Bostonians commonly speak of their “North Shore” and “South Shore” communities.   Hull,  is a peninsula forming a kind of southern border to Boston’s Harbor.   A pair of peninsulas help define the northern border of this same harbor —  Deer Island peninsula and Nahant.    Even though both of these latter are near Logan Airport, they have both taken an active interest in installing wind turbines, as have Lynn and Salem.   Deer Island in fact has had a pair of machines running,  already more than a year now.    They are lower to the ground than Hull’s 660 KW Vestas, but otherwise their hardware is nearly identical to the one at the tip of Hull’s peninsula.

The two Deer Island machines are easily seen by visitors to Boston Harbor (next to the well-known digester “eggs”, — which have won awards for architectural elegance !)   The two of them are owned and operated by the state water supply and disposal agency, Mass Water Resources Administration (MWRA).   There are discussions going forward about installing a third mid-sized commercial turbine there.   This idea has gained more traction recently,  especially since the hoped-for new installation on Boston’s  Moon Island (part of Quincy) did not go through to completion.    The MWRA’s Sinovel 1.5 MW machine at the Charlestown Navy Yard is also northward from Boston’s city center.   It had been commissioned back in October of 2011.   It is due to have the addition to its foundation completed by August 2012, and come back into service then.

To the south of Hull several towns have recently [within calendar 2012] have installed new commercial-scale machines.   Scituate commissioned a Sinovel 1.5 megawatt machine in April and Town of Kingston followed with its 2.0 megawatt Hyundai machine on its landfill.     The three machines on private land in Kingston are all Gamesa 2.0 in rated power.    All four began operating in May of 2012.   The Kingston machines are the tallest.   Their Hyundai tower measures 90m in height [correction, thanks to Kially Ruiz:    this tower is 80m high], much above Hull Wind 2’s   60 m tower.    Also, the blades  of the Hyundai is also 3 meters longer than Hull”s.   The Hyundai rotor diameter is 86m, compared to Hull’s 80m.    Kingston’s machine achieves a “swept area” of  over 250 square-meters.  [Kially Ruiz also cautions us helpfully on the overall point:  with so many variables at play and in such a small set of turbines, it is hard to make reliable comparisons of one machine to another.]

Incidentally, look what a boost it would be to our base of comparison if we had full reporting (say powerdash.com style) on each of the ten 1.5MW machines of the MMWEC-owned Berkshire Wind farm near Hancock !    Alas, we do not have truly open access to such information, despite the fac that   MMWEC   has a public service dimension to its purpose.      Worth pondering, all of this. . .

Naturally, greater hub-height and greater swept area will always be predicted to result in greater production.   So far, our early results agree with these expectations.

The ownership patterns are not entirely the same in these various installations.   In Hull, Ipswich and Princeton  it is the towns themselves who are owners; in Kingston there is a contract for the developer (who is also the builder and owner) to sell back power under a stabilised long-term rate.   Both the actual rate and its having a long-term predictability were naturally matters of considerable value to these towns.    Think what your own town might say, if such cost-stabilisation could be put under contract.    Sumul Shah, CEO of Solaya,  responded helpfully to us in August about  his Scituate project, saying the following:

“Scituate is owned exactly the same as Kingston.  Scituate Wind LLC (which is owned 50% by Solaya, and 50% by Palmer Capital) has a long term PPA with the Town of Scituate.”

Sometime this fall season, Mr. Shah will be heard on an interview he gave to WBUR’s  “Morning Edition”.     His company also has an interest in the pair of Sinovel’s in Fairhaven.

A special feature just got installed and inspected inside the Hyundai machine in Kingston.   On July 26th it got its required approval on the  newly installed elevator (for humans !).

Fairhaven got its two Sinovel 1.5’s running summer of 2012 — bringing the total of installed Sinovels in Massachusetts to 6 MW.    Asian machines therefore account for the majority of recent upgrades to Massachusetts’s total.     Ipswich has been planning around a new 2 MW Hyundai (Korean) machine for the fall.

Slightly smaller commercial wind turbines have gone up this summer in Hanover and at the MBTA’s Commuter-Rail terminal in Kingston.   At presstime there are active groups in Cohasset, Marshfield and Plymouth on the South Shore, and in Salem, Rockport and Ipswich.   Ipswich already has a 1.2 MW machine running, and hopes to add a second (and larger) Hyundai machine within the coming month or two.    Does our colleague Kially Ruiz have an update on this ?

FLASH !  17.X.12.   SUMUL SHAH INFORMS US THAT HE AND GAMESA ARE NOW GUIDING THEIR NEW MACHINE TO THE SITE IN GLOUCESTER.   IT IS TO BE INSTALLED IN THE COMING WEEKS AT THE INDUSTRIAL SITE NEAR THE *VARIAN* COMPANY FACILITY.   MASSACHUSETTS WILL SOON BE THAT MUCH RICHER IN WINDPOWER INSTALLED.   WARM CONGRATULATIONS, SUMUL AND GLOUCESTER [AND MASS-ENERGY] FROM US AT HULLWIND !   

 GLOUCESTER  AT THE TOP, CHARLESTOWN AND OTHERS IN BOSTON HARBOR.   THESE PEARLS CONTINUE THEIR STRING DOWN PAST HULL TO THE SOUTH SHORE.

THIS SOLAYA-LUMUS CONTRIBUTION TO THE STRING OF PEARLS INCLUDES FAIHAVEN’S PAIR OF HARDWORKING SINOVELS, SETTING THE PACE FOR SOUTHEASTERRN MASS.    HEY, HOW HARDWORKING IS THIS PAIR OF SINOVELS  ?   JOHN EDGAR AT MWRA WILL APPLAUD THEIR HAVING PRODUCED OVER   120 MWh’s   JUST IN THE PAST 4 DAYS, SINCE 14 OCT !     IT DOESN’T STOP THERE.   RHODE ISLAND HAS JOINED THE NEW ENGLAND PROGRESS, WITH HELP  FROM MASS ENERGY CONSUMERS ALLIANCE.    (MASS ENERGY CELEBRATES ITS    30 TH    ANNIVERSARY ON 30 OCT).       ONE FURTHER POINT:  ALL OF THIS NEW ENGLAND PROGRESS IN STRINGING TOGETHER COASTAL WIND TURBINES LEADS THE WAY DOWN TOWARDS BLOOMBERGSVILLE, — ALSO KNOWN AS   NEW YORK, NY!      

  MAYBE  MICHAEL BLOOMBERG  — A MAN WHO IS HIMSELF FORMERLY OF MASSACHUSETTS — MAY WANT TO FOLLOW THESE RECENT SUCCESSES AT SOLAYA, AND INSTALL A TURBINE OR TWO IN ONE OF HIS CITY PARKS !    BLOOMBERG HAS ALREADY BEGUN WITH THE CITY PARK AT FRESH KILLS ON STATEN ISLAND.   WE MAY ONE DAY  SOON SEE A BLOOMBERG HERITAGE  THERE, POSSIBLY BOTH IN STATEN ISLAND AND IN PELHAM BAY PARK IN THE BRONX.        INSPIRATIONAL STUFF, SOLAYA, AND LUMUS CONSTRUCTION !     [The Mayor might even want a 5 MW  Amer. Superconductor machine ?    A recent rumor had an offshore wind specialist wanting more information, in case his ‘New Bedford’ hub might ship hardware by barge directly to NYCEDC’s someday-soon designed site less than a mile southeast of Co-Op City.   That would be on the edge of the Pelham Bay landfill there in the Bronx.]