The University of Maine at Presque Isle's
Wind Project: Lessons Learned

(see updates at bottom of page)

On May 14, 2009 the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI) commissioned a 600kW wind turbine on their campus. Everyone was very excited by the prospect of the University generating its electricity from wind. This project provides us with an outstanding opportunity for judging the value of a wind energy project. Because the owner is a public institution and not a commercial entity, there are no claims of 'trade secrets' and every aspect of the project has been made public. In addition, the University did not have to finance the project (thanks to Maine taxpayers and a $50,000 grant from the Public Utilities Commission) so there were no financing, subsidy or tax issues to cloud reality. The total construction cost came to $2 million instead of the originally budgeted $1.5 million, or a third more than planned.

The project met the University's goals, to some degree, but as a model for industrial scale wind development it raises serious questions about the viability of inland wind projects in Maine.

The projects goals are clearly stated on the UMPI website:

“The hope was to install a mid-size wind turbine that would meet the campus's energy needs, significantly reducing energy costs and helping the University to leave a much smaller carbon footprint.

In the Fall of 2008, the University signed a contract with Lumus Construction Inc. to install a 600 kW wind turbine adjacent to its athletics fields at the southern end of campus. The contract established UMPI as the first university in the state and one of only a handful in New England to install a mid-size wind turbine.

The turbine is expected to produce about 1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year and save the institution more than $100,000 annually in electricity charges... The $2 million project included the cost of the turbine and its installation. The turbine tower was manufactured in the U.S., the nacelle and rotor blades in Chennai, India. In late 2008, crews began drilling and excavating to put steel and concrete into the ground to complete the turbine base. In 2009, they began the installation process, placing the 65-meter turbine tower on the base, and then assembling the turbine nacelle and rotor blades and placing them atop the tower. The turbine was completely assembled and generating electricity by late Spring 2009.”

Getting production data from commercial wind developers is virtually impossible. For example, no one knows for sure how much net electricity is being generated by Stetson I because First Wind considers production data a "trade secret". So it is refreshing that UMPI has pledged to the people of Maine to make the wind turbine project very public and show both its value and cost-effectiveness as well as any problems encountered along the way. To that end, they provided Live Turbine Data on the web including wind speed, electricity being generated and total electricity generated to date and other interesting data.

A year has now passed since the blades began spinning on Maine's only empirical industrial wind turbine experiment. Here is a picture of the Live Turbine Data page taken at 9:20pm on May 14, 2010 showing the results of that first full year of operation.

Given the figure for Generator Production, and UMPI's statements to the press, the following results are significant:

There are several lessons to be learned from the first year of this experiment:

1) The amount of electricity generated fell far below expectations.

From the beginning UMPI knew that the turbine manufacturer's stated nameplate capacity was no indication of how much electricity the turbine would generate in the real world. They also knew that a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Renewable Energy Resources Lab determined that the wind at 50 meters altitude in the area of the UMPI campus is considered only "marginal" to "fair" as a wind resource. Therefore, they were very conservative in their expectations. Instead of expecting 5,256,000 kWh annually (the annual nameplate capacity), they decided that 1,000,000 kWh would be more reasonable. That figure represents a mere 19% of nameplate capacity. The Windustry prefers to rely on nameplate capacity when it says 'so-and-so project will provide enough electricity for 23,000 homes'.

As you can see from the table above, the turbine delivered only 609,250 kWh in its first twelve months of operation. That represents only 11.6% of nameplate capacity and only 60.9% of UMPI's very conservative expectations!

To put that into perspective, imagine you want to lead a 'greener' life. You decide to buy a more energy efficient car. After doing your research you settle on a Toyota Prius Hybrid. It's advertised as the 'most efficient hybrid in America'. It is rated for 50mpg on the highway. So you trade in your old gas guzzler and drive off the lot feeling good about yourself. Now imagine how you'd feel if you discovered your Prius actually got only 5.8 mpg! Wouldn't you be disappointed? Would you recommend that all your friends buy Prius's?

2) The project failed to significantly reduce UMPI's energy costs.

UMPI expected the turbine to generate 1,000,000 kWh for a savings of $100,000 annually. We can only assume that since it delivered only 60.9% of the expected electricity, it provided only 60.9% of the expected savings. That would be only $60,900.

3 ) The project is a financial failure.

According to UMPI, the hardware and installation costs came to $2 million. On top of that we must add operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, which are significant. According to The European Wind Energy Association, "Operation and maintenance costs constitute a sizeable share of the total annual costs of a wind turbine. For a new turbine, O&M costs may easily make up 20-25 per cent of the total levelised over the lifetime of the turbine." Adding the low end figure of 20% to the installed cost we come up with $2.4 million as the total cost over the lifetime of the turbine.

Spreading the O&M cost evenly over the 20 year lifetime of the turbine, we see that this project actually loses money at the rate of 2.5% annually! In fact, if we were to completely ignore the O&M costs, it would still take 33 years for this project to pay for itself ($2 million ÷ $60,900). That's 13 years beyond the turbine's expected lifetime!

4) Wind Turbines also consume electricity.

The Live Turbine Data web page just happened to reveal one of the Windustry's dirty little secrets. Look at these figures:

Notice that the wind was blowing at 2.9m/s (6.9mph) but that the turbine was generating a negative .3kW. How is that possible?

Most people don't know that large-scale wind turbines consume electricity to operate. It's not something the Windustry wants to admit. Other types of electricity plants generally use their own electricity, and the difference between the amount they generate and the amount delivered to the grid is readily determined. Large-scale wind projects, however, use electricity from the grid, which does not appear to be accounted for in their output figures.

