Falmouth Massachusetts Wind Turbine Whac-A-Mole

Whac-A-Mole is a game situation where each time the adversary loses they pop up somewhere else it is very hard to win.

The conventional wisdom is the Falmouth Select Board has again failed in its apparent efforts to extricate the town from the wind turbine health and the financial fiasco.

In the Spring of 2013, a town-wide vote was taken to finance taking down the wind turbines. The Select Board at that time prior to the vote had a 110-decibel noise warning letter, memos, maps, emails and noise study that showed the turbines should not have been built in the first place. The voting public was never made aware of the documents and the town decided not to fund the removal of the turbines.

The Town of Falmouth strategy can be characterized as a "Whac-A-Mole" legal approach that keeps beating up the wind turbine neighbors and taxpayers without solving the problem.

One example at a Town Meeting a Member asked a question over wind turbine finances in which the Town Moderator told him to ask that kind of question prior to Town Meeting at Town Hall. The Town Meeting Member sat down and never got the financial answer. Why even have a Town Meeting if you have to ask your questions before the meeting at Town Hall? How would you know what question to ask until you heard input into the article being voted on?

The Massachusetts Superior Court shut down the turbines in June of 2017. Susan Moran, the chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen, said: “It's time to put the matter behind us and move forward.” The question now do they really put the matter behind them or does "Whac-A-Mole" continue?

In the past few months, the Select Board has announced they are going to hire a wind turbine consultant to decide what to do with the wind turbines. During that same time frame, the privately owned Falmouth wind turbine was shut down for seven weeks undergoing "routine maintenance." The two town-owned turbines and the private turbine are all Vestas V-82 type 1.65 megawatt wind turbines all built between 2004 an 2009.

A little research shows this "routine maintenance " done on all Vestas wind turbines runs around $325,000.00 per wind turbine and more.

Oddly the local news media and Select Board thought the downtime of the turbine, massive crane and expenses was just something the public was not interested in? The media does a story about trash on the side of the road but misses a 500-foot crane taking seven-ton blades off a wind turbine?

If the Select Board wanted to put this behind them they would make public the August 2010 Vestas noise warning letter and tell the public about the $325,000.00 plus "routine maintenance" on the turbines.

Whac-A-Mole: “they bop up and you whack ’em down, and if they pop up again, you bop ’em down again.”

Extending Wind Turbine Main Bearing Life

Source :

How to extend the life of your wind turbine main bearing

Romax has developed an effective process for life extension for main bearings. Our solution has proven results from extensive grease flushing activity already undertaken, extending life by 12 months or more. This provides a big ROI for wind farms struggling with high unplanned maintenance costs, helping failing turbines to continue producing power until servicing or replacement can be scheduled.