Have you ever seen a wind farm, up close and personal? It is an amazing sight.
Last summer, I took a side trip to the new wind farm going up northwest of Burlington. Built by Duke Energy, the 51-megawatt farm will generate electricity for Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which, in turn supplies that electricity electric co-ops throughout the region, including local electric co-op K.C. Electric headquartered in nearby Hugo.
I drove north on County Road 44 and then took Road BB back to the east. This took me right by several towers that were up and several more that were being erected. This detour is well worth your time. These towers are incredibly huge.
It is hard to quantify but I took a picture of one and then realized that the small dot at the base of one tower was a pickup truck. It looked like a toy.
Whether you are a fan of wind power or not, the drive is worth it just to experience the magnitude of the project. When I was there, five towers were up and two were being erected. I dare say that when you read this there will be dozens. The workers are moving fast.
The project is called the Kit Carson Windpower Project and is composed of 34 1.5- megawatt General Electric turbines currently on a 6,000-acre site. The facility is projected to generate enough electricity to power 12,000 to 14,000 homes and is scheduled to be fully operational by December 2010.
Each tower stands 262.47 feet tall and the diameter of the blades is 252.62 feet. At the top of the rotation, the tip of the blade would be 388.78 feet in the air. To put that in perspective, it is more than twice the height of the chapel at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Cut-in speed for the generators is 7.83 miles per hour. Storm cut-out speed is 62.63 miles per hour. Optimum speed for the turbine is 31.32 miles per hour. When the wind is at optimum speed (31.32 miles per hour), the blades are turning at 14.6 rotations per minute. Through a series of gears, that will turn the generator at 1,440 rpm.
Several people have asked me how fast the blades turn. I had a friend of mine compute the data. At 14.6 rpm the tips of the blades are moving 131.68 miles an hour. At that set of optimum conditions, the generator will be producing 1.5 megawatts of electricity.
What does 1.5 megawatts mean? Watts are the yardstick for measuring power. A 100-watt lightbulb, for example, is rated to consume 100 watts of power when turned on. If such a lightbulb were on for four hours, it would consume a total of 400 watt-hours of energy. Watts, therefore, measure instantaneous power, while watthours or kilowatt-hours measure the total amount of energy consumed over a period of time.
A kilowatt is 1,000 watts. A megawatt is 1,000,000 watts. Both terms are commonly used in the power business when describing generation or load consumption. For instance, a 1.5-MW rated wind generator is capable of producing 1.5 MW during optimum winds. That means it is producing 1.5 million watts.
To put that into perspective, it will power 15,000 100-watt bulbs. Obviously, it will produce much less than its rated amount when winds are too light or too strong.
Drive by and take a look if you have the time. These will be a part of our landscape for many years to come.
— By Ben Orrell, K.C. Electric