we’re generating
Friday, June 13th, 2008You’ve no idea how happy I am to see several of these little fellers on my SCADA system:
That means we’re up and running. Go Lake Erie!
Archive for the ‘Wind Things’ Category
operating (nearly)
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008We were testing wind turbines yesterday.
Not the best picture, but it is a running Vestas V82.
the long neck has arrived
Saturday, May 31st, 2008I picked up my long neck banjo from Hugh Hunter today. It’s wonderful.
(The image links to some of Hugh’s work-in-progress pictures.)
propeller guy
Monday, May 26th, 2008
Tasty noms with Kyle MacNeill
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
Meena Peruvemba (CanWEA), Kyle MacNeill and Derek Lim Soo (GE) prepare the veggies at The Urban Element
The CanWEA board, and as many staff who could make it, went to The Urban Element last night for a team-building dinner. I usually shy away from team building things (I’ve have too many There is no I in team sessions, to which I usually respond, “Yes, but there is me, and also meat, so I think that says something”) but this one was good.
The Urban Element isn’t your average resto. You prepare and cook your own dinner, with the direct supervision of chef Kyle MacNeill and his assistants. Now it helps a lot that they’ve chosen very fine ingredients, and measured them out just so, and also have a properly set up kitchen and utensils, but we had to do the mixing, marinading and cooking.
What we made:
- Grilled romain caesar salad
- Kerr Farms flatiron steaks with asparagus and Yukon gold potatoes with rosemary butter
- Toasted saffron couscous with chick peas, cashews, tomatoes and sweet peppers
- Crispy fennel flatbread
- Chocolate praline tart with frangelico sauce
It was good; very good. Really amazingly good. Great atmosphere and a very pleasant evening.
farewell to the 13th floor
Thursday, May 8th, 2008Well, this was my last day at EPCOR. The last two and a bit years have been fun.
It’s strange to think that I can fit my entire desk contents into one file box:
I also made sure I didn’t break with tradition:
la belle province
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
Hydro-Québec announced their wind RFP winners yesterday. It’s a huge deal for the industry; more than 2000 MW of contracts awarded, with commissioning dates ranging from 2011-2015. Enercon and REpower won all the manufacturing; strict local content requirements mean that they will have to set up shop in Québec.
This is good for the Canadian industry. Now the real work begins.
let it all hang out
Saturday, April 19th, 2008Ontarians free to hang clothes in yards. Yeah, I couldn’t believe that it was illegal to hang out the washing in some areas either.
wind turbine raccoon sees you
Friday, April 18th, 2008… and is unimpressed.
We encountered a raccoon last night. It was somewhat surprised to see us. Almost as much as we were to find it on top of the steps to a wind turbine.
giveaway: windshare turbine picture
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
Decided to give away my favourite picture of the WindShare/Toronto Hydro wind turbine under an open licence.
Here are the file details:
File size : 719263 bytes File date : 2003:02:23 16:25:10 Camera make : NIKON Camera model : E2500 Date/Time : 2003:02:23 16:25:10 Resolution : 1200 x 1600 Flash used : No (auto) Focal length : 8.9mm (35mm equivalent: 58mm) Exposure time: 0.0007 s (1/1451) Aperture : f/3.4 ISO equiv. : 100 Whitebalance : Auto Metering Mode: matrix Exposure : program (auto) Jpeg process : Progressive GPS Latitude : N 43d 37m 54.98s GPS Longitude: W 79d 25m 32.4876s Comment : WindShare / Toronto Hydro wind turbine Comment : Exhibition Place, Toronto Comment : taken on opening day, 23 Feb 2003 Comment : licensed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons by the Comment : creator, Stewart C. Russell / scruss.com - 23 March 2008
It’s also on flickr and Wikimedia Commons.
… vs the voluble minority
Monday, March 17th, 2008Chatham Daily News is conducting an online poll asking if the opponents to wind power are just NIMBY’s. You can review the poll, the results and vote at http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/.
is this the same report?
Thursday, March 13th, 2008A recent BBC news story from Scotland leads with:
Wind farms could hit tourist jobs
Wind farms could cost Scotland’s tourism industry millions of pounds and hundreds of jobs, a report has warned.
But the findings of the report are much milder:
This research has shown that even using a worst case scenario the impact of current applications would be very small …
… Our overall conclusion is that the effects are so small that, provided planning and marketing are carried out effectively, there is no reason why the two are incompatible.
So it looks, as usual, as if the BBC is trying to make wind turbines look far worse than they really are.
