Feed-in Tariff Progress

At last we seem to be making progress with the “Clean Energy Cash-back” set-up with Scottish Power. All the forms are now completed and an account number has been issued. They have agreed to back date all payments to the turbine installation date, and I have sent them meter readings of generated power. Unfortunately they have still been unable to re-programme the import/export meter to actually display exported electricity, but they are happy to rely on my calculations. At just 3p per kWh, it’s not a great deal of money anyway. So now I am waiting for my first cheque.

Manweb Update

A DNO engineer has been to look at the installation, and seems quite happy to step the transformer output down by one increment. This is 2.5% or approximately 6 volts. He will have to consult with his superiors though. While on site, he also asked why the G59 relay cannot be adjusted so that the turbine is more tolerant of variable grid voltages. Unfortunately we have one guy from Manweb saying “Adjust the G59, that will fix it”, and another Manweb engineer (of equivalent seniority, I asked!), saying that under no circumstances can the G59 relay be changed.

Working Again

The engineers returned yesterday with the replacement revolution monitor, and despite extremely cold, wet and quite windy weather, Neil bravely climbed the tower and replaced the part. It is working again! They have also taken the opportunity to make some changes to the control software, such that if the turbine goes off from a high voltage spike, it will now restart of its own accord. We have also decided to again remove the output limiter, so that given sufficient wind the turbine should now generate up to its rated capacity of 80 kW.

Breakdown

My turbine has stopped working. By logging in to the turbine’s fault log, we learn that the revolution monitor has failed. Without this of course the turbine shuts down, as it won’t know how fast it is going. The engineers came yesterday to fix it, but ironically it was too windy to climb the tower so they sat in the pick-up all day, then went home. They have been back today, and discovered that the monitor is actually broken, so a new one has been ordered up from Holland. Meanwhile we have had some really windy days. It is so frustrating to see the trees blowing about like mad, and the turbine stationary.

Farm Open Day

I went to see a smaller turbine today, on a farm near Newport in Shropshire. The event was organised by a company called Natural Energy (http://www.naturalenergyuk.co.uk/). The turbine was an 11 kW Gaia 133 on an 18m tower. In operation since July, it had generated some 6,500 kWh. That’s pretty good for such a small machine, and statistically this autumn has not been a very windy time.

At last, there is a bit of momentum developing in the onshore turbine market, though there is a long way to go to achieve the Government’s target of 20% renewable generation by 2020. Natural Energy told me that they have about 100 planning applications on the go, so if every other installation company has a similar order book, we will soon begin to see the turbines popping up all over the place.

Newspaper Article

I have succeeded in getting an article in the local newspaper, the Shropshire Star. It is at least a quarter of a page with a nice (though I say it myself!) picture of myself with the turbine behind. Please have a look: http://www.shropshirestar.com/shropshire-business/2010/11/09/shropshire-farmer-turns-to-wind-turbine-power/. It describes my project, and publicises my consultancy role. It went in yesterday’s paper, and today I have received my first enquiry, from a local farmer.

I have also received an email from the local branch of the CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England) expressing an interest in the turbine. Their website is http://www.cpreshropshire.org.uk/. I would have expected them to be generally against wind turbines, but reading their policy statements it seems that they are positively in favour of “appropriate” developments. I’m not sure what is appropriate, because you can’t avoid the fact that turbines do make a significant impact on the landscape, and by definition they should be sited in order to maximise wind harvesting which means out in the open away from trees and other buildings.

A Very Windy Day

When I went to bed on Wednesday night the wind was just starting to get up, so I was expecting the turbine to have stopped when I looked out of the window yesterday morning. But no, it was still running, and belting round at that! It kept going for the whole 24 hours, and a lot of the time was running at 60 kW plus. If the generator hadn’t been limited to the 60 kW, I am sure it would have produced substantially more than the 1,084 kWh actually recorded.

But oh, can we please get these outstanding issues fixed....................

A Windy Day

Well, it was extremely windy part of the day yesterday, but unfortunately the turbine went off in the evening. I happened to be watching it, so went and re-started it straight away. Also, looking at the activity log, the turbine actually stopped because of excess wind speed. If it measures a speed over 25 m/s, it shuts down to prevent damage. It continues to monitor wind speed and will restart after three minutes if it was just a freak gust that shut it down. It is reassuring to know that this part of its programming is working OK.

At the end of the day, total generation has been 670 kW, a new record.

October Report

Despite the excitement at the end of the month, October has been very disappointing. Total generation has been just 3,635 kWh, not much more than a third of what it needs to be. I have heard from two sources that autumn 2010 is turning out to be historically a very low wind season, and not just in the UK but across all of northern Europe.

Also, in discussion with the Dutch engineers, we have decided to re-introduce the output limiter, but this time set at 60 kW rather than the 30 kW as previously. The weather forecast indicates a windy day tomorrow.