Wind Energy Consulting Project

WIND POWER GENERATION AT PORT KEMBLA

Illawarra Mercury, Wednesday August 10, 2011

There is a plan in the Illawarra to construct wind farm at Port Kembla Port, they hope capable of producing power enough for 5,000 homes per year. The idea is to erect seven 3MW turbines. Is this realistic target with the wind at Port Kembla? What generators to choose? What is the capacity factor of the farm? There is also some community concerns about wind turbines mentioned in the article. What are these concerns and environmental impacts of this farm?

The planner seeks your advice on:

• The annual energy harvest for the proposed site based on the PK wind data (PK WIND DATA.xls) for some of commercial wind turbines on the market e.g. VESTAS 3MW and GE 2.5MW, Capacity Factors of the two turbines, Monthly variations of energy output.
• What are the main community concerns and how to minimise these concerns?

Marking Criteria will be based on:

• (40 marks) Some literature review of large scale (>2MW) wind turbine systems, the accuracy and correctness of the Spreadsheet Analysis, the in-depth discussion of the results and justification of your analysis assumptions.

The analysis should include: wind speed at turbines hub heights; monthly probability distribution function (Weibull Distribution) – then annual; monthly power output – annual power output; capacity factors monthly and annual; estimation of the annual power consumption for 5,000 City of Wollongong homes. Can supply meet demand?; cost payback estimation; other analysis you deem relevant.

• (30 marks) The discussion on the community concerns and how to minimise these concerns.

In this part, you are expected to demonstrate that you have undertaken literature research on wind turbine development issues. This can be demonstrated by the number of references in the report. Identify the negative impacts (noise, sight, wild life / habitat/ ecological impact, safety, economic/cost) and positive impacts (employment, improved outlook for the city, etc).

• (30 marks) The report presentation including clarity, adequate technical detail but does not bore the decision making executives, quality of the graphs, images used etc, and how convincing is your report.

Report formats – table of contents; summary; logical order of the contents; conclusions; references.

Report presentation: clarity; adequate technical detail but does bore the decision making executives; quality of the graphs; images used etc; and how convincing is the report.