Ice halts New Brunswick wind farm

subscribe

Northern New Brunswick's cold, icy weather is causing wind turbines to freeze and stop producing power at the Caribou Wind Park near Bathurst.

The new wind farm's 33 turbines have been generating power since November, but they have been forced to shut down for the past two days due to ice forming on some of the blades.

The wind farm has been battling ice problems all winter.

David Cousins, the Caribou Wind Park's site manager, said when ice starts forming on the turbines' blades, they can't operate.

"As soon as there is ice rain or rime ice, which is fairly common in this area, the performance of the blades of the wind turbine diminishes significantly," Cousins said.

"Just like how an airplane won't fly with ice on it, wind turbines won't generate electricity with ice...."

The mild winter, according to Cousins, has meant that the precipitation has not turned to snow and has remained as ice, which has then formed on the turbine blades.

While the turbines can tolerate cold temperatures, Cousins said they don't do well with ice.

Cousins said they've lost about 20 days due to ice since the park went online three months ago.

And again recently, none of the 33 wind turbines was operating.

The Caribou wind park near Bathurst has the capacity to produce enough electricity to power about 30,000 homes.

Danni Sabota, a spokesperson for GDF Suez Energy North America, the company that owns the park, said the company planned for these types of problems when it designed the northern wind farm.

"We have budgeted allowances for every year for possible generation interruptions like this caused by something like severe weather," Sabota said.

"We're still OK, but we believe — we hope — this year's severe icing was an anomaly."

They also hope the mild weather in the forecast will melt the ice and that there will be enough wind to get the wind turbines moving again.

Suez Energy was awarded a 20-year contract to build the Caribou Mountain wind farm in February 2008 and sell up to 99 megawatts of power to NB Power.

When it was announced, Suez Energy estimated it would invest $200 million to start the northern wind farm.

This isn't the first odd development that has hit a New Brunswick wind farm. In August, a fire mysteriously destroyed one of the turbines at TransAlta Corp.'s Kent Hills Wind Farm in southeastern New Brunswick.

Related News

Denis Naughten

Ireland: We are the global leaders in taking renewables onto the grid

DUBLIN - Ireland is now able to cope with 65% of its electricity coming from intermittent electricity sources like wind and solar – an expertise Energy Minister Denish Naugthen believes can be replicated on a larger scale as Europe moves towards 50% renewable power by 2030.

Denis Naughten is an Irish politician who serves as Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment since May 2016.

Naughten spoke to editor Frédéric Simon on the sidelines of a EURACTIV event in the European  Parliament to mark the launch of EU-SysFlex, an EU-funded project, which aims to create a long-term roadmap for the large-scale integration…

READ MORE
berlin pv industry

Berlin urged to remove barriers to PV

READ MORE

Electricity Market Headed for a Reshuffle as Province Vows Overhaul

Electricity Market Headed for a Reshuffle as Province Vows Overhaul

READ MORE

ford car

Ford deal to build electric cars in Oakville comes amid $500M government cash to upgrade plant

READ MORE

orono wind turbines

Canada will need more electricity to hit net-zero: IEA report

READ MORE