Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

840 MW Offshore Wind Farm Powering 400,000 Homes 24/7 Fake News

Offshore wind is being sold as 840 offshore wind turbines rated at 10 megwatts each will be enough to power 400,000 homes and businesses 24/7. The total number of megawatts of the project is 840 megawatts.

All turbines suffer parasitic electric losses. A turbine can use up to 10 percent of its own power to charge its batteries, run lights, heat, AC, computer, alarms, brakes, and anything any power plant needs.

The AC or DC power sent from the ocean turbines to onshore depending on the length of the cable suffers electric line loss.

Offshore wind turbines suffer high maintenance losses, submarine cable outages, and lightning can cause long-term blade outages. The 2016 Block Island, Rhode Island wind farm was shut down for routine maintenance during the summer of 2021. In 2019 the submarine cable linking the wind farm to the mainland became exposed which caused electric ratepayers to pay 30 million for repairs.

A wind turbine only generates power between 6 miles per hour and 45 miles per hour. At 6 miles per hour, the turbine is barely producing power. As the wind speed picks picks up the number of megawatts being produced increases proportionally to ten megawatts when the wind speed reaches 45 miles per hour. At 46 miles per hour or any sudden shifts of wind, the brakes come on and no power is produced as it shuts down.

Knowing these facts how is it possible for 84 offshore wind turbines rated at 10 megwatts each to be enough to power 400,000 homes 24 hours a day 7 days a week? It's fake news.

Last, No one knows the outcome of new 10-megawatt ocean wind turbines off the coast of Massachusetts in a historic storm.

Massachusetts historic storms:

Great New England Hurricane, 1938

Hurricanes Carol and Edna, 1954

Nor'easter 1969

Blizzard of 1978

Hurricane Bob, 1991

Blizzard April 1, 1997

Blizzard of 2005

Blizzard of 2006

Winter Storm Nemo, 2013

Monster blizzard named Kenan January 2022

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Comment by Frank Haggerty on November 7, 2023 at 10:39pm: We can estimate how many homes 840 MW nameplate turbine farm spinning continuously in a perfect 40 kt wind:

840 MW nameplate x 8760 hrs/yr = 7.4 10E9 MWh theoretical peak energy with no losses spinning continuously.
Avg home uses 1 x 10E4 KWh / year roughly
7.4 10E9 MWh / 10E4 KWh/ home = 740,000 homes if these turbines were actually spinning continuous with no losses which NOT.

Compute an implied Capacity Factor based on the claimed 400,000 homes:

400,000 homes claimed/740,000 homes at fictitious nameplate supply= 54% Cap factor which is unachievable for WT.

Substitute a realistic CF minus parasitics= 25%

Then .25 x 7.4 10E9 MWh/10E4 KWh/home/ yr = 185,000 homes. assuming the WTs are generating continuously (NOT) therefore more realistically but expensively we need to store the farm energy in batteries to feed 185,000 homes 24/7.

So the claim of 400,000 homes must be factor reduced to 185,000 homes and the cost of battery storage plus storage losses must be added to the wind farm to achieve the claimed 24/7 supply to these homes since the turbines produce only 25% of the time.

  Alternatively without the batteries the 185,000 homes would receive power 25% of the year or 91 days. The batteries will likely cost more than the turbines so the claim should be restated:

840 MW farm will supply 185,000 homes 91 days per year at a Capacity Factor of 25% including parasitic losses.

Of course to the public this derated number of homes and days may sound great if the total cost and usage rates per KWh were competitive with coal or gas but this will not be the case as evidenced by actual life cycle performance of WTs to date showing 5 to 10 years useful life before failure

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U.S. Sen Angus King

THE UNTOLD STORY OF RECORD HILL WIND

The Untold Story of Record Hill Wind, continued

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(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 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/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?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/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.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"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."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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