Mandelson's Profligacy

I thought this deserved a wider audience. Mandelson's department of Business, Innovation & Skills wrote off £30m of public money with another £70m due to be lost "in this and future years" because of contracts.



Here's the full article if, like me, you missed it.

Offshore wind farms. It’s worst than we thought.

 

If you’ve read my previous posts,( HERE and HERE), you’ll be aware I’m not to keen on these machines due to their high operation and maintenance costs. I was made aware that the life of a wind turbine was only 6 to 8 years rather than the frequently quoted 20 year lifespan.

However I came on these little gems which I link to at the bottom of this post if you really would like to read it all.

This is underlined by an analysis of maintenance records, which shows that while service teams for offshore wind farms are supposed to make two scheduled maintenance visits every year, unscheduled visits to many installations are made 20 times a year.

And,

The heart of the problem is that the technology being used offshore is generally onshore technology that has not been modified sufficiently to meet the different demands of an offshore environment.

The classic example of this is the disaster at the Horns Rev wind farm in 2005, following which Vestas is reported to have removed and repaired 80 of its V90 models, designed for offshore use, owing to the effect of salty water and air on the generators and gearboxes, which became corrupt after only two (My emphasis)  years. A similar procedure has been reported this year, with Vestas' 30 turbines requiring a change of rotor bearings, at an estimated cost of €30m.

Have they produced any meaningful power in this time?

And don’t get me started on gearbox failure.

As an ex marine engineer I could have told them the previous. (Providing they’d paid me a large six figure salary of course).

The rest is HERE. have a read.