Blue Canyon Wind Farm

[phil b]

Blue Canyon wind farm

I was driving on business yesterday and deceided to take a different route back. I had heard there was a small wind farm North of Lawton, Oklahoma. Here's my first view...

 

I thought these were downwind turbines because they have no tails. All the turbine's blades are facing into a 40 mph wind. Notice the arch in the blades. No Swoosh...swoosh...swoosh... Since they are computerized, maybe they can optimize themselves for the best possible configuration.

WOW! Someone said small? I counted 74 in one field, then 57 in another. Still others were in the construction stage. Three large cranes were on site. The entire wind farm must stretch for 10 miles or more. It's hard to realize how big they are until you see them.

The farmer who owns the land gets the lease money and a percentage of the turbine's output. That makes a hill he realized little profit from in the past into a valuable asset.There's not much grazing potential on this hill and you certainly can't plow it because it's nearly all rock.

In the winter, the farmer pastures his cattle in the valleys on wheat. In the spring, the cattle are moved to permanent pasture and the wheat is combined or cut for hay. It seems like a good symbiotic relationship.

If you are interested...

Googling Blue Canyon Wind farm said the area has a potential of 200 turbines and 74 magawatts at 138kV.

Here are the Blue Canyon turbine dimensions

http://www.cottonelectric.com/pdf/turbine_dimensions.pdf

BLUE CANYON WIND FARM BASIC FACTS http://www.cottonelectric.com/services/windfarm.html

[Sly]

Hi phil_b,

That is impressive, when I looked at the dimension sheet I never realized how heavy these things are, awesome!!

Thanks for sharing.

sly

[joestue]

I think this statement on the website sums it up the best:

While the actual pricing for wind energy cannot be disclosed, it can be noted that it is less than 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, with a very low escalation rate over the life of the contract.

That is really cheap IMO

[TheCasualTraveler]

     I was there 3 years ago while visiting my son at Fort Bragg. I stopped at the same spot on the road, I remember that gate. Thanks for the pics I forgot all about it.

[domwild]

Thanks for sharing! Even more impressive must be the offshore turbines. The ones on land appear to have a practical limit due to road cranes of less than 2 MW. I believe the offshore ones go up to 4 MW.

One German company even makes them without gearbox, saving a lot of weight and bother.

Do they use carbon brushes? If so, they must be huge chunks of carbon!

Regards,

[Catch66]

A good read. East of our home here a large wind farm started this year.

I will take pictures and post them they are Truly Large.