July 18, 2013
Massachusetts

Scituate wind turbine running, but problems from lightning strike persist

By Jessica Trufant | The Patriot Ledger | Posted Jul 18, 2013 | www.patriotledger.com

The Scituate wind turbine is running again, but only sporadically, more than three weeks after it was hit by lightning.

Sumul Shah of Solaya Energy, which owns the turbine with Palmer Capital, said Wednesday that it could be a few weeks before it is cleared as having been fully repaired.

“It’s on, but we’re still troubleshooting some issues that don’t impact the operations,” Shah said. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

The turbine, on the Driftway, went back online last Thursday, 16 days after it was damaged by a lightning strike.

Fuses in the turbine have been replaced, but the troubleshooting of systems that “come into play in extreme circumstances” is continuing, Shah said.

Determining whether there are problems with the any of the systems requires the turbine to be running.

The turbine was back offline Sunday and Monday, according to Power Dash, a website that records the turbine’s energy production. It ran infrequently again on Tuesday and Wednesday, when it produced about 2,100 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

On June 23, the day before it was damaged, the turbine produced about 22,000 kilowatt-hours.

Scituate Wind LLC, a joint venture of Palmer Capital and Solaya Energy, has lost more than $20,000 in revenue because of the halt in energy production.

Town Engineer Kevin Cafferty said the damage has not affected the town, which leases the turbine site to Scituate Wind and buys the electricity the turbine produces.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/07/18/scituate-wind-turbine-running-but-problems-from-lightning-strike-persist/