Ground Investigation

In order to design a foundation for the turbine that isn’t going to sink, we have to investigate the subsoil and bedrock of the site. Unfortunately we seem to have chosen the wettest time of year to undertake this, and ground conditions are pretty much as bad as they can be. The photo gives an indication of what we were up against today!

 Using technology that probably dates back hundreds of years, a simple rig uses a falling weight to drive a tube into the ground. After each half metre or so is dug, the tube is pulled out the ground and the core extracted. The collected soil cores are documented and sent back to the laboratory for analysis. Desktop research indicated that we should have 20 metres of sticky Crewe Series glacial boulder clay, followed by mudstones, and then sandstones. We didn’t investigate the rocks, but we had 18.5 metres of beautiful uniform clay, no sand and very few stones. So, we have a perfectly predictable base on which to build the concrete foundation pad.

Getting those results was definitely a struggle though. We started this morning by trying to pull the drilling rig out to site with a tractor. We got about 10 metres through the gate before we got hopelessly bogged down. In the end we have had to hire a local contractor with a tracked excavator to haul the rig to site. The poor guys doing the job have persevered all day in the cold and wet mud, but they have come up with the results we wanted to hear!

You Pays Your Money!

That’s it, we are now committed. Today I have made a bank transfer into the supplier’s account for the sum of an awful lot of money! We have had to pay 60% of the cost of the turbine before they will take our order and begin construction. It reminds me of a trip long ago to Kenya, where we caught a taxi. The driver’s first destination was a filling station. He couldn’t afford to put fuel in his car until he had a guaranteed customer. I’m not saying that the Dutch manufacturer is like that, and I think all the suppliers work on a similar basis, but it does make you think. (At least it does when you’ve just, as they say, bet the farm!)

Permission Granted

We have it! Permission has been granted, the all important document is now in our hands. The only slightly strange thing is the attached condition that the trench for the cable from the turbine to the farm buildings must be completed before the end of March, and either be opened and closed in the same day, or covered at night. The reason for this; to stop all those poor migrating newts from falling into the trench. This has to be a good thing, and if I was a newt, I would be particularly glad. And I am glad actually that the planning authority does consider such things. But what if we wanted to plough a field and sow a crop? Would we have to put up signs to warn the newts of impending road-works, with perhaps a suggested diversion? I am being facetious of course, but you know what I’m saying!

Grid Connection

For most people, connection to the National Grid will be an essential part of their turbine installation. If however you currently do not have a mains supply, a wind turbine will effectively augment a diesel generator. Although you would not be able to export electricity, you can still qualify for feed-in tariff payments.

The electricity infrastructure companies or D.N.O.s (Distribution Network Operators) have a legal obligation to provide a grid connection as required. But if the transformer or cables need beefing up, guess who has to pay? Our transformer had been installed in 1966 when we first had mains electricity connected. It was therefore 40 years old, and although functioning perfectly, it was looking its age. However it was only rated at 44 kVA, and for our 80 kW turbine an upgrade was required. Despite the fact that the transformer belonged to the DNO not ourselves, we will have to pay the full cost of replacement. Then there has been the difficulty of dealing with the DNO. These companies, although now owned by various multinational utilities, (in our case Iberdrola of Spain), in practice are the last vestiges of the old national monopolies. As a result, you could not possibly describe them as “customer-facing” in the modern business jargon.

So, after first contact, an engineer arrived, looked around, and promised to reply within 6 weeks. After about 5 weeks (not bad, I thought), a big fat envelope arrived with a priced proposal. It looked excessively complicated, involved installing the new transformer on the opposite side of the farm and stringing a new overhead cable across the farmhouse garden. It was couched in highly technical language, but literate it was not. However I did understand the price. Approximately £35,000!!!

At this point, we did look at the possibilities of supplying our own transformer, and just asking the DNO for a connection. While this is now legally possible, the bureaucratic hoops seemed too difficult, so we asked the DNO to look at the issue again. By this time, I had learnt a good deal more about grid connection, and it also seemed that the DNO engineer was more willing to engage seriously with the problem. So, a new scheme was proposed, and a new price, this time just short of £16,000. It clearly pays to be an informed purchaser!

The Planning Application

Well, the application is now in. The Application Form itself is downloadable from the internet, is about 10 pages long, and is simplicity itself. But the supporting documentation is another story. The meat is in the “Design and Access Statement”. This can go into considerable detail, from the local and personal background of the applicants, to the general political situation and public and government attitude to climate change and renewable energy. Considerable effort is required in order to justify the site itself, in terms of maximum exposure to the wind, and yet with minimum impact on the landscape. These two items are quite hard to square, as at first glance they appear to conflict! This is also the place to talk about energy costs and their impact on the farm business, and practical matters such as how the turbine is to be transported to and installed on the site. Then there is the impact on wildlife and the environment, and it is likely that you will need to commission a professional survey to look at, principally, birds, bats and newts. It is helpful that the RSPB have recently come out in favour of wind turbines, saying that the threat to individual birds from turbine blades is insignificant when compared to the threats to entire species posed by climate change.

