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Archive - Archive 2004 - July 2013

Wind power fed into grid |28 February 2013

Wind power fed into grid

The three turbines started feeding power into the grid yesterday

The Minister for Environment and Energy Professor Rolph Payet announced this yesterday saying although monitoring and adjustments continue on computers to adapt the windmill system into our heavy fuel power generators, the three are already feeding some electricity into the grid.

The other five will continue to be tested and connected in a complex start-off phase that should give us wind power for the 25 years or more of the turbines’ lives.

“Today we for the first time have power flowing from a renewable energy source. We have three turbines running and giving power to the national grid,” said Prof Payet.

“We will now proceed and connect the other turbines as and when the tests are completed,” he said, adding tests on the three are not complete but the checks are part of the commissioning process where they are supposed to run for a certain number of hours before we can sign for them.

Prof Payet said the units are expected to run and give energy from when the wind is not strong – around 3 metres per second – to when it gusts at around 100 kilometres an hour, beyond which they would automatically shut off (or stop), adding that cyclones – which we do not have – are bad for such turbines.
“In countries which suffer cyclones they have to ‘bring the units down’ otherwise they would be destroyed.”

He said the modern units are computer controlled and have mini-weather stations on board each, which allow them to detect wind speeds and direction, automatically adjusting the angle of the vanes and direction the windmills face.

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