Falmouth Wind Turbines An Expensive Fossil Fuel Disaster

Financial controls are essential to properly safeguard taxpayer’s dollars.

Vestas V-82 wind turbines such as those in Falmouth require a large amount of energy to operate. The Falmouth wind turbines, however, use electricity from the grid, which does not appear to be accounted for by town officials in their output figures or expense accounts.

At the Falmouth Wastewater treatment plant it is completely unknown how much power is coming ultimately from Eversource or National Grid to operate the turbines. The shut downs are a result of the wind not blowing or shut down by the courts and local zoning board of appeals.

The manufacturers of large turbines do not include electricity consumption in the specifications they provide and another failure of due diligence by Falmouth officials.

When the Vestas turbines are shut down power from the local electric company is needed for the blades to keep facing the wind, rotate the blades at a slow rate, lights, controllers, communication, sensors. During the winter heat is needed for the blades and during the summer turbines have dehumidifiers to keep electronic components dry. These turbines have a gear box that uses an oil pump,cooler and filtering system. A solid-state semiconductor devices also causes electric losses in these type turbines. The turbines have batteries to be constantly be charged to keep power around the magnetic coils of the generator. The wind turbines use power just like any power plant but depend on the local electric grid for power to operate.

The general population of Falmouth has no idea of the amount of electric consumption from the local power company into the wind turbines. It appears dirty so called electric fossil fuel is being pumped into the turbines while they are off and clean green energy comes out when they operate. A bunco scheme.

The Falmouth Energy Committee prior to the installations of the turbines provided the electric use of all the municipal services. The energy committee used those figures to help convince voters to install the wind turbines. The Town of Falmouth has not produced the town electric usage on its site since 2010.

The Town of Falmouth needs an accounting of the electric use.

Falmouth Wind I no longer operates and Falmouth Wind II only operates 12 hours a day only six days a week and only when the wind blows over 6 miles per hour.

A study of a Vestas V82 1.65-MW wind turbine showed these type turbines as they age lose 2 to 4 percent of their production per year. The life cycle is twenty years but multi-million dollar gear box failures happen around 5 years.

The Town of Falmouth has a duty to report how systems exist to determine how local funds are to be spent. This duty ensures that the funds are spent legally and in a manner consistent with the original intent, and to control the collection of revenues that pay for the services.

One need only ask how much electric power went into the Falmouth Wastewater treatment plant in the last ten months and compare that to the power use in the same ten month time frame the year before.

The town has ten months of figures to use to figure out the metered power use of electricity for the ten months staring in October of 2014. This is simple math and a simple task. The town audit department should be able to trot out some real numbers. Taxpayers should be asking why they haven't done that already.

There are those that deny just how much or what percentage of parasitic power goes into the Falmouth wind turbines. The Town of Falmouth has the facts, figures, electric use bills and amount paid over the ten month shut down to audit and show taxpayers what they are paying for.

This is an opportunity to study the parasitic power loss in commercial wind turbines right here in Falmouth.

A study of the power use would prove the exact power loss due to the parasitic load. This is probably something our news media and politicians want us to know.

The Town of Falmouth has the opportunity today to show how much parasitic power, power from the grid, has now potentially been used by the two wind turbines by looking at data from the Wastewater plant over two ten month periods.

Let's say both turbines consume 20 percent of their maximum output in parasitic power from the grid. Falmouth Wind l no longer operates a total loss of power. The Falmouth Wind ll turbine only operates 12 hours a day when the wind is blowing over 6 miles per hour. To get maximum power output from Falmouth Wind ll the wind needs to blow over 15 miles per hour.

Falmouth taxpayers are at a point where they are paying to pollute the environment with electric power from the grid produced by fossil fuel.

A full accounting is warranted