend payments of $32,000 from the sale of power in 2005, profits since then have been ploughed back into the turbine for maintenance, Ms. Saxe said, adding the bearing replacement will cost $200,000.
“We had no idea how to run it, and, so in 2006, 2007, 2008 there was a lot of downtime, though it was working,” she said. “Then a couple of volunteers took it on themselves to learn how to run it. Thanks to them in 2009 and 2010 it ran at 95 per cent, generating about 1000 megawatts (enough to power 200 homes for a year).”
Still making money from the turbine wasn’t the goal, said Ms. Saxe, an environmental lawyer who drives a hybrid. It is also not part of the Ontario government’s Feed In Tariff program, which subsidizes almost all other wind and solar projects in the province.
“It was built to demonstrate the technology and raise the profile of wind energy,” she said.
Windshare hoped to build a second turbine at Ashbridges Bay and raised $300,000 from investors for that, but discussions with the Toronto Port Authority broke down. In the meantime, it is developing a project in the Bruce Peninsula pending transmission line logistics and is working on a similar concept, Solarshare, to install solar panels on rooftops in Toronto.
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=8353 ]