Ravenswood Opening
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
Yesterday — five years after the WindShare turbine started generating — Sky Generation’s Ravenswood wind farm was officially opened. Ravenswood is the first wind farm built under the Ontario Standard Offer program, and four of its six 1.65MW turbines operate under that system. The other two turbines supply power to Bullfrog.
Tom Heintzman, Glen Estill and Martin Ince.
The Mayor, the Landowner and the Energy Minister cut the ribbon.
Glen explains the SCADA to Gerry Phillips, Ontario Energy Minister.
Here’s what Glen said about the opening: Grand Opening of Ravenswood.
Micro-wind turbines often increase CO2
Monday, December 3rd, 2007Micro-wind turbines often increase CO2, says study | Environment | The Guardian
The Building Research Establishment Trust, which advises the government and private sector, has found that in built-up towns and cities weak winds and turbulence mean turbines are likely to add to, not subtract from, a home’s carbon footprint.
goodbye, stamps
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007Bullfrog Power are going to stop issuing their own bills, and go through the local utility. Though I understand it is a bunch cheaper to get Toronto Hydro to do it, I’ll miss getting my bills with a stamp affixed.
Hmm, now that I have a smart meter, does that mean I can access the metering information? Bullfrog doesn’t do time-of-use (yet), but the stats would delight this nerd.
go ripley!
Thursday, November 29th, 2007I drove past Ripley Wind Farm today. Looks like most of the turbines are energised (they were yawed into the wind) and one was running.
something other than wind blows here
Saturday, November 17th, 2007Dave Bidini’s article in today’s Globe & Mail, An ill wind blows (now irritatingly hidden behind a paywall, but helpfully cached here) troubles me about what got through basic fact-checking:
- “The turbines expected on the island are open-bladed, a style being replaced in Europe by closed-blade turbines, which do less damage to wildlife.” What are closed-blade turbines? I’m in weekly contact with colleagues in the European wind energy industry. If people were installing a radically different type of machine, I’d know about it.
- The article cites the National Center for Policy Analysis as a source. Quoting the NCPA on wind energy and the environment is a little like quoting the NRA on gun control. Check out the NCPA’s E-Team: Providing Accurate Information on Energy & Environment Issues. Overall, I’d say that ExxonMobil are getting great VFM on their donations to NCPA [PDF] if they’re now being quoted as a credible, balanced source.
not-so-smart meter
Friday, October 26th, 2007We got our smart meter installed today. Unfortunately, Catherine didn’t quite understand why there was a knock on the door, then her computer went beeeeyyooooww … then all our clocks caught the <blink> tag.
While I like smart meters, this one isn’t quite as smart as it could be. To me, a smart meter needs to have a big display of your current demand, and needs to be inscribed with a suitable message like “Quit using so much juice, you cretin!” It also needs to hook into local time-of-use pricing, which me being green and a Bullfrog customer and all, I don’t get to take part in. Boo.
But what could have really gone sideways was my own desktop, which was quietly chugging away installing Ubuntu 7.10. Since I started using Linux in 1995, I don’t think I’ve ever had a system upgrade go totally smoothly. This time, though, I was lucky - the system must have fully initialised before we lost power.
I can’t honestly say I see any difference between Feisty Fawn and Gutsy Gibbon; they both are fairly pretty, and just work.
this is rather good
Sunday, October 21st, 2007BWEA - Google Map of all UK wind farms - wonder if we can do the same for CanWEA?
the colour of
Saturday, October 6th, 2007I picked up these crayons at the GE Wind stand at CanWEA:
Yes, those really are the colour names - Purification Purple, Evolution Orange, Mother Earth Brown, Cleaner Coal Black, Solar Yellow, Revitalized Red, Hybrid Green, Clear Water Blue.
Is there a connection between wind power and crayons? Wait until I don my polyester leisure jacket, James Burke-style, until I tell you: Edwin Binney, inventor of Crayola, had a daughter (Dorothy) who married George P. Putnam. Putnam went on (with only a short detour into promoting then marrying the person for whom the word “aviatrix” is most often used, Amelia Earhart) to help create the Smith-Putnam wind turbine (itself perhaps the most heroically unsuccessful story in the history of wind energy).Wind turbines; crayons: it’s all connected, see?
Maybe I should’ve picked up a bunch of these at the show, as even a ratty package of them is going for over $30 on eBay. I’m glad that mine are already on their way to a 4 year old in Ohio, where they will be appreciated more than by any collector.