ARCHBOLD WEATHER

Wind Turbines Pass Last Test




Aaron Godwin, wind energy consultant to the Archbold and Pettisville school districts, said Toledo Edison has granted final approval to the schools’ wind turbines.

The approximately $2 million (each) machines can be connected to the TE power grid and can begin generating electricity; and with that generation, reduce the districts’ utility costs.

“We received final approval late Friday (Feb. 21) for the two sites,” Godwin said on Monday.

“They were form letters that said everything was acceptable. We are legally allowed to connect to the power grid.”

The final test required by Toledo Edison was the phase disconnect test, in which one of three wires, or phases, of electricity flowing into the school buildings is disconnected. The wind turbines are required to stop generating power within a set period of time.

The goal of the test is to prove the turbines won’t feed power back into the TE system during a power outage, posing a danger for TE workers.

The first time the test was performed, there wasn’t enough wind. The next time the test was scheduled, the wind was too strong, exceeding test parameters.

The third time was the charm.

Further Commissioning

Now, Godwin said, comes the final phase of the commissioning process, an optimization of settings– a sort of fine tuning.

Engineers will “debug” the turbine internal software.

“It’s an ongoing process,” that could take as long as a month, he said.

Some of the work will be done on site, but much of it will be done remotely, over the Internet.

In three months, crews will return to the turbine site to recheck the torque readings on all critical bolts.

Training

There also will be additional training to district employees for jobs they might need to do.

Such jobs are limited to resetting the controls from the tower base. Godwin said it’s a matter of “what buttons to push.”

District employees will not need to climb the internal ladders to the top of the approximately 200-foot towers.

They also will learn how to respond to an emergency.

Godwin said the wind turbine project is getting closer to the end.

“It’s nice to see them generating,” he said.



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