Wind Turbine oil frozen. HOW does this happen?

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Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs constitute a sizeable share of the total annual costs of a wind turbine. For a new turbine, O&M costs may easily make up 20-25 per cent of the total levelised cost per kWh produced over the lifetime of the turbine. If the turbine is fairly new, the share may only be 10-15 per cent, but this may increase to at least 20-35 per cent by the end of the turbine’s lifetime.

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Due to the relative infancy of the wind energy industry, there are only a few turbines that have reached their life expectancy of 20 years.

http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/en/...ated-power.html
 
Fuel costs ???...Coal plants will use 3-4 times the capital cost of construction in fuel costs in their 25 year design life.

And probably use the equivalent of the construction cost in O&M, then take around 10-20% of the construction cost to dismantle and rehabilitate the site.

There's not ANY ultra super critical coal plants that have reached anywhere near their design life...they haven't existed long enough to get there or not.
 
Interesting. It was 35 F yesterday. The turbine by office is still not in operation. What temp will it start to work at? It appears to rotate OK with the wind direction though.
 
If it's 35° outside, the wind is blowing, and the windmill isn't working, then something is wrong with it. They're too expensive to just sit there adorning the landscape. I doubt that it's the lube. That should be able to be changed out without too much trouble.
 
If it's by your office, I'd guess that it's only a couple foot diameter, rather than a couple hundred ?
 
The units in question are roughly 160kw units for about $300,000 (before the cold weather problem popped up). The blades are about 40 ft in length, about 115 feet tall total. They are not the "big ones" so to speak.

There is one of those just about 4 or 5 miles south of this one as the crow flies. That one is a 1.5 MW unit, and stands about 385 feet tall from the ground to the tip of the blades at full vertical. That unit ran about 1.8 Million Dollars for installation. That has been running regularly this winter - went into operation earlier last year.
 
Blades were turning today - very slowly, but they were turning. Wind is about 8 miles an hour, and it is about 30 Degrees F outside today.
 
Consider this, since most WT transmissions use a 1:100 gear ratio, the airfoils have to turn at least 18 RPM since the electrical generators run at 1,800 rpm.

So no useful power is produced until a minimum wind speed is available to turn the prop (blades) at this minimum rpm.
 
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Todays newspaper:

Iowa has 3700 Megawatts of windpower, about 20 percent of total production in the state - and one of the highest in the nation.

Another 1,000 megawatts planned.

Electric Rates remain well below average, 7c Per Kw, national average is 10c.

Whats not to like??

My home, all lit with CFL bulbs, an energy efficient furnace and reasonably efficient refrigerator (1994 model, they have gotten better yet) just yielded another $35 monthly electric bill. Costs: I had to replace a CFL yesterday, $5 bucks - it was the spotlight type. First CFL replacement in two years, although I understand some Chinese made brands to be much less reliable.

Lowes had an LED spotlight bulb, for $70!! First time I had seen them there, I wanted one but not quite that bad!

The cost to our efficient, renewable energy future may not be as draconian as some are raging about!!
 
More on cold weather wind turbines: Alliant energy has noted that winter electricity demands rise rapidly as the wind speed goes up. Our many electrically heated/geothermal furnaces kick in and run hard when the winter winds are strong....

Several years of operating experience have shown that our windpower helps the baseload generators run at more constant output levels.... and that even makes the conventional electricity cheaper!

So put some winter oil in those things and keep them turning!!
 
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Several years of operating experience have shown that our windpower helps the baseload generators run at more constant output levels

Do you have link for this? The exact opposite is true in Texas.

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Whats not to like??

Massive subsidies.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
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Whats not to like??

Massive subsidies.


Yep, all those battle fleets patrolling the shipping lanes, hundreds of thousands of soldiers defending the flow of the wind to the turbines, etc. etc.
 
Tell me, what do you think will happen when the oil dries up and we need lithium, lead, copper, or whatever else for battery power?

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The ghosts of Kamaoa are not alone in warning us. Five other abandoned wind sites dot the Hawaiian Isles -- but it is in California where the impact of past mandates and subsidies is felt most strongly. Thousands of abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy's California "big three" locations -- Altamont Pass, Tehachapi, and San Gorgonio -- considered among the world's best wind sites.

Built in 1985, at the end of the boom, Kamaoa soon suffered from lack of maintenance. In 1994, the site lease was purchased by Redwood City, CA-based Apollo Energy.

Cannibalizing parts from the original 37 turbines, Apollo personnel kept the declining facility going with outdated equipment. But even in a place where wind-shaped trees grow sideways, maintenance issues were overwhelming. By 2004 Kamaoa accounts began to show up on a Hawaii State Department of Finance list21 of unclaimed properties. In 2006, transmission was finally cut off by Hawaii Electric Company.

California's wind farms -- then comprising about 80% of the world's wind generation capacity -- ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
Much more of the sad story of wind power in the US (as well as Europe) at that link.
 
I listed some things in the other thread like non-corn ethanol but who knows. I figure wind will eventually be a power source but that will be a long way off. It must be viable in the free market for it to work. The link above makes it plainly obvious that subsidizing it is a disaster...which was plenty predictable. Always happens when you subsidize things.

You will always require a strong military to protect your interests...regardless of what your power supply is.
 
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It must be viable in the free market for it to work. The link above makes it plainly obvious that subsidizing it is a disaster...which was plenty predictable. Always happens when you subsidize things.


Like nuclear? I'm paying for my share of Limerick nuke plant to provide south Jersey with power that they no longer need.

Your phone, cable, and internet connections were all "subsidized". Do you want to get rid of them?
 
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