Pictou County wind farm produces more power than expected

Shear Wind’s Glen Dhu wind farm has better-than-expected turbine performance

October 26, 2011 - 8:04pm BRETT BUNDALE Business Reporter

The president and CEO of Shear Wind Inc. is optimistic about expanding the Glen Dhu wind farm after better-than-expected turbine performance in its first six months of operation.

Mike Magnus said the 62-megawatt Pictou County wind farm, in operation since the end of March, has surpassed earlier expectations and is producing more power than expected.

“We’re pleasantly surprised and pleased on the performance of the turbines themselves and, more importantly, their ability to capture the energy of the wind,” he said in an interview from Shear Wind’s Dartmouth office.

“It’s pretty early to tell, but we’ve been experiencing upward of 10 per cent better performance than what we had looked at. In this business, 10 per cent is a big number.”

While Magnus declined to put a dollar figure on the stellar performance, he said “it helps us pay down our debt 10 per cent quicker.”

The Glen Dhu wind farm is made up of 27 giant turbines on about 10,000 acres of windswept hills east of New Glasgow.

The wind farm, which has a 20-year power purchase agreement with Nova Scotia Power Inc., produces enough energy to power 18,000 homes.

However, the site has the potential to produce 230 megawatts — about three times its present capacity.

“Phase 2 of the Glen Dhu site looks very, very promising,” Magnus said. “We know the wind regime there and we’ve got very significant infrastructure that we’ve already invested in, so we’re very optimistic about extending the current site.”

Unlike Cape Breton wind farms that have been hobbled by traffic jams on the grid coming out of the Strait of Canso, transmission lines with extra space transect the Glen Dhu site.

Shear Wind is also eyeing another site in the Parrsboro area of Cumberland County that has features similar to the Pictou County site.

The energy company has been measuring winds in Parrsboro since June and early results “indicate it’s going to be a very good site,” he said.

The province’s renewable energy administrator is expected to issue a request for proposals for renewable energy projects this December, with proposals due by March. John Dalton, the independent administrator for the province, is expected to approve the next round of wind projects by late spring.

Projects will be evaluated and scored on a range of costs and other factors, such as nearby transmission capacity.

While Magnus said Shear Wind’s projects have a strong business case, he noted that there is increasing competition in the wind energy market.

“We feel pretty good about where we sit right now, but there has been more competition. There are a number of outside interests being expressed, but at the end of the day, I think localized entities such as Shear Wind that have made a lot of investment in this province to develop sites to an advanced stage are at an advantage.”

The better-than-expected performance of the Glen Dhu wind farm is proof of the tremendous renewable resource in Nova Scotia and the need for continued investments in areas such as transmission capacity, he said.

“There is a very rich resource here in Nova Scotia. We’ve got a tremendous resource, and like any other resource like oil and gas, there has got to be continued investment in getting that source of energy to market.”

Jean-Francois Nolet with the Canadian Wind Energy Association said given that Atlantic Canada has some of the best wind resources in the country, he is not surprised to hear the Glen Dhu farm is performing better than predicted.

But he said the performance of wind farms needs to be examined over a longer period of time before making assumptions.

“This is good news, but wind resources can fluctuate from year to year, so we need to cautious before jumping to any conclusions.”

Shear Wind owns 51 per cent of Glen Dhu wind farm and Inveravante Inversiones Universales, S.L., through Genera Avante Holdings Canada Inc., owns 49 per cent.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/27307-pictou-county-wind-farm-produces-more-power-expected