Then there are maps. You seem to need hundreds, maps to show where the turbine will go within your own property, maps to show the distances and directions to neighbours, and in our situation, maps to show our farm in relation to local airfields (of which there are two, a private flying club, and an RAF helicopter training station.)

My “Photoshop” skills have improved from producing nice landscape shots with the turbine pasted in. These photos are a must. We have also included information about the turbine itself, power output graphs, noise projections, comments on the likelihood of so-called “shadow flicker” (where the sun shines through the turbine blades while it is rotating, causing a flickering effect), life expectancy, and any issues around removing the turbine and base from the site at the end of its life.

If you can persuade any neighbours to write brief letters of support, or at least of not objecting, these will be very valuable.

Finally, once the application is lodged with the Planning Authority, these days it goes up on the Government’s Internet Planning Portal. This is good, because you can then log in and see how the application is progressing, together with any submissions from the public or other interested parties.

Pre-Planning Application

The planning system allows you to make a summary application with no charge, where you will get an “opinion” from a designated planning officer. Having a rough idea of what was required, and with some guidance from the installation company, we duly sent in our pre-planning application. We have had a reply as promised, and it does contain some useful pointers as to what will be required in the real thing, specifically more information about the possible impact on bats, birds and trees. One interesting phrase however, is “that the design of the turbine is not in keeping with other turbines in the area”. Remember that our anticipated turbine will have two blades. But try as I might, I just can’t think of ANY other turbines in the area, with any number of blades. This is a small point, and actually quite funny, but it is indicative of the up-hill battle we may have with the planning authority.

The opinion: “Well you might get permission, you might not.” We are going to apply formally anyway.

Local Consultation

Wind turbines are not necessarily popular with the general public, so we thought it would be a good idea to produce a leaflet detailing the basics of our proposal. This contained a few photos with the turbine photoshopped into the landscape, to give people an idea of what the it might look like. We included some information about our milking cows, and some indication of the carbon dioxide that may be saved. We also of course included contact details.

My wife and I then knocked on the doors of the 15 or so houses that will overlook the turbine. Perhaps to our surprise, we received a positive response from nearly everybody. After speaking face to face with the closest neighbours, we also put the leaflet in the local parish magazine. We did expect opposition, but all bar one of the responses were positive, in fact supportive of what we were trying to do. And everyone appreciated the local contact so that they heard about it from us, not read it in the newspaper.

I am sure that, come the planning application, this will turn out to be a very helpful exercise.

Choice of Turbine and Installer

Having decided what size of turbine is required, and secured the promise of funding, the next hurdle is to choose a manufacturer and an installer. In the range of 50 kW to 100 kW, there aren’t actually that many turbines to choose from, perhaps no more than half a dozen. You can’t really choose on price, because they are all much the same, and no one will give you a quoted installed price. You can’t even really choose on generator output because they all only work at capacity in high winds which are relatively rare. A good measure is rotor diameter, as the power output is proportional to the swept area covered by the blades. Another good comparator is the start-up wind speed, because some turbines need 4.5 m/s to start generating, whereas others will start at only 3 m/s. You get a lot of wind at those low speeds where one machine will be generating, another not. But even that’s not the whole story, because all that sophisticated control gear actually consumes power so although the turbine may be spinning and generating, you may not actually be gaining anything.

But in the end, I have chosen a Dutch machine with an 18 m diameter rotor on a 30 m tower, driving an 80 kW generator. One unusual factor is that it only has two blades not three. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad, but certainly the swept area is the same, and there is less of that expensive carbon fibre material, and less springs and flanges in the hub.

The next issue is the choice of installer, and again there are half a dozen companies advertising themselves as agents for the manufacturer. I have decided to go with a small company whose enthusiasm and lack of overhead cost will, I hope, make up for their shortage of resources.

Funding

A turbine of this size costs an awful lot of money, more than the kind of money that most people have hanging around in their savings account, and certainly more than an average dairy farmer will have accumulated over the last years of poor or non-existent returns. In our case, despite what is said about the banks’ reluctance to lend recently, our local manager has been very supportive and is funding the entire investment. This may be something to do with the fact that they have the title deeds to the farm stuffed in a cupboard somewhere! If the bank hadn’t been interested, there are other possibilities ranging from conventional lease deals to special arrangements where the farmer provides just the land in exchange for the electricity generated but the investor owns the turbine and keeps the feed-in tariff income. The bottom line is that the more you invest, the more you earn, but if you really want a turbine, there are ways of doing it.

There is also the possibility of capital grant assistance. I applied and have been accepted for assistance from the RE:think Energy scheme administered by Shropshire Council and funded by Advantage West Midlands. This money is specifically aimed at agricultural businesses, but there also may be grants or interest free loans available through the Carbon Trust. This is the link:

http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/Pages/Default.aspx

I haven’t mentioned, have I, what this turbine is going to cost? It is a lot of money. It will be about £250,000 when it is all finished. There, I’ve told you now!