Comments on Granite Viewpoint: Electricity in NH - Wind Power

Kibby Mountain Wind Turbine The 132 MW wind turbi...

2011-12-30T16:56:11.962-05:00

Kibby Mountain Wind Turbine

The 132 MW wind turbine facility, capital cost about $330 million, is
owned by TransCanada and was built, after a lot of destruction, on one
of the most beautiful ridge lines in Maine. TransCanada and Vestas the
claimed that the capacity factor would be 0.32, or greater. It was
placed in service on 10/31/2009.

Its FERC designation is Trans Canadian Wind Development, Inc. in case
you want to look up the below data.
Here is the FERC site
http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/eqr/data/spreadsheet.asp

In 2009 and 2010, the facility had a lot of startup problems and its
energy production was negligible.
In 2011, it had a capacity factor of 22.5% for the first 9 months.
For the 3rd quarter of 2011, it was 14.42%. Monthly capacity factors
were as follows:
July 18.48%
Aug 12.31%
Sept 12.41%

Why are the CFs so low?

Winds on ridge lines have highly-irregular velocities AND directions.
This does not show up when one does wind velocity testing for
feasibility, but when rotors are 373 feet in diameter, one part of a
rotor will likely see a different wind velocity AND direction from
another part. This leads to highly inefficient energy production and
CFs. Wind vendors are very familiar with this, but do not mention it.
However, all is explained in this article. I recommend the VT-DPS and
House Environment and Energy Committee, and all others, finally read
this article, before "leading" Vermont into an expensive energy
la-la-land.
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/61309/lowell-mountain-wind-turbine-facility-vermont

Based on an email I got from the folks at Iberadol...

2009-08-21T18:01:54.732-04:00

Based on an email I got from the folks at Iberadola Renewables (the company that build the Lempster Wind project), I've updated the Lempster Wind capacity factor again. The 33% number I used was from some PUC filings by PSNH, but Iberdrola tells me that 36-37% is the correct number.

I'll also fix the wikipedia article as well.

Jim

Dave, Thanks for the comments and the link-back o...

2009-07-06T17:51:48.584-04:00

Dave,

Thanks for the comments and the link-back on Wikipedia.

Once I saw you were quoting the Lempster annual production, I went back to re-check where I got that. I thought for sure I read it was 30% somewhere, but to be sure I went back to the PUC filings and saw that Lempster Wind LLC was projecting 33%. That raises the annual production from 63k to 69k.

Anyhow, I updated all my figures above to reflect the correct 33% capacity factor and I'll update the wikipedia article as well. Sorry about that!

Jim

By the way, this post is now the official referenc...

2009-07-06T16:14:09.106-04:00

By the way, this post is now the official reference in the Wikipedia article "Wind Power in New Hampshire" for the Lempster Mountain annual output figure. So you have to maintain this blog forever, or disappointed Wikipedia hordes will descend upon you!

At the risk of blog-rolling, great analysis. As so...

2009-07-06T11:14:36.618-04:00

At the risk of blog-rolling, great analysis. As soon as I can, I will steal it - er, discuss/link to it!

Dave Brooks
www.granitegeek.org