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Wednesday 2 November 2011

Wind turbines are still crap

I was led to believe from previous information that biggest problems with offshore wind turbines was gearbox failure.

However It appears that I was wrong. Gearbox failure is not the most prevalent fault.

Failures of electrical and controls systems are the root cause of wind turbine repairs in 50% of cases, and operators should expect an electronic or electrical subassembly failure every 2 to 2.5 years, according to Wind Energy Update’s Offshore operations and Maintenance report 2011, released today.

So let me get this straight in my mind. We have a failure rate of the gearboxes after only seven years, and now it is iterated that we have electrical failures every 2 to 2.5 years.

According to the report’s authors, while the failure rate event of electrical system and control faults/failures may not have the highest associated downtime, a higher frequency of occurrence translates into the highest mean annual downtime.

Has our Energy secretary been appraised with these facts as he dashes for more bird mincers? Probably not.

I leave you with this little snippet.

With estimated annual O&M costs at €100,000 to €300,000 per 2MW-3MW offshore turbine and at €200,000 to €720,000 for larger turbines (according to a previous Wind Energy Update report), operators need access to more reliable data, stresses the report.

You can read the whole article HERE.

And weep.

Another victim of the economy

It always seems to be the young who suffer the most!

 

 

finger

 

no shoes

 

The 'poor little thing' has no shoes!