Two Bergey 10,000 Watt Wind Turbines sold for $1.00 each...

[WindyOne]

8 year ago, Lordstown Village spent $131,000.00 to install two (2) x 10,000 Watt Bergey Wind Turbines.
As of 2019, they had generated a total of only $1,000 of electricity.
Recently, they were sold for $1.00 each.

The sad story ...
https://www.vindy.com/news/2019/apr/02/lordstowns-disappointing-wind-turbine-experiment-e/

This an unbelievable claim by the vendor:
"...
In March 2011, Greg Courtney of Wind Turbines of Ohio LLC in Alliance, which provided the turbines, said they should operate with “no maintenance for 30 to 50 years.”
..."


In this article ...
https://www.vindy.com/news/2013/mar/27/lordstown-wind-turbines-continue-to-disa/

This statement was made ...
"...
In all, two turbines with a 10-kilowatt-hour capacity, operating at full strength, have an ability to generate 175,000 kilowatt hours annually, said Paul Veers, chief engineer at the National Resource Energy Laboratory's Wind Technology Center.
..."


175,000 KW = 10KW each x 2  Wind Turbine x 24 Hours x 365 Days <<< Pure Fiction !
Paul Veers is quite the con-artist ... there is no place in Ohio, where that will ever actually happen.
Actual generation was only 3% of Paul Veers so-called "Full Strength" power output.

The vendor stated, 36,000 kw to 60,000 kw production per year.
Actual generation was only 10% of the vendor's yearly power production estimate.
The vendor was off by a FACTOR of 10.

There is no wind turbine in Ohio that will spin at max power, for 24 hours per day, for 365 days per year and have NO Maintenance for 30 - 50 YEARS.
Now we now why his Wind Turbine "business" has been relocated to the basement of his house.

Now that the "FREE" Grant Money has dried up, many of the wind turbines installed 8 years ago are being dismantled ...

[CraigM]

While it's true that the claimed annual output was greatly exaggerated why didn't the city challenge the ROI given by the installer? Sounds like they had electricity cost savings they were expecting to see and didn't act on the failure.

If this was run as a private business the CFO would have been fired. A return on investment contract should be written with the installer and if the contract fails the installer is on the hook for refunded $$.

Sounds like when you're spending other people's money city government didn't really care.

[MagnetJuice]

The seller/installer should have never sold these windmills to be installed at this location.

Greg Courtney of Wind Turbines of Ohio was that seller. Three years after this installation, while talking to people in southern Ohio he said that residents of southeast Ohio should install solar instead of wind.

https://www.perrytribune.com/community/article_8139f074-7c90-5232-ae90-71675744c72d.html

Courtney encouraged property owners in Southeast Ohio to consider solar panels instead of turbines. Due to the location, wind speeds are not ideal for wind turbines. Courtney explained that wind turbines will still produce but will take much longer for them to be worth the investment.

Southeast Ohio gets 4.4 MPH average annual wind speed.

Lordstown, Ohio gets 5 MPH average annual wind speed. Those turbines should have never been installed there.

Why were they installed? I don't know, but it looks like the City people pushed for it and approved without asking the right questions and having all the pertinent facts. Like CraigM said, it was not their money.

Concerning Paul Veers, chief engineer at the National Resource Energy Laboratory's Wind Technology Center, his statement was true. He had absolutely nothing to do with the sales or installation. He was asked how much the two turbines could produce at full strength and he gave the answer.

The Bergey's have a good reputation and are considered good machines. These two turbines were installed in a location with no wind. Let's not give Bergey a bad name.

Ed

[Adriaan Kragten]

This story shows very clear that it isn't possible to determine the yearly output of a wind turbine only on the basis of the maximum power which the windmill can produce. The correct procedure is given in point 12 of chapter 8.4 of my public report KD 35 and even if this procedure is followed it is only an estimation.

First you need to know an accurate Pel-V curve of the chosen wind turbine. This curve gives you the electrical power which is generated at a certain constant wind speed. Next you need the wind speed distribution of the site where the wind turbine will be placed. A wind speed distribution is a graph or a table which shows how many hours per year, the wind speed is within narrow values like in between 2 m/s and 3 m/s, in between 3 m/s and 4 m/s, in between 4 m/s and 5 m/s and so on up to a wind speed of about 15 m/s. Higher wind speeds will occure only for very few hours per year and are not relevant for the yearly output. For a certain wind speed interval, for instance in between 4 m/s and 5 m/s one takes the average value, so 4.5 m/s and reads the power in kW in the Pel-V curve. This power multiplied by the number of hours per year gives the yearly energy content for that wind speed interval in kWh. This is done for each wind speed interval and the sum of the energy for all intervals is the yearly energy in kWh which can be expected for that site.

A problem with this methode is that the wind speed distribution is normally not known for a certain site. So you have to buy a wind speed meter and a data logger and measure the wind speed for at least a year at the site at the same height of the heart of the wind turbine rotor to get an idea. But even if this is done correctly, one year can differ from another. Often one uses the wind speed distribution which is available for a site not far away. This might be for the closest airfield. But generally there are no trees at that kind of sites and one may have measured at a different height. So the results may differ a lot from what you would have measured at the real wind turbine site. Sometimes one only uses the average wind speed for a certain region but this is very unreliable as one can get the same average value for two completely different wind speed distributions.

Using the average wind speed generally gives a too low yearly output especially if the average wind speed is lying close to the cut in wind speed of the wind turbine. There are regions with avererage wind speeds of 3 m/s but for which the wind speed is in between 6 m/s and 7 m/s for only some hours a day. On the basis of the average wind speed you would expect no power at all if the cut in wind speed is 3 m/s but in reality there is a lot of power for some hours per day. The calculation of the output at low wind speeds is only right if the starting wind speed is lower than the cut in wind speed. If the generator and the transmission have a lot of friction, the starting wind speed may be 5 m/s and this means that there is hysteresis in the Pel-V curve for wind speeds in between 3 m/s and 5 m/s. This reduces the output at that wind speed interval.

If the wind turbine is grid connected, one also has to take the efficiency of the inverter into account but efficiencies of modern inverters are very high. If the wind turbine is used for battery charging one has to take the efficiency of the battery and the inverter into account. The battery efficiency might be not higher than 70 %. Batteries must be protected against over charging when they are full and this is normally done by a voltage controller and a dump load. But all energy which has gone into the dump load isn't available for real use. The overal efficiency of a batttery charging wind turbine will therefore be much lower than for a grid connected wind turbine.

[neilho]

Bergey has good software to predict output for their machines. IIRC, it incorporates location, too.

Frankly, there are few wind customers out there who know enough about wind turbine output to require guarantees. And there are even manufacturers who really believe that they are beating Betz.

Progress is being made, unfortunately there are always those who want to believe.

 

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Inquiring minds also might want to know:

Who got two used Bergeys for $1.00 each and how come we never saw a notice of the auction?