November 15, 2016
Illinois

Lake Land board votes to remove north wind turbine

Rob Stroud | November 14, 2016 | jg-tc.com

MATTOON – The Lake Land Board of Trustees voted Monday evening to authorize removing the north wind turbine near the West Building.

In addition, the board authorized removing the blades from the nearby south turbine so this unit can continue to be utilized for educational purposes for Lake Land students. This project would cost Lake Land an estimated $30,000.

“Neither one of them have been functioning here on campus,” said Vice President for Business Services Bryan Gleckler. He added that mechanical problems with both Bora turbines, installed in 2012, were compounded by the south turbine being damaged by lightning.

Gleckler said the CTS Group assisted Lake Land with developing three options for removing the north turbine while retaining the south one, to meet the education requirements of the federal grant funding for the turbines.

The two options for using donated Endurance equipment to replace part or all of the south turbine would have each cost Lake Land nearly $200,000, Gleckler said.

Gleckler said a fully functional Endurance turbine operating at 100 percent capacity could generate as much as $16,800 in energy on an annual basis. He said with an estimated annual maintenance cost of at least $2,500 per year, the net savings would be $14,300 per year.

However, Gleckler said at a cost of nearly $200,000 to procure the parts necessary and install the Endurance turbine, it would take approximately 14 years for the turbine to make the return on the investment, assuming no significant mechanical problem occurs.

Given the high cost of these two options for the south turbine, Gleckler recommended the estimated $30,000 option of removing the north turbine and removing the blades from the south turbine. He said this will eliminate the liability issue of having a nonfunctioning turbine with blades still on it.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/11/15/lake-land-board-votes-to-remove-north-wind-turbine/