Amid scrutiny, PGE overhauls flagship wind farm to address safety and reliability problems
PGE temporarily shuttered its Biglow Canyon wind farm last year after a massive blade from one of its towering turbines broke loose, launching the length of a football field and landing in a wheat field where workers had been delivering fertilizer hours earlier.
The newsroom’s investigation found the seemingly isolated blade incident was part of a wider set of maintenance problems and equipment failures that include regular oil leaks, transformer failures and fires, and plummeting equipment from overhead towers that can reach 90 miles per hour when falling.
Biglow Canyon’s energy output has never lived up to PGE’s original projections, and the newsroom’s investigation found that the availability of its Vestas turbines to produce energy has declined precipitously in recent years and the project’s rate of energy production was below neighboring wind farms of comparable age. Turbine downtime cuts into energy generation and the production-based lease payments landowners such as the McCulloughs receive for allowing the turbines on their property. It also reduces revenue from production tax credits that flow to eligible projects during their first 10 years of operation, and in PGE’s case, were credited to ratepayers.
Problems at Biglow Canyon continue. The utility has filed two reports with regulators since late August regarding a needle valve and hatch doors found near bases of three turbines. As recently as December, PGE informed landowners that 26 of its Siemens turbines were down due to a fault in a collector line, and that another two transformers had failed while crews were attempting to isolate the fault.
PGE said it has begun testing to diagnose the problem, and turbines will resume operation once repairs are complete.
Meanwhile, PGE’s action plan to prevent items from falling off its turbines is due to the state later this month. Regulators in November also issued new guidance to large wind farm operators statewide specifying what types of safety incidents must be reported, including falling items or projectiles from wind turbines.
Much more in article.
A blight on the landscape.
I wonder how much that boondoggle has cost the taxpayer?
They can't even keep the front from falling off.
PGE temporarily shuttered its Biglow Canyon wind farm last year after a massive blade from one of its towering turbines broke loose, launching the length of a football field and landing in a wheat field where workers had been delivering fertilizer hours earlier.
The newsroom’s investigation found the seemingly isolated blade incident was part of a wider set of maintenance problems and equipment failures that include regular oil leaks, transformer failures and fires, and plummeting equipment from overhead towers that can reach 90 miles per hour when falling.
Biglow Canyon’s energy output has never lived up to PGE’s original projections, and the newsroom’s investigation found that the availability of its Vestas turbines to produce energy has declined precipitously in recent years and the project’s rate of energy production was below neighboring wind farms of comparable age. Turbine downtime cuts into energy generation and the production-based lease payments landowners such as the McCulloughs receive for allowing the turbines on their property. It also reduces revenue from production tax credits that flow to eligible projects during their first 10 years of operation, and in PGE’s case, were credited to ratepayers.
Problems at Biglow Canyon continue. The utility has filed two reports with regulators since late August regarding a needle valve and hatch doors found near bases of three turbines. As recently as December, PGE informed landowners that 26 of its Siemens turbines were down due to a fault in a collector line, and that another two transformers had failed while crews were attempting to isolate the fault.
PGE said it has begun testing to diagnose the problem, and turbines will resume operation once repairs are complete.
Meanwhile, PGE’s action plan to prevent items from falling off its turbines is due to the state later this month. Regulators in November also issued new guidance to large wind farm operators statewide specifying what types of safety incidents must be reported, including falling items or projectiles from wind turbines.
Much more in article.
A blight on the landscape.
I wonder how much that boondoggle has cost the taxpayer?
They can't even keep the front from falling off.
