Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[icepick239]

Ever stopped to look at one of the Shetlink Web-Page Headers?

What do you see?

Well you'll see a beautiful Shetland Landscape, totally ruined by only FIVE WINDMILLS

What most of the population probably won't see either, will be the maximum share of these $ received, for allowing this desecration of parts of the countryside.

Possibly the total amount of $ to play with as was first promised by Viking, may not even eventuate.

 

So, we have some greedy individuals with voracious appetites for even more money still and a Council desperate for their due millions also, in order to pay for the massive future renewal and maintenence costs incurred on previous years asset spending, plus those stupendous amounts of money wasted by diddering around and making many wrong decisions (resulting in negative or zero returns) which has been the norm for a long time.

Neither should one lose sight of the new 200Million Capital Budget Plans already sanctioned for our future years.

Hold on, isn't that what our new Chief Executive is gonna take care of?

 

One hopes therefore, that a modicum of sense will prevail and that the current plans for a Windmill Farm is reduced to a Windmill Farmlet and that we all get back to living a good but restrained life as opposed to a spendthrift one

No harm I think, in 'Posting' this one again.

[Vik]

Well what can you say to that? I canna disagree but as I am already part of the well established "deluded conspiracy theory brigade" I am at a loss as to what to do. Joining Sustainable Shetland isn't the answer as you just become one part of a one-sided polarised argument and I want truth or facts, a learned & unbiased opinion and a way of finding some way to cut through the propoganda.

 

The one thing that bothers me is that we have no real say in what happens in Shetland & if we did we would get shafted anyway. Anyone for a revolution?

 

Bye the way just to add some clarity to things. I have a wind turbine and its quiet, it makes a bit of electricity and if I stretch myself a bit I can probably get it down & service it but it certainly will never pay for itself, it doesn't cut my carbon footprint & was a total waste of money.

 

If one small turbine which in theory can work better than any big one, canna pay for itself how have these guys persuaded so many folk who haven't a clue about this to support them?

[Symbister]

 

My guess is that unless there is a huge handout somewhere Viking Energy is going to cost Shetland dear.

 

(*** Mod - Merged ***)

 

Well, as I understand it, there is indeed quite a large handout, in the shape of Renewable Obligation Certificates, which are effectively credits that Scottish and Southern can earn in order to avoid being penalised for continuing to generate CO2 elsewhere.

 

That said, the handouts to renewables are as nothing to the handouts to the nuclear industry, which effectively requires a blank cheque to cover the cost of creating and securing a high-level waste store for, say, the next 200,000 years or so - give or take a few millennia - with appropriate precautions for the odd ice age along the way; all this for a reactor life of maybe 50 years; amazing, really. I'd love to see the Net Present Value sums, not to mention the moral case for bestowing that legacy on the next 8,000 generations.

[Carlos]

If one small turbine which in theory can work better than any big one,

Which theory is that

[Vik]

The theory that says if you don't support us you are against us! If you ask to many questions you are against us & if you don't lie down & beleive what we tell you, you are against us. If you want honesty & a fair hearing you are mad.

[ArabiaTerra]

If one small turbine which in theory can work better than any big one,

Which theory is that

The theory that says if you don't support us you are against us! If you ask to many questions you are against us & if you don't lie down & beleive what we tell you, you are against us. If you want honesty & a fair hearing you are mad.

Come on Vik, answer the question, where did you read that small turbines are more efficient than large ones? Post your evidence, if you've got any.

[Carlos]

Not a trick question.

 

In terms of hard engineering "efficiency" its hard to see how you could come up with numbers supporting that, but depending on how you want to define "efficient" you might be able to come up with a different measure with a small turbine ahead of a large one....and that on it's own would show what factors you placed more weight on and help give background to your posts.

 

It's interesting to know how different people value different qualities.

[Vik]

Small turbines can start producing useable electricity before the much larger machines is evidenced by the fact that they start spinning well before the larger ones. That they still continue to produce good levels of electricity well after the larger ones have to shut down due to the stress levels on the larger machines is more fact than theory so I appologise for using the term theory.

 

A graph for the performance of all the Proven turbines is available on their web site but you cannot find any info on the Vestas site or elsewhere. The computer models for performance predictions of small turbines is so inaccurate as a result of local variations that the predictions of large scale turbines is pure guesswork at best.

 

As this isn't about windpower at all but how a few people can make a lot of money, this debate is as much a waste of time as the planning process.

[sjeunson]

Small turbines can start producing useable electricity before the much larger machines is evidenced by the fact that they start spinning well before the larger ones. That they still continue to produce good levels of electricity well after the larger ones have to shut down due to the stress levels on the larger machines is more fact than theory so I appologise for using the term theory.

 

Eh? You honestly think that the small little turbine is as efficient as the ones proposed by Viking?

 

a learned & unbiased opinion

 

You might want to go and try some of that.

[Vik]

On the basis that smaller turbines turn in the wind far more often than the big ones - yep. Been comparing mine with the big 5 on a daily basis for over a year & its a fairly significant difference particularly in the higher wind speeds.

 

The larger machines cannot feather out anywhere near as much in higher wind speeds & shut down whilst the smaller turbines continue to work - that's more efficient in my books.

 

Interestingly I was told the other day that 3 small 750 watt wind turbines are more efficient in producing usable electricity than one 2.5 KW turbine. 3 of these turbines would certainly be a lot cheaper to buy, install & maintain than a 2.5 KW so you have to take the unit price, installation, maintenance & service costs into the equation.

[unlinkedstudent]

^^ I think Vik makes interesting points and anyway, his posts highlight something us women have known for yonks, namely "Size really does matter".

[Carlos]

On the basis that smaller turbines turn in the wind far more often than the big ones - yep. Been comparing mine with the big 5 on a daily basis for over a year & its a fairly significant difference particularly in the higher wind speeds.

 

The larger machines cannot feather out anywhere near as much in higher wind speeds & shut down whilst the smaller turbines continue to work - that's more efficient in my books.

The usual measure of efficentcy would be how much of the available energy the thing can output.

 

From the Proven website their claims for the 15kw turbine (their best) give a capacity factor of about 28% on a 10m mast, rising to maybe 42% on a 30m mast.

Not bad for a little one (although a 30m mast is not so little...) but Burradale has measured capacity factors averaging about 52% over it's life.

 

You could look at efficency in ecconomic terms - return on investment.

Not sure how those numbers would come out.

[paulb]

Among those successful in attracting funds was the Point and Sandwick Development Trust, in the Western Isles, who received over £73,000 towards the £11 million cost of building what was described as “the largest community-owned wind farm in Britainâ€.

 

When completed the 9MW wind farm proposes to supply the domestic energy needs to 6,000 households and save 13,600 tonnes of CO2 each year.

http://www.hebridesnews.co.uk/point-power2.html

 

found this quite intresting. why have we not done this. is the western isles power supply better than ours.

[MuckleJoannie]

There is a proposal for a wind farm in North Yell. This seems to be the only reference I can find to it on the internet.

 

 

 

Plans for a new £4 million community wind farm on the Shetland island of Yell have been stalled because three pairs of nesting birds abandoned their eggs before they hatched.

 

The North Yell Development Council (NYDC) had hoped to start erecting five 850KW Vesta turbines between the villages of Cullivoe and Gutcher next year.

 

I am sure I heard recently that it could not proceed because the Shetland network could not accept anymore wind generated electricity.

[Carlos]

I've not seen any recent news on that one, but the planning application details are on the SIC site.