UMPI Quietly Revises Its Wind Turbine Goal
If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes. And if you don't like your oft stated annual wind turbine goal of over 1,000,000 KWH, just change it to 700,000, which is exactly what UMPI has done on its website very quietly. In fact, the UMPI website has been WIPED CLEAN of any mention of the long stated primary goal of producing 1,000,000 KWH per year, which previously had been prominent on the site. Perhaps this simply reflects the reality that in Year One, ended 5/14/10, only 609,268 KWH were produced.
THIS IS A MAJOR REVISION.
Hopefully UMPI will explain why it has changed the goal and reveal its learning for us as promised.
What would also be useful is to understand how the long stated goal of 1,000,000 KWH per year has dropped but the goal of 572 tons of CO2 avoided and the goal of over $100,000 in electricity charges have not been similarly adjusted.
Originally, 572 Tons of CO2 avoided were predicted per 1 Million KWH. That figure has now effectively increased to 817 Tons of CO2 per 1 Million KWH (572/0.7). That represents a stunning increase of 43%.
This project, which started at $1.5 million, snuck up to $2.0 million and is still racking up big maintenance costs, represents a major expenditure.
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Comment
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Comment by Long Islander on July 31, 2010 at 7:34am -
July 31, 2010
The last day of July. Another month wraps up and more data collects in the state's only onshore wind experiment, showing that industrial wind simply doesn't work and that we are suffering major impacts for almost no electricity production. We are almost three months past the one year mark when we were to have seen the rather pitiful goal of 1,000,000 KWH met, but we have barely eclipsed 700,000 KWH. It's at 11% of capacity folks, and that speaks volumes. It's like thinking you are filling up the gas tank with 20 gallons and running out of gas only to learn all you had gotten was two gallons.
In view of the state's sole wind experiment's results, let's call for a halt to the industrial wind blight proliferation and 100% related transmission proliferation and ask the legislature to revisit this in light of the overwhelming evidence from the state's only experiment.
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Comment by Long Islander on July 30, 2010 at 8:16am
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July 30, 2010
Well, we're about 2.5 months into Year 2 and Year 2 is currently on track to deliver about 50% of the 1,000,000 KWH annual goal - a goal which was pitifully low to begin with.
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Comment by Scarlett on July 23, 2010 at 7:17am -
Why not send this to a local TV station or radio? You're preachin' to the choir here! This needs to get out - not only to address issues with commercial or community wind, but also for those people who are trying to balance the issues for themselves and need help deciding if a private turbine is right for them. Maybe post this in a Bangor Daily News Letter to Editor? or as an editorial? I think that this is important information - and very timely!! Thanks for following the UMPI Turbine performance!!
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Comment by Long Islander on July 21, 2010 at 4:58am
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The turbine performance tracking spreadsheet has been footnoted accordingly.
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Comment by Karen Bessey Pease on July 20, 2010 at 9:54pm -
Okay. This is getting ridiculous, and it's time someone took a serious look at what's going on, here. It's apparent, LI, that (with your incredible assistance and persisitence) "word" is getting out about industrial wind's poor performance. It certainly seems like pressure is being applied to make UMPI's project appear more productive than it is. ????
I'm getting steamed, and when that happens, I write. Be back soon, and we'll discuss where to send it. And thank you for staying on top of this. I'll say it again... this is getting ridiculous.
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Comment by Harrison Roper on July 20, 2010 at 2:33pm
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Whoever is in charge of the publicity for the windmill at UMPI is not very sophisticated about such technical details as kilowatt HOURS. For months, it was reported as "kilowatts" produced. The site still does not state what period of time the big "kilowatt hours" figure covers.
UMPI is an educational institution, and they are learning. They did due diligence about their wind resource before committing to it, but I have never seen the results of the feasibiblty study that was done for them by a firm in Andover, Masachussetts.
We should all be grateful for what we do know about UMPI's windmill. It is more than you can get from First Wind.
Harry Roper
Hou9lton/Danforth
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Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT (excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 http://pinetreewatchdog.org/2010/08/09/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/ From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" http://pinetreewatchdog.org/2010/08/11/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/ From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” http://pinetreewatchdog.org/2010/08/12/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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