Right here’s what’s being faraway from the duds from the western a part of Alliant Vitality’s Whispering Willow North windpower facility in Franklin County, Iowa.
They’ve been dropping the blades on one unit after one other for the previous 2 years.
There are 15 models that simply sit idle more often than not, and one other 10 which might be getting serviced.
These gearboxes are being faraway from the models and dropped by the uplink 350-KV substation.
We occurred to tug up simply because the 50 ton crane and repair vans have been driving away from dropping off 2 of them.
This enlargement of Whispering Willow East was put in in 2019 and turned on in late 2020. The models beginning dying inside one yr.
In August 2021 we had a derecho with 120-knot winds on the floor in August. You possibly can think about the pressure up at 350 to 700 ft up on these models.
In December 2022, we had a macro blow with 3 days of −13 °F temps with fixed gale winds at 50 to 70 mph non cease to December twenty fifth.
That’s above the vary for these models to supply output.
There was fixed upkeep on these 81 2.5-MW models since these occasions.
The large winners are the service contractors crawling into them and the 500-foot crane that strikes from one to a different dropping the blades and placing them again up.
The large losers are the folks right here within the prairies which have had their Alliant electrical payments elevated 12 occasions up to now decade to over 120%.
Be aware the tags on the gearboxes:
- China Transmission Holdings Restricted
- Oil amount: ~440 liters (116 US gallons)
- Weight: 19,120 kg (42,152 lbs)
