Wind Farm Tour

Yesterday, I got to experience an all-day field trip to see a wind farm being constructed up in Reese, Michigan. The wind turbines are being developed by NextEra Energy Resources, a Florida-based company with a diverse energy-production portfolio (i.e. wind, solar, hydroelectric, fossil fuels, and nuclear).  This wind farm is close to the end of its construction phase, having started around July with an anticipated completion before the end of the year.

After the four-hour drive to Reese, we started off with lunch and a presentation about wind farms and the construction process. We were then given hard hats, safety glasses, and a vest, then headed off to see a couple of turbines in the early stages of construction.

View from the bus.  I think this might actually
be the one that we visited at the end of the tour.

 This first turbine consisted of the bottom half of the tower, with the rest of the parts scattered around nearby.  It gave us the opportunity to see exactly how large these parts are.  For reference, these wind turbines are of the 100 meter variety (diameter of wingspan).

Turbine hub

Top half of the tower

Nacelle resting beside the bottom half of the tower.
The hub is somewhat visible between the two.

The tour group

Bottom half of the tower, looking up

Me, standing next to the nacelle

The turbine blades

Base of a turbine blade

Looking along the turbine blades

One end of the top half of the tower

Looking up the stairs at the top half of the tower

The next turbine was fully assembled, but essentially hadn't been turned on yet. That meant this turbine had all of the wiring and circuits for us to examine.

Below the turbine, looking up

Circuits inside the turbine

Inside the turbine, looking up

The door

Electrical box beside the turbine

A look inside the electrical box

At this point, we headed off to see the relay station where the turbines sent their electricity. 

View of a half-finished turbine from the bus. If you look closely, you can see a constructed blade assembly at the foot of that turbine.

The relay station

Relays. Five of the bars along the top split about 120 megawatts, while the sixth connects to a capacitor.

A transformer, with a berm to contain oil leaks.

If you look up, you can see lines which are intended to prevent the station from
being hit by lightning.

Electricity heading off to the end-user

Finally, we visited a working turbine that was actively generating electricity. The wind turbine made very little noise.  If you were standing in the right spot, you could hear a noise as the blades swept by that almost sounded like waves on a beach.

When we got there, they called the control headquarters in Florida and had them shut down the turbine so we could see how that worked. Basically, the primary method for stopping a turbine involves rotating the blades so that they no longer catch the wind.  So you can see this for yourself, I took two videos using my phone; the first one shows the turbine in action, while the second shows the turbine as it's stopping.  You should be able to notice the difference in the orientation of the blades.  Also, the turbine stopped fairly quickly after they sent the shutdown message.

All in all, it was a very fun and informative experience.  The NextEra guys who led us around were very knowledgeable and were able to easily answer all of our questions.  I definitely learned a lot about wind farms, as well as a bit about Reese, Michigan (for instance, the farmland there is naturally swampland, so the area needs a gridwork of pipes to carry away the water).

Status Update

It's been two and a half years since I created this blog, and I haven't really touched it since then.  Now that I'm starting my fourth year of graduate school, I've decided to start it back up.  Time will tell whether I actually keep it up....

So, I'm taking stock of where I am in life and looking at where I'm moving forward.  I'm definitely happy with my research, and feel that it validates my decision to pursue a helping-other-people direction in my career aspirations.  If I can, I'd like to continue pushing commercial development once I graduate; if not, I'll go for a position in industry in a related field. Hopefully, if everything goes according to schedule, I'll be able to get my PhD by spring 2014 (edit: not 2013).

Recreation-wise, I've been doing a lot of custom map-making for StarCraft 2.  Unfortunately, it's rather time-intensive and takes time away from other recreational activities.  Right now, the plan is for me to quit SC2 map-making when Mists of Pandaria comes out in 10 days; I've missed playing WoW and I'm pretty sure that Clara is tired of leveling alts by herself.

Apart from that, I'm sure that I'll continue to be very busy.  Apart from working on my black belt, I'm hoping to find some time to write some useful apps for my new Windows phone.  Coincidentally, the SC2 HotS beta has started, and I was just admitted yesterday.  I'm sure that will test my resolve on taking a break from SC2 and quitting map-making altogether.