Wind turbines threaten New England wilderness

Eleanor Tillinghast, Caledonian-Record,December 17, 2003

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Rural New Englanders are facing an alignment of interests that threatens our wilderness. Corporations, state agencies, and environmental groups are trying to convince us to accept wind power plants on our region’s mountains.

Before massive turbines industrialize our landscape, we need to know how wind turbines perform here so we can make our own decisions as to whether or not promised benefits outweigh economic, environmental, and visual costs.

Fortunately, we have the performance record of the wind power plant in Searsburg, Vermont. Owned by the Green Mountain Power Corporation, it is the only commercial wind facility in New England, and has been operating since July 1997. It stretches along a high ridgeline in a heavily forested part of southern Vermont.

From July 1997 through June 2000, Searsburg was evaluated for the federal government, and those results are publicly available at www.epri.com.[1] GMP has refused to provide more current data, but its annual reports, archived at www.sec.gov, are informative.[2]

In its 1995 annual report, GMP promised that the 11 turbines of its proposed Searsburg wind power plant would generate 6 megawatts of electricity.[3] According to its 2002 annual report, the plant’s capability is 1.2 megawatts in winter,[4] and about .5 megawatts in summer.[5]

During the first three years of its operation, Searsburg produced electricity only 62.5% of the time.[6] That’s the equivalent of fewer than 19 of every 30 days.

Its average annual output was less than 25% of capacity.[7] Output didn’t improve over time: it was less during the third year than during the second year.[8] In fact, GMP’s 2002 annual report shows that net production continued to drop every year afterward.[9]

Since its beginning, Searsburg’s output during summer months has consistently been low just when consumer demand is high. In 2002, GMP’s spokeswoman said that on one of the hottest days in August, “I called our dispatch to ask how much power we were getting from Searsburg and he said ‘zero.’ The blades were not turning.”[10]

One reason for such poor productivity is that wind is intermittent and unreliable. If there’s no wind, there’s no power, no matter how many turbines line a ridgetop.

Another reason is New England weather. The Searsburg reports are full of sobering statistics about the turbines’ susceptibility to lightning[11] and high winds.[12]

“Lightning is the big monster up here on the mountain,” according to the man responsible for maintaining the Searsburg turbines.[13] During Searsburg’s first three years, more than 24% of all downtime was attributed to lightning damage alone.[14] In May 1998, one storm damaged eight turbines.[15] In January 2000, lightning knocked out a turbine that could not be repaired until April because harsh weather prevented a crane from reaching it.[16]

Unfortunately, during the evaluation period, the turbines were less efficient at higher wind speeds than expected.[17] The incidence of faults tended to increase with wind speed.[18] Faults tended to occur during high wind periods, with the highest number of faults occurring during those high wind periods.[19]

During the three years, each of Searsburg’s 11 turbines was down an average of 83 hours every month.[20] There were more than 5,000 so-called “unscheduled maintenance events.”[21] An event of some type occurred at the site every five hours.[22]

Searsburg’s reliability hasn’t improved. GMP’s 2002 annual report noted an average maintenance cost four times as high as the industry norm.[23]

In 1996, GMP asserted that the Searsburg wind power plant would generate slightly more than one-half of one percent of Vermont’s power needs.[24] That number seems small, but the reality has been even less impressive: In 2002, the facility generated only one-third of one percent[25] of the power produced by GMP for its residential and commercial customers.[26] GMP operates in a territory with only one quarter of Vermont’s population.[27]

Are there more efficient ways to achieve our environmental goals? At least one company has proved the answer is yes. Kimberly-Clark cut its energy use by 11.7% and over three years saved enough power to fuel 700,000 homes. That would be the equivalent of about 50 mountains scarred with wind power plants.[28] It’s time for our leaders to enforce pollution controls and help businesses and families reduce energy consumption, instead of subsidizing the loss of our wilderness.

[1] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project First-Year Operating Experience: 1997 – 1998, EPRI TR-111437, December 1998; Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Second-Year Operating Experience: 1998 – 1999, EPRI TR-113917, December 1999; Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000.

[2] Email from Dorothy Schnure, Manager Corporate Communications, Green Mountain Power Corporation, to Eleanor Tillinghast, 10/6/03.

