CORDIS Archive : OPET - Technical Fiches

Technical Fiches

Technical Sheet of THERMIE Project Renewables - Wind Power (RWI-3)

Technical Fiches | Biomass Energy fiches | Wind Energy fiches | Rational use of Energy fiches

General Information
Project title:	Ovenden Moor Wind Farm
Location:	Ovenden Moor, West Yorkshire
Contract number:	WE/00282/91/UK/DK
EC contribution:	1 999 237 ECU
Start date:	01/01/1992
End date:	30/05/1995
State of project:	Completed
Coordinator and partners	Yorkshire Windpower Limited Wetherby road, Scarcroft LS14 3HS Leeds United Kingdom
Contact:	ROGERS Ian
Tel:	+44-113 289 5368
Fax:	+44-113 289 5426
Partner	Yorkshire Water PLC, UK Yorkshire Electricity Group Ltd, UK Vestas DWT Denmark
Keywords:	WIND FARMS, COST DECREASE, HILLS

Short Description of the Project

A wind farm was designed and constructed in the high moorland area of South Pennines, near Halifax. The farm consists of 23 wind turbine generators (WTG:s) of the make WD34, 400 kW each, manufactured by Vestas DWT. Very high availability and production figures could be reported after the first full year of operation. An integral part of the project was an extensive dissemination campaign, directed to professionals in the EU, and to the local audience at large, to explain features of renewable wind power production.

Aim and Objectives

The aim is to demonstrate the viability of a wind farm of economic size in a high moorland area in UK, to gain own hand experience in all factors concerning the planning, construction and operation of a 9.2 MW wind farm, to lower the costs of future similar wind farm projects, to create and conduct an extensive dissemination campaign, and to get experience on a new model of 400 kW WTG with innovative control features.

Technologies used, References

The site is open moorland, covered by sandstone, at the elevation of 280 to 450 m, with excellent wind resources. The annual wind speed at the height of the turbine nacelle exceeds 8 m/s. The wind distribution can be described with a Weibull curve with shape 1.85 and scale 1.12. (Weibull refers to a family of probability density functions, which are used to standardise the description of wind conditions.)
The wind farm consist of 23 WTG:s of the make WD 34, 400 kW each, manufactured by Vestas DWT, with the total nominal power of 9.2 MW. The turbines are steel sheet painted to blend against the background.

Innovative Concepts

Technical innovation was involved in the testing and demonstration of new control features of the WTG WD 34. Further innovations of this project lie in the structure of the dissemination campaign, to spread the experiences gathered in the design, construction and operations phase, and to explain features of renewable wind power production to local audience at large.

Expected and Gained Results

The experiences during the design, construction and erection phase were gathered, and no proper draw-backs were encountered.

The installation was completed in the first half of 1993. Early figures (1994) for the availability reached the record high 99.5 %, and for the annual production 30.88 MWh, corresponding to encouraging 3350 hours´ production with rated power. The annual yield in the first full year of operation was well above the estimations.

An extensive dissemination effort was commenced after the completion of the wind farm. A program was designed, containing the phases of conducting technical seminars, presentations to professional groups and the audience at large, preparation and delivery of technical sheets, dissemination of experiences through public contacts, and active use of media like newspapers and TV. The effects of this campaign are difficult to measure, and they could not be commented by the Project contact person.

As today, the Ovenden Moor wind farm is operating at an excellent 98.9% availability, and production figures for 1997 are estimated to approach the 10 year average values.

Further Information

The results of this project should be of interest to:

Utilities and other producers of wind power which are planning to construct a wind farm to upland hilly areas, which require operating experiences of commercial size modern WTG:s, or which want to conduct dissemination campaigns to professional groups and to audience at large
WTG manufacturers which can benefit of operating data of wind farms in similar terrain
This project is similar to WE/00271/92/UK/DK, 5.8 MW Royd Moor Windfarm Using 450 kW Wind Turbines, also by Yorkshire Windpower Ltd

Last Updated: July 20, 1998