Skip to content

Archive for November 22nd, 2012

Nov 22

epaw1

UK — The great British wind scam

Sebastian Payne — The Spectator — November 22, 2012

Your taxes are meant to be supporting smaller turbines. In fact, they’re making giant ones less efficient

Almost everybody agrees that wind turbines are ugly and inefficient. But you’d think that the government, if it must persist in subsidising renewable energy, would do everything it could to incentivise wind power producers to create as much energy as possible while keeping the aesthetic damage to a minimum. Astonishingly, it is doing the opposite.

Inquiries by The Spectator have revealed a scam known as ‘de-rating’. Green businesses are modifying large turbines to make them less productive, because perverse government subsidies reward machines that produce less energy at nearly double the rate of more efficient ones. It’s extraordinarily profitable for a few beneficiaries, even if it clutters the countryside and does little to save the planet.

Under the government’s Feed-In Tariff (FIT) scheme, which aims to make renewable energies competitive with fossil fuels, the size of a turbine is measured not by height but by power output. If a turbine pumps out more than 500kW, its owners receive 9.5p per kilowatt hour. But a ‘smaller’ sub-500kW one receives a subsidy of 17.5p per kilowatt hour, supposedly to compensate for its lower efficiency. The idea is to lure smaller wind-power producers into the market.

Problem is, while smaller turbines are more popular with the public, those designs don’t produce anything like the 500kW needed to take full advantage of the subsidy. So instead, investors are buying big, powerful turbines and downgrading them, tweaking their components to churn out no more than the magic 500kW. It’s simply far more lucrative to hobble bigger turbines — machines that ought to be capable of producing almost twice as much electricity.

For instance, it would cost a farmer roughly £1.5 million to plan, buy and put up a single 80-metre turbine, which could produce up to 900kW. He could run it at full capacity, and see a 7 to 10 per cent return on his investment each year. But if the machine’s efficiency were lowered, industry sources suggest, the return would jump to between 17 and 20 per cent. Clearly, the under-500kW subsidy bracket is where the money is. Last year, Ofgem reported a 850 per cent rise in FIT approvals for 100 to 500kW turbines, compared with 56 per cent for the 500kW to 1.5mW category.

Turbine suppliers boast about selling products that take advantage. The German firm PowerWind says on its website that it has developed its PowerWind 500 turbines ‘especially for the UK market’ and encourages potential customers to ‘secure the highest FIT in Europe’. In other words: turbines designed especially to game British subsidies.

(To continue reading, click here)

Nov 22

li-620-turbines-cp5839706

Armow Wind Project Debated at Kincardine Council

From Wind Concerns Ontario — November 22, 2012

“Councils are starting to see that the fox-in-charge-of-the-chicken-house approach of the Ontario government with regard to wind power project proposals from developers might not be the best thing for their communities!!” — Jane Wilson — WCO

Representatives of the Armow Wind Concerns Group reported to Kincardine Municipal Council on Wednesday evening on the serious defects found in the noise report presented by Samsung/Pattern at the second public meeting on November 12.

The report was not compliant with two key aspects of the MOE Noise Guidelines for Wind Turbines which state that the noise assessment must represent the maximum rated output of the wind farm.  Rather than the rated capacity of the turbines, the assessment de-rates many of the turbines to bring them into compliance with the noise standard.

The MOE also requires that the noise report reflect the principle of “predictable worst case” situation for the noise output.  When assessing the impact of the ground surface to attenuate the turbine noise, the report assumes that the ground is fairly porous with significant amounts of vegetation.  This of course ignores the much worse situation in the spring, fall and winter when there are no leaves on the trees and the ground in the area can be frozen and covered snow or ice which severely limits its ability to absorb audible noise.

Even though the accuracy of the noise model is estimated to be +- 3%, there is no adjustment in the calculated noise levels to reflect the potential for the worst case noise levels that are 3% above the calculated levels.

The groups conclusion was that if the noise levels were calculated according to MOE guidelines, many of the receptors would be exposed to audible noise levels above the acceptable standard.

Council was also reminded of the situation in the Enbridge project where low frequency noise/infrasound, rather than audible noise, was the real issue underlying the health problems reported by the residents living among the turbines.  The report on the Armow project contained no analysis of low frequency noise/infrasound.

The group also confirmed to Council that a substantial portion of the turbines were shown with incorrect locations in this document.

The groups recommended the following actions to Kincardine Council:

  • Ask Samsung/Pattern for a      new noise study that actually reflects the ‘predictable worst case’ scenarios.  The reports should also include an      assessment of low frequency noise/infrasound that will be experienced      inside homes in this area.  The      report should      also include a statement that guarantees that this project will have no      adverse health impacts on the residents within the Municipality.  This must then be presented and a new 90      day review period must commence.
  • The municipality should conduct      and independent peer review of the revised noise assessment to confirm its      accuracy.  Samsung/Pattern should      pay for this assessment.
  • The Municipality should notify      the MOE that the 90 day review period must be restarted in light of the      discrepancies in the Armow Wind report.

The presentation by the Armow Wind Concerns group was followed by a presentation by Samsung/Pattern.  In addressing issues raised the previous week, the company representatives admitted that human errors caused inaccuracies in two tables contained in the report. They insisted that the errors did not affect the noise level calculations. New reports will be available next week with additional meetings scheduled.  They did not agree to change their timelines and concluded their presentation with a list of donations to local groups that one Councillor found irrelevant and inappropriate.

A Councillor asked if Samsung was aware of Kincardine policy requiring that turbines be placed away from designated growth areas and rural hamlets and why it was ignored. Samsung replied that it was aware of the policy and had met with the local committee to discuss it.  There was no explanation of why the proposed locations are not consistent with the policy.

When pushed on the question of Samsung funding an independent 3rd party review of the noise assessment, the Samsung representative confirmed that he would take this request back to his management.

After the two presentations, the Council moved on to other business and, for procedural reasons, deferred action on the recommendations from the Armow Wind Concerns group until the next meeting of Council.