— It was a good November for Willmar Municipal Utilities wind turbines, producing 733,123 kilowatt-hours of power.
The November tally puts the yearly output thus far at 7.28 million kilowatt-hours, according to the wind turbine report presented at the Dec. 12 Municipal Utilities Commission meeting.
It was the second-best November of the last five years, topped only in November 2020, with 788,202 kilowatt-hours produced.
Facilities and Maintenance Supervisor Kevin Marti told the commission he thought the record was set in 2012 with 8.2 million to 8.3 million kilowatt-hours.
“If we have an incredibly windy December, and the turbines cooperate, we’ll take a swing at (breaking the record),” he said.
Marti noted that, historically, the turbines see a bump in output in November and December.
This high output was despite wind turbine No. 3’s less-than-stellar availability of 76.6%.
Typically, Willmar Municipal Utilities lists a contributing factor in the wind turbine report when one of the turbines availability is lower than expected.
“We did not list a major contributing factor there, other than I would say that turbine three is just being a little bit dramatic this year,” Marti commented. “As you can look back over the year, that is the turbine that we’ve had the dips in — different issues, so just minor issues that kind of add up and change the availability.”
Wind turbine No. 4 had an availability of 97.4% in November, according to the report.
Municipal Utilities Commission Chair Bruce DeBlieck noted that the next couple of days after the meeting were expected to have some strong winds, and asked what that does to the turbines.
Marti explained that overspeed alarms will be triggered if winds are over 50 miles per hour or when there is a rapid change in the direction of the wind, but it most likely will not shut the turbines down.
“If anything, the guys can reset them remotely, clear that alarm and reset it, and it will kick off again,” he said, noting that high winds — along with rain, snow or slush — is going to be hard on the equipment used in the turbines.
He explained that the turbines are set to run until the ambient air temperature reaches about 23 degrees Fahrenheit below zero before they self-protect and begin to shut down.
“(There are) a lot of hydraulics and moving parts that don’t like that super cold. I’ll caveat that — the turbines are designed for our climate. They are not fair-weather turbines,” Marti said.
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Read More:It was a good November for Willmar’s wind turbines