Posted on 05/22/2023 5:37:19 PM PDT by george76
Scottish Power admitted 71 of its windmills were hooked up to the fossil fuel supply after a fault developed with their power supply.
Dozens of giant turbines on Scotland’s windfarms have been powered by diesel generators, the Sunday Mail can reveal. Scottish Power admitted 71 of its windmills were hooked up to the fossil fuel supply after a fault developed on the grid.
The firm said it was forced to act in order to keep the turbines warm during very cold weather in December. But a whistleblower has told the Sunday Mail the incident is among a number of environmental and health and safety failings.
The worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “The Scottish Government wants to make our country attractive to foreign investors as 40 per cent of the wind that blows across Europe blows across Scotland. However, that should not mean we put up with our waterways and nature being polluted with carbon from diesel generators and hydraulic oil.
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“People should be aware that, while their energy costs continue to rise, our windfarms are not operating as efficiently as they could be due to corporate greed.”
Labour’s South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth said: “The SNP and Greens have proven time and time again they cannot be trusted on environmental issues. They laud Scotland’s potential for renewables, yet don’t appear to ensure those already in existence are properly run. This isn’t the first problem raised about this site and there is concern at a lack of openness when problems arise.
"Whatever the reasons, having to use diesel generators to de-ice faulty turbines is environmental madness. This level of dishonesty cuts to the very core of the SNP and Green Government where their rhetoric on net zero is very different from the reality."
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Sixty turbines at Arecleoch Wind farm and 11 at Glenn App near Cairnrayn in South Ayrshire were affacted and connected to six huge diesel generators. The windfarms are operated by Scottish Power Renewables, a subsidiary of Spanish-based Iberdrola, which operates 1183 onshore turbines which can produce enough electricity to power two million homes.
But the whistleblower revealed how they had to bring in generators after the issue was discovered.
The worker said: “During December 60 turbines at Arecleoch and 11 at Glenn App were de-energised due to a cabling fault originating at Mark Hill wind farm. In order to get these turbines re-energised diesel generators were running for upwards of six hours a day.”
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He also claimed there had been other technical issues and environmental problems discovered. They include:
Turbines left operating on half power for long periods due to faulty convertor modules. Others in “test mode” where they take rather than contribute electricity to the grid. Over 4000 litres of oil leaked from hydraulic units on turbines and sprayed over the countryside. Concerns about safety standards and transparency. The whistleblower said: “Turbines are regularly offline due to faults where they are taking energy from the grid rather than producing it, and also left operating on half power for long periods due to parts which haven’t been replaced.
"Dirty hydraulic oil is also regularly being sprayed out across the Scottish countryside due to cracks in mechanisms. Safety standards have not improved since a worker was killed in 2017 at Kilgallioch wind farm.”
We revealed last year how the chairman of ScottishPower, Spaniard Ignacio Galan, earned over £11million in 2021. He took home the massive package as millions of customers face being plunged into poverty by rocketing fuel costs.
A spokesman for Scottish Power confirmed diesel generators were used for a “short period of time” due to an “external fault on the GB network” which left three windfarms unable to operate during extreme cold weather in December.
Tell me again how wind power is so clean, efficient, and reliable?
Wind and solar already have to be subsidized. They cost even more if they are run properly, and they cost even more than that if you try and mitigate the environmental damage they cause.
Natural gas on the other hand produces so much energy so inexpensively that we can afford to sell cheap electricity and still have money left over to mitigate any environmental effects.
The only benefit of “renewables” is that they enrich politicians and their friends.
Think about it.
lol
It's time for an investigation into Big Wind.
So you’re saying that the device that generates power needs a separate power supply to operate the controls for the power generating device?
The initial subsidies in Spain for solar were so lucrative that the solar companies aimed giant spotlights at night to generate electricity from the panels. Solar used more power than was generated, but the subsidies were so lop-sided that they could easily afford to run the spotlights.
Controls voltage is what controls the (Machine name here). If there is a problem with the generator, reactor, or turbine, and systems need to open/close valves, produce compressed air for pneumatic valves controls, pump lubricants, pump hydraulic fluids, and control speeds, you're in deep doo-doo without control voltage.
Or here's an easier way to understand. "How do you start a generator turbine when the turbine isn't running"? How do you open and close circuits, run pumps, and governors, when the turbine hasn't started yet?
I believe that nuclear plants need external power to start up and run too.
No I get it. I work with machines of a different sort but they all have control panels to adjust different variables like speed, angle, pressure, cycles, trigger delay etc.
Makes sense that you need the control panel powered up to power up the power turbine generator. It just sounds bizarre. And you couldn’t really put them in series either you’d still need at least one power source to start the entire “farm” even if you could harness one to power up the next. With windmills I’m just guessing you need to control start/stop, angle of the turbines, gears, maybe rotation and motorized pivot to turn the entire mill towards the optimal wind direction - just off the top of my head. Probably 100 other things like sensors and safety triggers etc - things I don’t know since its out of my realm of specific expertise.
Fukushima was a huge anomaly.
The generators had fuel enough to run for weeks, but those tanks were washed away in the tsunami. The battery backup for the gensets worked exactly as designed and kept everything under control until the battery banks ran out of juice.
Nobody anticipated that there would not be power available for over three DAYS, let alone the weeks it took to get power there. Had the diesel tanks not washed away, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, it would have been a non-event.
Of course, I mentioned it merely for demonstration points regular folks could understand. Drama gets attention.
The main machine can't be stopped once it's at speed because it takes a half hour to stop. Any faster and you'll rip the footings right out of the foundation and have a steam loaded Yankee Dryer rolling down the nearest highway at 6,000 feet per minute. (about 60 miles per hour)
I immediately installed prove oil flow sensors into the start circuit. An example of auxiliary control circuits and their importance.
Great description. Powering automated control systems is important in ways many never think about or understand.
Needed a good laugh!
“Black start” of any power plant is the same.
Personally, I use 5W-30 in the winter, but maybe the pointy heads in Scotland never heard of that viscosity.
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