A visit to the Westmill Wind Farm

There is something amazing about wind generated power. When you see a wind turbine up close they are superbly elegant machines. They run near silently and all you get is a slight hum from the generators and the whooshing of the rotors as the tips whiz past.

The Westmill wind farm is about 5 miles from us and is co-operative owned, built on farmland and generates enough power for 2500 households. Its been operational since February and we all love it. However there were quite a few NIMBY objectors in the village I believe. Wake up you lot...



The pictures I took didn't come out very well, partly due to the bad weather and my phone camera being on the wrong settings... my fault. Here's a couple though and a video.

The 5 turbines are Siemens 1.3MW turbines and were made in Brande in Denmark. They run at windspeeds between 10 and 55 Mph (i.e. nearly all the time!) They generate electricity at 690v which is transformed in the housing at the bottom of each tower to 33KV for transmission via under ground cables to the distribution grid. They are 49 metres high, and the rotor diameter is 62 metres. The generator weighs 46.5 tonnes, the rotor 29.7 tonnes and the tower weighs 53.6 tonnes. They took just 8 days to erect! Awesome. How many other power stations can be built that quickly?

I love seeing these and would be happy to see more. I went with Mabel and Millie and we met up with Doug and his son Scot. In the car on the way home I was explaining to Mabel that by the time she is an adult these may well be more common place. She was very excited and pleased by that. Millie was mesmerized by them. I just watched, amazed that the wind can generate that much clean energy.

Last facts, it takes a year to generate enough energy to recover the energy used to construct the site, and each year will produce the same energy as would normally produce 10,000 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide. Is this the future?

A fine visit to do on my birthday.