I've had the opportunity to see a wind powered genset with 1.3MW from the inside. I'd like to share the views from up there.
Look here



(I was there to repair the snowmobile and had to bring the technicians to the plant, get their bus out of the bush where they slid it and then I went up there)
Climbing a 60m ladder (almost 200 ft) with a cam in your hands is exhausting-- but well worth it IMO.
If you want to have full resolution pics shoot me a PM, I wanted to keep this dial-up friendly.

AlpineRAM

 

Great pics.
WOW!!! those things are TALL.

 

Do you think my neighbors would mind if I put one of those on my garage?

Impressive Pics !!!

 

There's a company thats been trying to put up a wind-farm here in KS forthe lastfewyears, but ther's a lot of oppisition to it" spoiling the beauty of the prairies and ruining the veiws ofthe flint-hills".....

I wish wecould getsomeofthose'round here or at least one on my place!
beautifull views there Alpine...
Dont knowifI'd been abletodo that( scared of heights)

 

Putting them on a garage would mean that you need some very nice foundation for your garage. Mast heigth 200 ft, each prop blade 100ft ...



Some pics from the construction site..

There are a lot of folks over here who are against those wind parks. On the other hand they seem to be necessary to reduce CO2 emissions.

AlpineRAM

 

I see those things coming out of Houston heading north and west. Each of those blades has to be around 65' long!

MikeyB

 

Yeah - I figured a few bits of 'retrofitting' might need to be in order :-)

 

FYI, for the past several months, the Port of Corpus Christi Tx. has been receiving quite a few shiploads of those things from overseas(Siemens?) and the components are IMPRESSIVE in size!!! THey are hauling them somewhere Northwards by land (I can't remember where right now) all piece-by-piece, over-the-roads.. If I can find the info I'll edit the post later
There are huge tapered column sections that flange together and other hardware that mounts up top. I haven't been able to spot the generators/nacelles yet but I can see the prop hub the blades flange up to(looks like it's a 3blade prop). Just ONE BLADE, the better part of 100'long, is drawn by one Semi Tractor!. They have a crane out there with a HUGE spreader bar with attached rigging just to lift each blade onto the special truck/trailer combos. Rear wheels are directly attached close to the skinny tip of each blade.
I can see all this as I drive over the Harbor Bridge each afternoon.
I'd love to take pix of them in the harbor area, but since 9/11 it's now very illegal for the law abiding public to do so. .

K.

 

I believe Texas has passed California for the number one position in wind power generation for the US.

MikeyB

 

The machines in my pics are made by Siemens- IIRC they are one of the biggest suppliers of wind generators worldwide.

This guy is sitting in the blade pitch mechanism...



AlpineRAM

 

I have always wanted to put a small one up here. Just a long time to get your $$$ back. With the math I did a few years back, the 20K would yield more in a 2% savings account.

what you need is to find some grant $$$ to put one up.

 

i was telling one ofthe guys i work with about this, and he informs me that Seimens fought and HAS obtained the permits forawind farm somewhere out towards Salina KS. So those may be heading up here......

 

Here's some info when they first started arriving in our port.. http://www.portofcorpuschristi.com/n...20Shipment.pdf
OMG! There's got to be a BUNCH of them installed by now.. They still keep arriving on ships, one right after the other. No sign of them slowing up.

EDIT: I found this which doesn't list much info on the Wildorado Wind Farm http://www.awea.org/projects/texas.html
WOW! 70 turbines, 2.3MW each! 450feet to the top of the blades!http://pepei.pennnet.com/Articles/Ar...ICLE_ID=248613
I guess I've been mistaking one of those cylindrical pieces(the gearbox/generator nacelle) as a large dia segment of the column...
http://www.powergeneration.siemens.c...sign/index.cfm

Alpine, I see the one you visited as basically the same design..
I'd love to visit one like you did.

K.

 

There will be a lot more of the wind generators in the future. Several in eastern Washington State. And have seen the wind farm comming across TX on I-10

Great pix Alpine. Keep them comming.

 

There is a large "wind farm" in montana , I passed through it multiple times while on harvest crew this summer. Best count I got was 93 of the big generators... and it looked like they were getting ready to put more in.

I also saw several of the units each time i crossed the border ( I crossed about 7 times total)