Nordex turbine collapse, Wales

[Oliver90owner]

This is the time to pose the question as to what ratio of cost the groundwork are (per turbine) compared to the turbine itself & savings / re-use "down the line" for next gen turbines!?

Next generation of turbines will likely need far bigger foundations than the current, which will have been adjudged of more than adequate (safety factor).

Nearly all replacement turbines are either increased power and/or taller towers.

[Mr Gus]

Understood, but with all the pre-laid cable, access paths laid etc.. (part of the initial cost of the original set up) what are the savings second time round, for any ground works versus total cost of getting it to "spinning, grid connected"

We always talk of "life of a turbine" ..what is the life elsewhere in the set up, & thus built into the ongoing investment within a renewables site?

[nowty]

You would need to go through the planning process all over again if you were to install a taller / larger turbine and it would not match the existing ones so probably a non starter.

Ripple WT1 had to be sized so it matched the others on the skyline from a distance.

[Mr Gus]

Interesting that Nowty, we have different sizes of turbine (not father ted "little cow a long way away" ) across a few fields here!

But then, it be the fens.

[Oliver90owner]

Understood, but with all the pre-laid cable, access paths laid etc.. (part of the initial cost of the original set up) what are the savings second time round, for any ground works versus total cost of getting it to "spinning, grid connected"

We always talk of "life of a turbine" ..what is the life elsewhere in the set up, & thus built into the ongoing investment within a renewables site?

Can you imagine anyone using more than full-load rated cabling for the current turbine(s). I can’t. The grid connection from a wind-farm will, similarly, not be considerably over-rated on the off-chance of it being good enough for an up-graded output. There is good scrap value in Copper.

That leaves the access roads as about the only re-usable items from the original installation. The rest would be scrap. I expect those access roads would be a fairly modest cost as part of most wind farms?

[nowty]

For ripple WT1,

https://cleanearthenergy.com/tenacity-p ... plication/

With 37 turbines already spinning on the hills above Coedely, the aim was to size and locate our turbine to appear as a single addition to the operational wind farms. Although its height from ground to blade tip was greater than theirs at 126 m, the land elevation was 30 m lower which allowed all the turbine tips to line up on the skyline.

[Mr Gus]

Understood, but with all the pre-laid cable, access paths laid etc.. (part of the initial cost of the original set up) what are the savings second time round, for any ground works versus total cost of getting it to "spinning, grid connected"

We always talk of "life of a turbine" ..what is the life elsewhere in the set up, & thus built into the ongoing investment within a renewables site?

Can you imagine anyone using more than full-load rated cabling for the current turbine(s). I can’t. The grid connection from a wind-farm will, similarly, not be considerably over-rated on the off-chance of it being good enough for an up-graded output. There is good scrap value in Copper.

That leaves the access roads as about the only re-usable items from the original installation. The rest would be scrap. I expect those access roads would be a fairly modest cost as part of most wind farms?

This is exactly why I ask Oliver, no I didn't expect cable to be greatly over-rated, but you never know, planning based on contract for instance, belt & braces, foresight, as a sparky may advise when sticking new cable in, or general tech "future proofing" + labour versus materials.

So it has to be all dug up over again if loose laid or pulled through piping? ..aspects I've not thought about till now.
The point being that WT's are likely here to stay, so now they are taken seriously rather than before, what changes are needed versus what changes can be built in from the outset.

[AE-NMidlands]

Another (minor) failure:

Hesket Newmarket wind turbine breaks due to Storm Dudley A wind turbine has broken apart in Cumbria during Storm Dudley.

The high winds caused the blades to shear off in Hesket Newmarket, and a passer-by found the wreckage and captured it on camera on Wednesday.

I suppose it's still relatively early days for turbines, we should expect some failures as the commercial driver of "optimisation" or value engineering is still on the learning curve. Also Liimted Liability Partnerships can just walk away after doing designs etc, so it is down to the insurance companies to pick up the pieces - ultimately funded by Joe Public of course!
A