Wind Turbine Life Expectancy Only Half Of That Claimed
New research suggests wind turbines erected in Britain will only last half of their claimed lifespan
How long does a wind turbine last? The ad copy says 25 years. But new research has chopped wind’s life expectancy in half to 12 years.
“A study of almost 3,000 turbines in Britain – the largest of its kind – sheds doubt on manufacturers claims that they generate clean energy for up to 25 years, which is used by the Government to calculate subsidies,” reports the Daily Mail.
“Professor Gordon Hughes, an economist at Edinburgh University and former energy advisor to the World Bank, predicts in the coming decade far more investment will be needed to replace older and ineffective turbines – which is likely to be passed on in higher household electricity bills.”
Hughes found that onshore and offshore wind turbines degrade differently. The monthly load factors, or the amount of electricity generated as a percentage of their nameplate capacity, drops from an already low 24 percent percent in the first year to a meagre 11 percent after 15 years.
Offshore wind, meanwhile, declines more drastically from 40 percent in year one to 15 percent after ten years. This should not be surprising, as saltwater is an incredibly hostile environment.
Larger turbines fare worse than smaller turbines, Hughes says.
These are grim tidings for an already struggling wind industry. Recent images from Vestas and Siemens Gamesa presentations make clear just how difficult the market’s gotten for wind.
Onshore wind orders from Siemens are cratering, and for Vestas it looks even worse. “Siemens just posted a net loss of 647 million euros, which was up from a 560 million euro loss in the previous year,” writes Robert Bryce.
Even GE’s in trouble. “In October, GE announced that its renewable energy business will lose a staggering $2 billion this year. Those losses are being driven in large part, by the surging cost of metals like zinc, nickel, neodymium, and copper,” Bryce continues.
In other words, wind requires heaps of materials along fragile supply chains, lasts half as long as anticipated, with poorer performance than anticipated.
Not good news if you’re a turbine company.
See more here gridbrief.com
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Tom
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Maybe a little WD-40 will fix ’em up. Maybe add heated blades for wintertime use.
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VOWG
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Tear them all down and return to sanity.
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Howdy
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I wondered about maintenance on these things, especially prevention of downtime. Seems there is really no such thing.
“On average, a failure will occur once per year for plants with less than 500 kW, twice per year for plants between 500 and 999 kW and 3.5 times per year for plants with more than 1 MW of power output. The more power producing capacity a plant has, the more often it will fail.”
https://blog.enerpac.com/wind-turbine-maintenance-components-strategies-and-tools/
That is not a high efficiency generating setup. Notice the big induction motor on the nacelle interior right? I guess that’s the steering motor for the blade direction. These things consume from the grid at all times don’t they, wind or not? Ridiculous.
On the other hand:
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/bearings-keep-on-rolling-with-the-wind
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Barry
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Funny I’m old enough to remember being told the lifespan was 50 years for the old ones that are now being dismantled after 20 years. Now we say 25 years but no one mentions how much maintenance will be required.. we were told that more wp would make it cheaper but now we are seeing prices actually going up. Stop all subsidies and see who is interested in all this garbage,if it’s all so wonderful big corp will build it without taxpayer help.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Engineers,
I have experience with a fiber pelleting machine driven by a 150 hp electric motor. The stress created tiny vibrations which sometimes unturned 1 inch diameter grade 5 bolts. Grade 5 so we could use high torque to tighten the bolts so they would not upturn. And sometimes the bolts not only unturned the bolts but sometimes they broke. Not sure when they broke as sometimes the end of the bolt screwed into the threads had to have holes drilled into bolt in order to turn them out of the threads.
The ends of the wind turbine blades need to bolted to a hub and the stress likely unturned even bigger bolts and/or broke the big bolts.
One can see that the big turbine blades of the big wind turbines turn slowly. So one does not need to be an engineer to see (imagine) the STRESS involved at the turbine’s hub.
Tiny wind turbines with diameters of a few feet turn very rapidly and do not have these stress problems.
“The only source of knowledge is experience” (Einstein)
Have a good day, Jerry
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Howdy
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Even without stress, vibration can remove/tighten bolts. One may have seen engine bolts unscrewing/screwing themselves in at particular engine revs, most likely because of resonance. Computer cases can dismantle themselves due to hard drive vibration.
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Auntie Vaxina
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Kind of like buying automobile tires that are rated at 70,000 miles but when you try to claim the warranty at 50,000 miles the manufacturer has a schedule of conditions that nullify your claim.
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