Falklands’ farms helped with wool prices rapidly moving to wind energy
Electricity generated from wind is spreading across the Falkland Islands with two large farms Goose Green and Fitzroy preparing to be the next to have turbines, inverters and batteries installed.
The change to wind energy has also been helped by the excellent prices of wool in the last few seasons.
The Falklands’ Executive Council last week noted that £300,000 was to be allocated from Falkland Landholding’s profits from the previous year for the purchase of the equipment for the two East Falkland farms.
In October 2011 a system costing £110,000 was approved for the third FLH farm, North Arm, which is soon to be installed. FLH General Manager Owen Summers explained that the masts for the turbines had been constructed at North Arm and with the recent arrival of the inverters and batteries it was hoped the system would soon be up and running.
The approved funding for Goose Green and Fitzroy was provisional and the equipment ordered would be dependant on how the system at North Arm performed, he said.
FLH made profits of £97,000 in 2009/10, £660,000 in 2010/11 and is on track to make a profit of not less than £500,000 in the current financial year. Mr Summers said the profits of the last two financial years were excellent, but they should not be taken out of context as wool sales over the last two years have not only benefited from higher market prices but also currency, with the Falklands wool industry receiving excellent prices through the combination of the two.
However, he warned that three years ago FLH had received approximately £550K less for the same amount of wool.
FLH both as a limited company and as a statutory corporation recorded losses on its accounts from the late 1990s until 2009/10 when the first profit in over ten years was recorded.
At the FLH Board meeting of April 26, 2012 the Acting Financial Secretary Nicola Granger noted that a reserve policy had never previously been set for FLH and because it had made a significant profit in 2010/11 and was on track for a similar profit this financial year, the Board should consider an appropriate reserve level.
Given the past subsidies from the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) and the profits now being made, consideration needed to be given to whether any funds should be returned to FIG, said Mrs Granger. (Penguin News)
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FIG Renewable Energy website: www.falklands.gov.fk/Renewable_Energy.html
Has the Falkland Islands delivered the world's first wind-powered smart grid?:
www.businessgreen.com/bg/feature/2042919/falkland-islands-delivered-worlds-wind-powered-smart-grid
www.southamericanpictures.com/archive/Falkland%20Is/falklands111.htm
Great link, didn't realise the FI was that windy, also as the article points out, electric cars in the FI are the future, using their batteries to help store the islands electricity, very clever.
The FI is maybe the best place in the world for trialling this system.
Early hovercraft trials there and an European Space Agency tracking station used to be there-and that was when the UK were SHAMEFULLY trying to sell the Islands out. One good thing to come from 82-no turning back by UK from their responsibilities. As a result of that security just look how far the Islands have progressed as a country since-it is almost amusing to compare it with how slowly Argentina have progressed (or regressed) in the same time. This is what annoys the Argentines-the fact that the Islands are progressing to more and more autonomy whilst they winge instead of sorting their own country out.
I wonder if being where they are (mirror image of UK in the north) would be detrimental to them having some sort of space research base there (ie for that hyrogen hypersonic airliner/ space aircraftbased on HOTOL that Brits are developing?
Far better to sell the dam things to Argentina nothing works properly there anyway so they wont know any different.
Indeed, wind power has been over-sold a lot around the world. Performance under high winds and icing conditions are critical in wind turbine development.
Devil is in the site-specific details, and I think Falklands wind power as an isolated site with few options (maybe like parts of northern Scotland), might be part of the reason for the increased adoption of wind power.
Totally replacing Falklands diesel generators might be not only be unrealistic but unwise, given that diesel generators are also improving, but Falklands wind development as fuel-diversifier could be beneficial so less dependence on the diesel generators.
According to Bergey WindPower, micro-grid camp settlements like Pebble Island now have more than 20 years experience dealing with wind turbine issues (ie, inverter and wiring problems) and seems to be working them through, and since funding help from EU, turbine chosen had to be European too (Scottish) .
Bergey Wind Power: “Pebble Island, Falkland Islands”:
www.bergey.com/pebble-island-falkland-islands
Short 2011 video of Falkland wind turbines interesting because of commentary, and also showing peat-gathering still going on for home stove:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tyG6U4lYXI
Just out of interest, have you ever been to the FI?
The old style wind turbines were no good in high winds. They had fixed blades and had to be shut down or lowered or the the wind would shred the blades. This happened I think with the first set at Pebble, about 20 years ago. Ours is newer and has a electromagnetic brake.
Ref blades icing up the winter temperatures here rarely drop below -5C so icing up is not an issue, or at least not with ours or any that I've heard of. Also could be due to the fact that the air is rarely still enough to allow ice to form. However the sea was frozen to 3 or 4 metres from the shore a few days ago.
I doubt anyone here will get rid of diesel generators and rely wholly on wind power. Wind is an excellent energy source but not stand alone.
It has reduced the price of electricty here by approx £0.09 per unit below what it would be if we were still on diesel alone. - as well as recouping capital costs within 8yrs.
Simply becaue we have a windy climate - UK does not - apart from maybe NW Scotland and Islands. That is why it does not work commercially economically there.- just green, but costly.
Here it is green - and good financial returns!
Nobody here is atalking about 100% wind! The battery costs would be silly! It is an economic money saving carbon fuel displacement- simple as that.
Musky-Lol!
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