Idle Wind Turbine in Portsmouth

People in Portsmouth are angry.  Portsmouth is the historic South coast of England town where Sir Francis Drake finished a game of bowls before setting off to defeat the Spanish Armada in the times of Elizabeth the First.

In 2007 Council voters approved a £multi-million bond to erect a wind turbine 330 foot high to the tip of the the blades behind the tennis courts of the local High School. But the turbine has for the past two years (come June) been idle, due to a broken gear.

Finally in the last few days someone was spotted atop the turbine (see picture below). Were things finally moving to get the turbine working again? Not so fast. Things don’t move that quickly in Councilville it seems.

It was an inspection that was to inform a decision on whether to repair the turbine or, incredibly, take it down.

Town Planner Gary Crosby said on the day of the inspection:

“Today was our day for a big inspection. We’re trying to decide whether to fix the turbine or take it down. The company that we have selected to go ahead with it — if that’s what we do — has given us some quotes on doing the work. But we decided what we really needed to do ahead of time was a full-blown inspection of the turbine.”

Mr. Crosby doesn’t want the gear to be mended only to find a problem with the blade or something else that occurred during the near two years of non-operation.  The good news is the inspection revealed that the turbine appeared to be in good shape.

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However,  Mr Crosby said that  if the town does borrow money to replace the gear box and get the turbine running again, the operation won’t be the money-maker that it originally set out to be. Any revenue generated will go toward the hired company’s operations and maintenance and to pay off the debt owed on the turbine. The rest will go into a “self-insurance fund” in case anything else goes wrong with the turbine. Seems like a no-win, no-win situation- but at least it’s not a lose-lose neutral one!

One might raise eyebrows at why the Council didn’t go for a guaranteed period of operation with the turbine’s manufacturers installers, or at least a 5-10 year maintenance contract, but hats off to Mr Crosby who ascended the turbine intending to walk on the nacelle. He said:

“It’s pretty amazing. Climbing a ladder 213 feet straight up is not an easy task. The turbine monkeys were climbing all around, but I was so nervous I just barely stuck half of my torso out of the hatch.”

As someone who suffers from vertigo, I don’t blame him.

How did this situation come about? The 1.5-megawatt turbine was commissioned in March 2009. The turbine had a 20-year life expectancy but was shut down June 18, 2012, after the gearbox showed significant worn. An independent investigation blamed the damage on a faulty gearbox (perhaps a kamikaze seagull?). The gearbox, however, was no longer covered by warranty and the manufacturer of the turbine, AAER Wind Energy of Quebec, was no longer in business. Three of five turbines of the same make and model erected in California and Templeton, Mass., also suffered gearbox failure. No surprise the company went out of business then.

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