January started with a bit more promise than December, with some steady if not spectacular winds. But now we have had several days of really good wind, and have generated 1,845 kWh over four days. However we have not cured the voltage trip problem, as the turbine has been off about five times over the period. Fortunately I have been at home so have been able to re-start it each time, except for one failure during the night when I lost 5 hours of really good generation, probably some 250 kWh. I have chased up the Manweb engineer to come and adjust the transformer output, but this job seems to have slipped down the priority list compared to the backlog of work following the cold weather. I will keep chasing until they are fed up with taking my phone calls!
Despite the ongoing problems though, it was good to see the turbine operating at high speed. With spot generation rates of 75 kW, that’s more than 1 kWh per minute. It does show what the machine is capable of when the wind is really blowing. I’ll just have to pray for more wind that’s all!
