This year $40 billion dollars worth of commercial wind turbines will come out of their warranty period. The out-of-warranty turbines around the 1.5 Megawatt range need, gearbox repairs, transmission upgrades and blade repairs during the period of 2011 to 2020.
The Town of Portsmouth paid three million dollars for a 1.5 Megawatt commercial wind turbine. One way or another the turbine is owned by the residents of Portsmouth.
Turbines are designed to last for 20 years but O&M strategies were not.
Operations and maintenance issues are commonly left out of the sales pitch when purchasing a commercial wind turbine. The town turbine is three years old.
The maintenance plan on the Portsmouth High School wind turbine runs around $33,000.00 per year. A major breakdown after the warranty could cost plenty. A turbine similar to this in Princeton, Massachusetts costs $600,000.00 to replace a gearbox.
Let's say that next week an announcement is made that the turbine needs major repairs to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars and additional crane expenses to take down and repair the turbine plus the down time loss of income. The crane is a special crane that comes on several 53 foot truck trailers .
The turbine is only three years old. Knowing in another three years your facing another major repair of the same type and the unknown of blade repairs or transmission upgrades.What do you do?
How can the town justify the operation and maintenance costs of the turbine for the next year? When does the turbine become a clunker getting hit with hundreds of thousand dollars in repair costs every year ?
Bill Carson
9:33 pm on Saturday, July 14, 2012
July 23 ,2012 7 PM Wind Turbine news-Town Council's regular meetings are on the second and fourth Monday of the month.
Bill Carson
1:18 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Wind-turbine breakdown under investigation by Portsmouth Economic Development Committee to study multi-million dollar wind turbine mistake.
http://www.thewesterlysun.com/news/group-to-study-errors-behind-m-mistake/article_7bb9ed4c-0a7f-11e2-8765-001a4bcf887a.html
Bill Carson
1:43 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Simple question : How many times was the reset button pushed over the three year life of the turbine ? Some say as many as 4 times a day or every 6 to 8 hours !
John Brown
2:06 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Its time to walk away from this turbine..Like a car thats a lemon, you can keep chasing repairs on it or do the smart thing and walk away. Sell it for parts to Princeton Massachusetts for their turbine and get something back and admit you got taken advantage of by not doing any homework on wind turbines, again like kids in a candy store, they want everything! The turbine sellers really saw Portsmouth coming. Hey Portsmouth, I have some ocean front property in Arizona that I could give you a deal on!
Bill Carson
2:17 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
The town only looked at positive reports about commercial wind turbines. They thought and were told the wind is free .The negative information about gear box failures had been around since 2004 . This is about the town including the town council being sold a bunco scheme.
What's even worse is the town is going to lease land to a wind turbine contractor and put a 70 ton wind turbine back on top of the town water tank again .I think they will get the picture when one of the 7 ton blades fall on the water tank !
The town will get taken again and again but they don't care it's your money not theirs !
Bill Carson
5:42 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/don-roberts/30/130/897
John Brown
5:14 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Bill, my thought exactly!
Bill Carson
5:35 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
An engineer from Seattle Washington who has done contract work for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ,NREL, has completed a report on what is wrong with the turbine .Why is the town holding back on producing the report? Why now since the town received the report has the Town Council tasked the PEDC to come up with what's wrong with the purchase of the turbine.
The Town of Portsmouth owes it to the citizens of Portsmouth to produce the report written by the engineer.The engineer is one of three experts in the country on gear box issues and turbine failures !
Why hold back the report ? It's been since June 15th and ON ONE knows what's wrong ? Give us a break!
OldTownie
8:17 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Your not a citizen of Portsmouth.
OldTownie
8:19 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Stop listening to your source. The town HAS NOT recieved the report.
East side
6:11 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
The EDC wanted revenue recommendations. How about they use the three blades for advertising for our communities industry. Blade 1 - chinese restaurant. Blade 2 - tattoo parlors. Blade 3 - Clements. At lease some revenue would come in.
John ("Anything But Sue")
8:02 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Who the HELL is Bill Carson..?? BILL: WHAT are your Credentials..???? Just wonderin....
John ("Anything But Sue")
8:08 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Maybe you will notice..Bill NEVER addresses a post Directly.........
Bill Carson
2:09 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Here is a letter on how :Wind turbine posturing does Portsmouth no good !
http://www.eastbayri.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/wind-turbine-posturing-does-portsmouth-no-good/