[3] Green Mountain Power Corporation, Form 10-K/A, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1995, filed with the SEC, 3/28/97, p. 14; Susan Smallheer, “GMP Has Plans For Windmill Project In Searsburg,” Rutland Herald, 6/4/95.

[4] Green Mountain Power Corporation, Form 10-K, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002, filed with the SEC, 3/24/03, p. 12.

[5] Green Mountain Power Corporation, Form 10-K, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002, filed with the SEC, 3/24/03, p. 6; Sue Robinson, “Energy change is in the wind,” Burlington Free Press, 11/24/02.

[6] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 4-11.

[7] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 3-3.

[8] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 3-3.

[9] Green Mountain Power Corporation, Form 10-K, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002, filed with the SEC, 3/24/03, p. 4.

[10] Sue Robinson, “Energy change is in the wind,” Burlington Free Press, 11/24/02.

[11] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project First-Year Operating Experience: 1997 – 1998, EPRI TR-111437, December 1998, p. 4-12; Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Second-Year Operating Experience: 1998 – 1999, EPRI TR-113917, December 1999, p. 4-10; Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 4-13; John LeMay, “’Never bored’ tending windmills,” Bennington Banner, 12/16/02.

[12] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Second-Year Operating Experience: 1998 – 1999, EPRI TR-113917, December 1999, p. 4-8; Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, pp. 3-11, 4-7, 4-8.

[13] John LeMay, “’Never bored’ tending windmills,” Bennington Banner, 12/16/02.

[14] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 4-13.

[15] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Second-Year Operating Experience: 1998 – 1999, EPRI TR-113917, December 1999, p. 4-10.

[16] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 4-2.

[17] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 3-11.

[18] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 3-11.

[19] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Second-Year Operating Experience: 1998 – 1999, EPRI TR-113917, December 1999, p. 4-8.

[20] 106 hours/month the first year plus 45 hours/month the second year, plus 99 hours/month the third year, divided by 3 equals 83 hours/month. Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project First-Year Operating Experience: 1997 – 1998, EPRI TR-111437, December 1998, p. 4-2; Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Second-Year Operating Experience: 1998 – 1999, EPRI TR-113917, December 1999, p. 4-2; Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 4-1.

[21] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 4-12.

[22] Green Mountain Power Wind Power Project Third-Year Operating Experience: 1999 – 2000, EPRI 1000960, December 2000, p. 4-11.

[23] Green Mountain Power Corporation, Form 10-K, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002, filed with the SEC, 3/24/03, p. 10; Louise Guey-Lee, “Forces Behind Wind Power,” Energy Information Agency, U.S. Department of Energy, February 2001, p. 9.

[24] David Gram, “Power-producing wind turbines sprout on mountaintops,” Burlington Free Press, 9/26/96.

[25] Green Mountain Power Corporation, Form 10-K, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002, filed with the SEC, 3/4/03, p. 4.

[26] Green Mountain Power Corporation, Form 10-K, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002, filed with the SEC, 3/4/03, p. 5.

[27] Green Mountain Power Corporation, Form U-3A-2, filed with the SEC, 3/26/03.

[28] Here’s the math: The current onshore standard wind turbine size is 1.5 MW. If we assume 10 turbines per mountain (which seems to be typical of proposals in the Northeast), that would mean 15 MW of nameplate capacity per mountain (the amount of electricity that could be generated at full speed all the time.) In fact, the national average capacity factor (actual output as a percentage of nameplate capacity) for wind power plants is under 27%, which is probably high for the Northeast given the 21.62% capacity factor of Searsburg in 2002. Nonetheless, using 27%, that means 35,478,000 kWh per year ((15MW x 8760 hours annually) x 0.27 = 35,478 MWh.) According to GMP’s 2002 annual report, that year, average annual household use in Vermont, was 7,497 kWh. 35,478,000 ÷ 7,497 = 4,732 households for one mountain. Averaging the figure from Kimberly-Clark of 700,000 homes over three years, would be 233,333.33 each year. Divided by 4,732, that would be 49.31 mountains, or about 50 mountains (since the last .31 would require another mountain), conservatively.