Hi Joey
What’s with the wind turbines? Some days all three are motionless, another day only one is turning, today two of the three are in motion. Are the two in motion generating power for Gloucester Engineering and Varian, and what about the motionless one with the blade so many of us signed? Will that be providing power for Gloucester’s municipal buildings? If so when? I’d like an update about the “three wise men” towering over Gloucester.
Thanks Mary Page
Good Morning Gloucester 
Mary has a great question and it’s the same one that has been driving me crazy. I want to see all three turning and without fail one of them is stopped. I guess start up phase continues.
My question: Even on a very light wind day the turbines seem to be going their top speed of 14.2 revolutions a minute. (No I do not sit there for a minute. I count how much time one wingtip goes around, do that a couple of times take the average and divide into 60.) So obviously these are really smart windmills which change direction, prop angle etc to get the most out of the wind. My question is, does the windmill going 14 rpm in very light wind generating the same electricity as a high wind 14 rpm day? Either the generator shifts gears to allow it to spin at the high rate in very low winds or the windmill is so damn smart it can feather the blades perfectly for max output virtually the whole time.
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i heard that each turbine has to put in 200 hours ‘test’ time before they can connect to the grid. but, i really don’t know,
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All turbines are fully operational and producing cape ann made power.. 🙂
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Thanks, Turbine Erector. I bet GMG readers would love updates on how much electricity has been generated — maybe at the end of a month or every quarter? For example, “Since the Gloucester turbines were erected they’ve produced enough electricity to power Gloucester’s municipal buildings for 500 hours.” Or “To date the turbines have produced xyz energy — at today’s rates, about $ XYZ worth of electricity.” That’d keep people excited about the turbines and their benefits.
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That’s exactly the he kind of data that will support the for argument or not.
Being naturally inclined to be sceptical the lack of such provided data would lwad me to believe tgere was something to hide but the provision of supporting data would lead me to rejoice.
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I love to have performance updates. It would help justify the drastic change to the landscape.
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It seems they are pointed in different directions to take advantage of the wind regardless of the source direction. It’s also my sense that they all feed into the same generation point for all 3 groups.
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The energy available in the wind is related to wind speed, and the power output of a wind turbine varies greatly as wind drops off.
This link shows what a power vs wind speed chart would look like, ever turbine has it’s own graph, but the general shape of this curve gives you an idea of how power varies:
http://www.energybible.com/wind_energy/wind_speed.html
Most large turbines don’t even kick on until the wind goes above a certain value
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All three turbines are fully operational. If the turbine is stopped during the day its usally because someone is inside working or reveiwing data. No one is allowed to be inside during operation, due to high voltages and rotational dangers
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All 3 were rotating when we drove up from Grant Circle Sunday afternoon. Like ballerinas.
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When the blog was first hosting wind turbine discussion, I read in my research on Boston.com that the companies operating either the Scituate or Hull windmills, offer the public online real time “metering” of the power generation 24/7. That would be a good idea for Gloucester.
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I found the link: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/scituate/gallery/scituate_turbine_finished_despite_obstacles?pg=14
It basically says: “Eventually, people may be able to monitor the electricity production through a website, and perhaps even view the turbine stats from their cell phones.” Elsewhere in the article, they call this a “public interface.”
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I love this idea, Fred. Hope something like it comes to our Gloucester turbines. It’d be great to see how much electricity is being generated in real time.
I think the folks behind the turbines will do themselves a big favor if they make it really easy for people to see how much electricity continues to be generated once the initial excitement of the turbines’ construction wears off.
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