Among the wind turbine functions that use electricity are the following:

• •  yaw mechanism which keeps the blade assembly perpendicular to the wind
• •  blade-pitch control to keep the rotors spinning at a fairly regular rate
• •  lights, controllers, communication, sensors, metering, data collection, etc.
• •  heating the blades -- this may require 10%-20% of the turbine's power
• •  heating and dehumidifying the nacelle
• •  oil heater, pump, cooler, and filtering system in the gearbox
• •  hydraulic brake to lock the blades when the wind is too strong
• •  thyristors which graduate the connection and disconnection between generator and grid
• •  magnetizing the stator -- the induction generators used to actively power the magnetic
  coils. This helps keep the rotor speed constant, and as the wind starts blowing it helps
  start the rotor turning (see next item)
• •  using the generator as a motor (to help the blades start to turn when the wind speed is low or,
  as many suspect, to maintain the illusion that the facility is producing electricity when it is not,
  particularly during important site tours). It also spins the rotor shaft and blades to prevent
  warping when there is no wind

In the above analyses, we used the Generator Production figure which is net of the electricity used. In other words, at the moment displayed in the screen shot, the Generator Production figure was actually declining.

Conclusion

The UMPI website states:

“The University has two main objectives with this project: to reduce its energy bill, and to serve its educational and community roles as a public university.”

The University is to be applauded for embarking on such an experiment. Although the project did not reduce its energy bill as much as anticipated, it has certainly served its educational and community roles as a public university.

The people of Maine should be particularly grateful that UMPI conducted the experiment in a scientifically honest manner and have made the results available to the public. The Windustry does not provide such transparency. The resulting data should be carefully considered by citizens and public servants in reaching conclusions about the wisdom of pursuing an extensive wind energy policy.

And what does this empirical data tell us about placing a line of wind turbines stretching from Bowers Mountain to Dill Hill? Granted a 25 turbine project will benefit from some economies of scale not available to UMPI. But considering that UMPI's wind resource was rated marginal to fair, how does that bode for the Carroll/Kossuth area which is rated poor to marginal?

UPDATE: 07/20/2010

After receiving a full year of disappointing production data, UMPI adjusted their expectations downward from 1,000,000 kWh to 700,000 kWh.

As an institution of higher learning, you'd think they would have issued a press release stating that "given that the first year results did not meet our projection, we have adjusted our expectations downward". Unfortunately they did not. Contrary to their responsibility as a taxpayer funded educational institution, UMPI put politics ahead of science. There was no announcement whatsoever. Instead, the UMPI website was mysteriously WIPED CLEAN of any mention of the long-stated primary goal of producing 1,000,000 KWH per year, which previously had been prominent on the site.

But wait, there's more!

When the University adjusted its production goal downward, wouldn't you expect them to similarly adjust their widely-publicized goal of 572 tons of CO₂ avoided and their savings goal of over $100,000 in annual electricity costs? Of course they should... but they didn't. UMPI is claiming that even though the turbine wil generate only 700,000 kWh, it will still avoid releasing 572 Tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere. How can that be? (Hint: it can't!). Similarly, UMPI still claims savings of over $100,000 in electricity charges!

In summary:

• •  cost overruns raised the final pricetag by 33% ($2 million vs $1.5 million)
• •  the production goal was reduced 30%.
• •  CO₂ avoided as a percent of production effectively increased 43%
• •  dollar savings per kWh generated effectively increased 43%

How can they claim the turbine is offsetting 43% more CO₂ than originally planned? How can they claim that UMPI's savings per kWh has increased 43%? How could anyone claim this experiment to be anything but a lesson in the the inefficiency of wind generated power? How could anyone be proud of these results? Stay tuned...

UPDATE: 11/20/2010

The UMPI wind turbine has been online for just over a year and a half now so we thought we'd revisit their website and see how all their tweaking has improved their production of electricity. Here's the snapshot of the UMPI website taken at 10:26 on November 20, 2010:

It's interesting to note that at the moment we grabbed that image from the UMPI website, the wind was blowing at 4.5m/s (10 mph) and yet the turbine was generating a negative 5.6kW of electricity. Again, that means that the turbine is actually drawing electricity out of the grid in order to heat the nacelle, pump lubricants, etc. Given the statistics shown and the fact that an additional 6 months has passed, the following results are even more meaningful than they were after only 12 months of operation:

It looks like the UMPI wind experiment continues to be a dismal failure. In fact, despite all the fine tuning they have done to the equipment, their output has actually declined!

Financially this wind experiment continues to be a big loser. It is yet another case of taxpayer money being wasted on a money losing wind project. It would be one thing if UMPI, Augusta and the media made these disasterous results widely available to help the public understand the disappointing realities of capturing the wind to generate electricity. But they don't. In fact, UMPI was awarded the 2010 Second Nature Leadership Award for Institutional Excellence in Climate Leadership! Click here to read the announcement.

When the experiment was announced, the 1,000 MWH annual production goal was accompanied by a CO₂ annual avoidance goal of 572 tons for a ratio of CO₂ tons to MWH ratio of .572. Today, UMPI reports actual to date 920.2 MWH accompanied by actual to date CO₂ avoidance of 660.7 tons translating to a ratio of CO₂ tons to MWH of .718. In other words, the experiment's CO₂ avoidance per unit of electricity produced has mysteriously increased by 25.5%. (.718 / .572 = 1.255) Why would that ratio ever change?