Falmouth To Spend 2.5 Million-Plus Dinosaur Turbine Storage

Falmouth Town Meeting Members Need To Educate Themselves

1. Sale of Wind Turbine (s) :

The Massachusetts court system shut down and the local zoning board shut down these turbines in June of 2017.

The Falmouth Select Board in January of 2019 asks the town attorney to prepare an RFP, Request for Proposal to sell the turbines.

After ten months no one bought the turbines. There is no RFP.

There is likely no resale or spare parts value for these two (2) older gear-driven units given the cost of dismantling and the velocity with which wind turbine technology is changing semi-annually. Units built in 2004 are dinosaurs in today’s wind turbine arena. Money spent by the town in dismantling and trying to save the units for resale would be ill-spent.

The lifespan of the average turbine is 20 years but gearbox and blade replacement have shortened that prediction. While new wind farms are going up, America’s first generation of wind farms is reaching retirement age. A Midwest farm of 44 turbines recently retired at the average age of 18 years old with plans to dynamite the turbines and cart off the waste to a landfill. No one wants the parts they are too old.

In 2019 the costs for a brand new utility-scale wind turbine range from about $1.3 million to $2.2 million per megawatt of nameplate capacity installed. Most of the commercial-scale turbines installed today are 2 MW in size and cost roughly $3-$4 million installed. About the same the town plans on spending taking down the turbines and placing them in storage.

(2) Enter Agreement - Removes Blades, Nacelle(Gearbox), To New Location Sharing Profits? :

What federal, state or local municipal community would take a wind turbine that has been through ten years of litigation with as many as nine court verdicts?

The gearbox design from twenty years ago in the Falmouth turbines is a costly (and heavy) part of the wind turbine and engineers have developed "direct-drive" generators that operate at lower rotational speeds and don't need gearboxes.

The blades are made of fiberglass and resin that wear like ice skates up to two percent a year creating less production and more noise as would an old car. The wind industry has a problem disposing of the blades and refers to them as man-made asbestos. The cost to replace three blades on these type turbines around 3 million and a gearbox over 1/2 million. A new 2-megawatt wind turbine could be installed today at that price.

Specialized crane and labor to take down turbines and move to new locations include permits, wetlands, endangered species, engineering, site preparation, noise and shadow flicker studies for these types of 110-decibel wind turbines.

There is no profit moving turbines designed in the late 1990s

(3) Repurpose tower for a line of sight communications or cell service:

A strong possibility

(4) Dismantle Turbine(s) and Remove for Private Use ;

Article 14 on November 12, 2019, Town Meeting asks for 2.5 million to take down the turbines and put them in storage and as stated in the local media Town Meeting will be expected to approve more money down the road.

The simple fact is commercial megawatt wind turbines have become much lower in price and more productive lasting tens of years longer than the older turbines, in fact, a private company could have a brand new turbine installed for the same price.,

(5) Bottom line controlled demolition (dynamite) :

There are much cheaper options available such as the company that brought down the two 500 foot cooling towers at the Fall River power plant

Assuming you have the setbacks to fell the two (2) V-82 type 1.65 Megawatt units in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 2020, you would likely be talking about something between $70,000 and $100,000, depending on the actual configuration of the units and other variables. That is less than ¼ of what it would cost to dismantle the two (2) units in today’S dollars.

One hundred thousand dollars to put both on the ground.

(6) The Hitch :

In June 2009, Falmouth Special Town Meeting members voted to accept federal funds from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to build Falmouth Wind II.

The town borrowed $4,865,000 from the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust to construct Wind 2. The loan agreement brokered by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection states the town would not owe principal or interest as long as Wind 2 remains operational. The turbine has not operated since June of 2017.

It is not clear if the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust can forgive the remainder of that debt, should the turbines relocate and operate outside Falmouth because the agreement brokered by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection is regulated by federal regulations.

That federal regulation is: Falmouth Wind Turbine II

Notice of a Regional Project Waiver of Section 1605 (Buy American) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to the Town of Falmouth, MA.

A Notice by the Environmental Protection Agency on 04/27/2010

Prior to installation of both the Falmouth wind turbines the foreign manufacturer through emails, specifications and a letter in August of 2010 made it clear that each of these wind turbines generates 110 decibels twice as loud as a domestic wind turbine.

Falmouth Town Meeting is the legislative branch of town government, used to enact local laws, pass budgets and authorize spending of town money.