Ever wonder about which bits of a wind turbine fails the most? Well here you are.
What surprised me was that as these are onshore, why should the towers fail? I would have put bearings, gearboxes, and blades first. How can a tower built on land fail? It’s not as we have massive earthquakes every year. I expect it of offshore turbines due to poor grouting and scour of the sea bed around the towers, but not onshore. I wouldn’t want one of those on my doorstep.
And we’re paying a green Tariff for these poorly constructed blots on the landscape. Sheesh.
The graph comes from a source that is from a wind turbine company which I’d rather not mention here. If so my source of information may dry up.
Is that a Capital Cost Breakdown (as in Analysis), rather than a Capital Cost Breakdown (as in Failure)?
ReplyDeleteThe ones on land are usually sitting in hundreds of tons of concrete. The off-shore masts are wobbling about in poor foundations (as you so rightly observe), so they probably have some "give" to absorb sudden loads. The land based towers also have to contend with shock loads due to turbulence from nearby buildings/trees/high ground, etc which offshore masts don't.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe the locals creep up in the dead of night, hook up a JCB with a length of rope, give it some welly and then bugger off...
Microdave-nahh...probably some evil minded soul [say like yours truly] with a supremely low tolerance for GREEN stupidity, got to feeling evil enough that they took a hack saw to it and weakened the structure.
ReplyDelete*grin*
I see in the papers today, someone is suggesting a "Turbine Tax", rather than a "Mansion Tax". I'm all for that.
ReplyDelete"They took a hack saw to it"
ReplyDeleteThat would take rather a long time, I fear. Surely a modified one of these would be better?
I'm waiting for the first Marine 'Ship mows down turbines' story in a Winter storm.
ReplyDeleteWe need a Titanic in the North sea. (full of green lentil munchers of course).
ReplyDeleteSorry, but is this not a breakdown of the Capital Costs of a wind turbine, rather than what actually breaks down?
ReplyDeleteFor instance the largest cost you have to pay when you build a turbine is the 30% for the tower and 25% for the generator.
Just saying!!