Results tagged “Wind Industry” from Wind Power Authority

You may have wondered how the massive industrial grade wind turbines are created and shipped. In this article we'll explore the blades made at the Molded Fiber Glass Company in Texas. These blades are made of fiberglass and are shaped similar to an aircraft wing. They are then coated with epoxy to protect them from the elements and hold the form. The epoxy in the fiberglass has to have hardened for the blades to be able to be removed from their mandrels and painted, like those you see in these pictures. However, the epoxy is not fully cured and the blades are relatively soft. That is why all of these blades are stored in rows outside.

So they are stored in fixtures like the one I am standing by to hold their shape while a few weeks in the hot Texas sun finishes the curing process. It isn't done to save energy, it's just very expensive to build an industrial curing oven that holds blades this big, much less a whole lot of them.

Remember, these are merely the turbine blades. The turbines that hold these blades are built elsewhere. (See the wind turbine fastening bolts in the attached photo). Then imagine the size of the towers that hold both the blades and the turbines up high enough to harness the industrial strength wind.

When it comes to Industrial strength wind turbines pricing is usually set a complete system delivered. The price for a wind turbine like the ones shown below is 2.8 million dollars per system, including turbine, tower and blades. Each of the turbines is estimated to generate 1.3 megawatts. This is much larger than would be needed for a residential home.

Eventually the price per unit is going to go down. In these days of wind farms, the contracts are for dozens if not hundreds per contract. Not a per blade price, but for several blades per turbine. Why you may ask?

There is an old factor in manufacturing, 10 X = 1/2. Make 10 times as many of something, and the cost per unit drops in half. The pocket calculator going from $129 for my first simple calculator, to a pretty nice scientific model available at the local Dollar Store is a classic sample of what a larger manufacturing lot will do to the per unit cost. This is called economies of scale and it definitely applies to wind turbines.

Both Solar Cells and Windmills have been hovering near the breakeven point for some years. With thousands of windmills going up, the per unit cost has now reached the point where investors can put up a windmill and expect to get a return on their investment selling electricity at the going rates. We just need the economic justification to build that factory that makes several thousand square feet of solar cells and wind turbines a day to push them over the economic edge.