250 feet up a wind turbine

I've taken plenty of wind turbine photos before (a few here) but never from the top. Well last friday, myself and one of the other folks on our wind team got climb trained on a Vestas V90 wind turbine. When it was commissioned last year (2006) this was the tallest wind turbine in the US.

The climb was hard work, I have untold respect for the folks that do this for a job and may make two or three climbs a day. It was made more fun because this tower was off for down line maintenance. No power meant no lights so the climb was in near dark. You could see the ladder in front of you but that was about it most of the time. The view from the top was fantastic, it made the effort completely worth it.

Not the greatest weather for photography, kind of hazy but with the sun bright and high in the sky. Still got some good photos though.

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A few more the the view, looking down the 2A string at more of the V90s

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The two of us at the top, and the view north along Stewart Lane to the O&M building and one of the new V90s that have just been added.

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And lastly, inside the nacelle. That generator kicks out 3MW of renewable windy goodness.

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Interesting pictures. We have a few around here, nice to see what's inside. By the way you look different than your avatar.

Citizensmith,
Wow... they really are big, I didn't know they had a walkable inside. Thanks for sharing them

Local towns by me of Cherry Valley and East Meredith voted no against them as they ruin there view. Yet they still want electric at others cost
Sorry about sharing the negative

jlcarnagey wrote in post #4515182
Interesting pictures. We have a few around here, nice to see what's inside. By the way you look different than your avatar.

Maybe a little less hair in these photos. I had Grace do my hair in the others.

John_B wrote in post #4515225
Citizensmith,
Wow... they really are big, I didn't know they had a walkable inside. Thanks for sharing them

Local towns by me of Cherry Valley and East Meredith voted no against them as they ruin there view. Yet they still want electric at others cost
Sorry about sharing the negative

These are about as big as they get. I'd not been inside a nacelle before so I was also surprised as to how much room there was. It amazing that the generator there can produce 3MW, I was expecting it to be bigger.

The 'not in my back yard' thing seems to be everywhere. Like you said, they want power, they just want someone else's life to be affected. And, are a bunch of these worse than the change another coal fired power station with its huge smoke stacks and infrastructure needs would create. This area is actually quite lucky in that its one of the best wind resource areas in California, but has a fairly limited population and is mostly agricultural.

Wow. See these all the time in the Palm Springs area and never knew what the insides were like. Thanks for the info! The next to last photo with the truck giving scale to the massive generator is my favorite.

Thanks for sharing these with us. My friend worked on some in the panhandle of Texas.

Thanks. It was kind of hard to get some that easily show the sense of scale. I took a few leaning out and pointing the camera straight down and but that didn't really work. The truck and one of my friend sitting with her feet on the edge were the only ones were it worked.

I love wind turbines, jealous you managed to get up inside one. They're amazingly large, as you can see by your inside photo!
So you never tried base jumping from there?

Nope but I've seen the youtube footage of folks doing it. Them people is crazy in the head. The blades are surprisingly flexible. You can hold the end of one between your thumb and fingers, flex it, and watch as the hold blade moves. Walking out along something that bendy is probably worse than jumping off it.

Citizensmith wrote in post #4515395
The 'not in my back yard' thing seems to be everywhere. Like you said, they want power, they just want someone else's life to be affected. And, are a bunch of these worse than the change another coal fired power station with its huge smoke stacks and infrastructure needs would create. This area is actually quite lucky in that its one of the best wind resource areas in California, but has a fairly limited population and is mostly agricultural.

I don't see why the whole world isn't harvesting more energy from ocean currents and tides. Turbines would be out of sight, and the water is always moving. Seems like the most logical source of energy to me.

???

Thanks for sharing those pictures with us. I sell the transformers used for these and it's neat to see the other parts of the system.

Oh I almost forgot, it almost looks as if you're in the space shuttle in the nacelle, imho..............