Small wind turbines ride out last week’s Atlantic storms

Last week’s violent Atlantic storm brought extremely high winds to the West and North of Scotland, with the Met Office recording maximum wind gusts of 165mph on Cairngorm Summit and 145mph at Aonach Mor.* The Met Office issued its strongest warning – a red alert – for winds in Scotland, and people were warned to stay indoors, schools were forced to close and flights were cancelled.

For owners of Evance R9000 small wind turbines, however, Scotland’s extreme wind speeds didn’t present any challenges. The Evance R9000 turbine is designed to keep running in the highest winds, and features an innovative Reactive Pitch™ mechanism that automatically pitches the turbine’s blades so it can regulate energy capture and blade speed.

Evance has over 50 of its R9000 turbines installed in the Orkney Islands. All continued to perform well during the storm, confirming the applicability of small wind turbines even in these most extreme conditions.

One Evance turbine owner, Adam Cockram, lives on Eday – one of Orkney’s Northern Isles – where peak gusts of over 130mph (58 metres per second) were recorded. According to Adam: “on Thursday night and Friday morning last week the wind gusted at up to 138mph. I did wonder whether our Evance turbine would keep going, and I’m glad to say that there were no problems at all!”

“Like many in Orkney we experienced several mains power failures. Each time the turbine started back up with no problems at all,” continued Adam. “I’m certainly impressed by the quality of both the Evance turbine and the installation carried out by Orkney Micro Renewables. It’s certainly been tested here on Eday!”

Adam Cockram’s Evance R9000 turbine was commissioned in August 2011, and in five months has already produced 7,343kWh of electricity.

The Evance R9000 installed on a farm near Ferns, Co. Wexford.

Note

*http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/research-flight