Delivery Day

A very exciting day today: The turbine and tower arrived this morning all packed up on an articulated lorry. A bit of a problem occurred in that we had been lead to believe that we could unload it all with the farm’s telescopic loader. This was completely impossible in that the various components had to be lifted out through the roof of the vehicle, so there was a delay of several hours while we located a crane. Fortunately there was one working not too far away so by 5 pm all the components had been unloaded safely and the control cabinet put away in the dry. The tower was in three sections, the two blades were packed inside one of the tower sections, and the generator and gearbox unit was wedged on top of the tower sections in the lorry. It has also to be said that the quality of some of the pallets that the equipment was secured to, left something to be desired. Now all we have to do is install it on its concrete pad and connect it to the mains.

The New Transformer

Manweb, the local Distribution Network Operator, have been today and spent my £16,000. To be fair, it was a major undertaking, with two cherry pickers, a lorry with Hiab crane, a couple of vans and a Landrover with a foreman. They disconnected the supply to the old transformer, and after going through what seemed like an endless list of health & safety checks, proceeded to remove the old transformer and replace it with the new. We have also taken the opportunity to upgrade the supply, replacing the 45 year old 44 kVA transformer with a 100 kVA. The old one wouldn’t have been any use for the 80 kW turbine anyway.

The interesting thing about changing the old transformer though is that if it had actually failed, Manweb would have replaced it at their expense. But because we needed it changing for the new supply arrangements, we have had to pay the full cost even though the old one was 45 years old and was showing some serious signs of corrosion when they got it on the ground. Manweb’s reasoning was that they wouldn’t have had to pay anything at all if it wasn’t for us, as the old transformer may have lasted another 10 years before failing.

All went well, and the job was completed between 9 am and 3 pm so that our regular dairy milking regime wasn’t disrupted. They also recovered the redundant poles as the new supply is buried underground. So we now have our new electricity supply in place, all ready and waiting for the turbine to be installed.

Laying the Cable

The issue of the cable to connect the turbine in the field with the meter point in the farm buildings has caused us some trouble. My original budget, based on a 50 mm diameter cable was for about £6,000 supplied and laid. However, because of the distance involved, a much larger 90 mm cable has been necessary. This has cost a lot more money, and has all together been more difficult to lay because it is so much heavier. Including excavation and back-filling of the trench, and the cost of the cable itself, this will come in at nearly £17,000, almost three times my budget. Over the life of the turbine, getting the site right in terms of maximum exposure to the wind will be much more important than the cost, but this will stretch my budget quite seriously.

Last week though, has been highly entertaining. We suspended the cable drum from the front bucket of a Case digger, and pulled it out with the second digger. The interesting bit was getting it through a culvert under the road, but we did manage just about. It was fun though, lots of blokes running about shouting stop, go, stop, go, into their mobile phones and all feeling very important! These were mostly from the electrical contractor who were more used to wiring up lights and power sockets in nice warm houses than running round fields in the middle of the country.