UMPI turbine ten-second power finally reported as promised -VERY SKITTERY!

Three years ago  UMPI promised the public a turbine website that would report its output in ten-second intervals.  Today I noticed (for the first time) that the software for that function is ACTUALLY WORKING!

For five minutes, at 10;25 am today (11/12/12)  I watched wind speed and power changing  every ten seconds, and I wrote the changes down as fast as I could: (wind speed in mph/power produced in kW) 12mph/86kW; 14/117; 12/69; 12/72; 11/91; 13/91....... I think that represents one minute of power output from the UMPI turbine into the grid.

I have heard that grid operators refer to constantly changing power sources as being "skittery", and I wonder how they  feel about having to accomodate to such a skittery source of power.  They have to make adjustents for all of the variations in the sources of power feeding into the grid as well as the changes in demand, and their job is to keep the grid within the required parameters; otherwise motors will overheat and goodness knows what else will go wrong.  

A few times I have put my hand-held digital multimeter on a household outlet in our home in Houlton and watched the voltage of our Houlton Water Company power jerking around, vary constantly. Somebody somewere is keeping the voltage from going too high or too low, probably using a controllable ("dispatchable") source like a gas generator to make up for the variations. 

  The UMPI turbine website uniquely allows the public to see how much power is going into the grid from a wind source. The scores of huge industrial wind turbines on our ridges and mountains probably have the same skittery output, but that information is available to the public only 1) in a dense and enigmatic mass of data on the FERC website's spreadsheets and 2) in three-month FERC quarterly summaries (rounded to thousands of kWh) which are posted six weeks after the end of each quarter. None of the FERC data gives anyhing like 10-second data, yet what counts to the grid is a "granularity" of perhaps one second.   

Harrison Roper  Houlton/Danforth

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Comment by Barry @ SaveOurSeaShore on November 13, 2012 at 6:16pm

Does it keep a record of bird and bat kills?

Comment by Brad Blake on November 13, 2012 at 9:53am

This turbine is the most pathetic waste of $2 million in a university system that is hard pressed for money.  It surely will never pay for itself in electricity savings.  Since it is supposed to be a teaching tool providing the public with data, it is high time UMPI called a press conference, lay out the data and state emphatically to the public:  These turbines do not work.  Period.  Not cost effective.  Period.  Then apologize for the wasted money and tear the thing down.

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on November 13, 2012 at 8:21am

Harrison,

Have you ever considered contacting the president of UMPI with all of your data. Perhaps if confronted with the horrible reality you have been reporting, they would consider looking at their experiment and publish what they have learned far and wide. They wouldn't necessarily have to make another movie to neutralize the harmful hype in their first movie, but getting the truth, no matter how harsh, to the media would be essential. Think of all the damage that the University of Maine has done by giving wind power their stamp of approval. As a publicly funded educational institution, is it not their duty to tell the truth, not just what they hoped for when they mindlessly jumped on to the wind bandwagon? This lying industry is wrecking our state. Will the University be an aider and abettor to this crime or will they step forward and try and undo the damage that has been done.

Comment by Harrison Roper on November 13, 2012 at 7:54am

The UMPI turbine website's  "live turbine data"  has not changed since 10:45 pm last night. It seems to have stuck at 26.8 MPH wind speed and 585.8 kW power output overnight.  It is now 7:45 AM, 11/13/12.

H. Roper  HoultonDanforth/ 

Comment by Gary Campbell on November 12, 2012 at 9:14pm

Harrison,

Thanks for your diligence. You are remarkable!

Comment by Norman Mitchell on November 12, 2012 at 9:08pm

Thanks for the update

Comment by Harrison Roper on November 12, 2012 at 8:35pm

8:30 pm 11/12/12 - a few minutes ago the UMPI website was frozen at about 19.2 mph. Oh well,at least it wotked for a short time. H. Roper

Comment by Long Islander on November 12, 2012 at 8:02pm

From Kittery to "Skittery" (UMPI), these public turbines clearly evidence the inefficiency, waste and total recklessness that is wind power. They tell us what the wind industry attempts to keep from view and certainly out of the media's reporting.

 

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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