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Expansion of a Washington County wind farm is slated to begin today, while an unrelated wind project in western Maine is hitting the brakes.
Work on the second phase of First Wind's Stetson wind farm near Danforth is scheduled to start this afternoon, according to a press release from First Wind. The expansion will add another 17 turbines to the existing 38-turbine farm, and together the two projects will produce 82.5 megawatts of power.
In related news, Record Hill Wind LLC is delaying work on its 22-turbine wind farm in Roxbury by one year because of low energy prices, according to the Sun Journal. The company, formed by former Gov. Angus King's company Independence Wind and Lyme, N.H.-based Wagner Forest Management, had planned to install the turbines next year, but now won't go online until 2011. Site work for the project has already begun and will continue after winter, he said.
Independence Wind, also co-owned by former Maine Public Broadcasting Corp. director Robert Gardiner, is also proposing a 48-turbine wind farm in Highland Plantation in Somerset County, according to MPBN. The developers have been in talks with town and forest management officials for over a year, and recently held its third informational meeting on the project.
DBright, people often confuse power (megawatts) with energy (megawatt-hours). The statement "the two projects will produce 82.5 megawatts of power" means that the turbines will produce that much power whenever the wind blows at 29 mph or faster. Rating turbines at 29 mph is the logical way to rate a turbines capacity. Then, the total amount of energy (megawatt-hours) produced over the course of a year depends on the average wind speed. Megawatt is analogous to how fast you drive your car (65 mph). Megawatt-hours is analogous to how far you drove (15000 miles last year).
It's highly unlikely the 55 turbines at Stetson Wind will produce 82.5 megawatts a year. 82.5 megawatts divided by 55 turbines in 1.5 megawatts per turbine. That's the RATED capacity of the typical Enron/General Electric turbine going up around Maine. In order to produce 1.5 megawatts a year one of these units must operate at full speed 24 hours a day, seven days a weeks, 365 days a year. The wind just doesn't work that way. A more realistic estimate is about 21 megawatts a year, given that over the course of a year these units run about about 25 percent efficiency.