The Ocotillo wind farm went online almost five years ago. Were they not documented in such meticulous detail, some of the reports coming from the tiny desert community this project surrounds would be difficult to believe. I once received a constant stream of YouTube videos and reports. It was one of the sites that shaped my perception of the energy sector. To some extent, I’ve moved on from this story, but I always knew I would be revisiting Ocotillo.
There was a turbine fire in 2015.
So far:
Attempts to contact the turbine manufacturer, developer and local utility have been futile.
Ewing says, “We’ve tried to talk to Pattern Energy [the developer], of course we always get a generic reply that they’re working on this or checking on that, but we never get an answer on the noise, or the lights, or anything. They really just write us off. They don’t talk to us. We get an email reply sometimes, that’s about it.”
I phoned Jeff Grappone, of Siemens USA after the turbine caught fire in 2015. He suggested I send an email. I did this, asking:
Grappone never replied.
Maybe I asked too many questions.
I recently tried a different tactic, when asking Pattern Energy about the dust storms that have plagued Ocotillo since the site was built. I sent them the video you see below and asked for an explanation.
Matt Dallas emailed back, “Ocotillo Wind operates its equipment in accordance with our permits. The dust in the video was created by the wind, not by the turbines. You’ll see many of the turbines are not operating in the video because the wind speeds that day were so high they exceeded our maximum operating capacity.”
He was not aware that I had previously interviewed a site developer about dust storms on utility scale wind and solar sites.
According to Harvey Stephens, Vice President of Operations at World Wind & Solar, fugitive dust problems are caused by scraping large areas of the desert crust clean of vegetation. This leaves the underlaying soil exposed to the wind. There are remedies, such as planting grasses, windflowers and other materials as a protective blanket to stabilize areas disturbed by grading operations. When developers follow these procedures, the dust storms normally cease after a year or so.
Ocotillo has been inflicted by dust storms since construction began. In the video below, you can see one from August 2012.
I pointed this out to Matt Dallas, who did not reply.
Ewing and his wife suspect, but can not prove, that infrasound noise from the turbines might be the reason that they are “tired all the time.”
He describes the sound made by the turbines, when they are turning, as ” … the most irritating sound I have ever heard.”
(There is a recording in the podcast, above.)
“One of Pattern’s project managers came by and listened to the sound once and said he would take it back to whoever is in charge. We never heard another word about it,” says Ewing.
“We like to be outside. That’s why we are here in the desert. We have a fairly nice place here, with a lot of trees and stuff that we need to keep watered. It is difficult to do when they are making noise. It is kind of like a noise trespassing, that really shouldn’t be happening on your property.”
Parke Ewing believes the problem is wind technology.
I agreed with him, until I saw some German sites in 2014.
The problem at Ocotillo does not appear to be so much with the technology, as how it was used.
This is not a good location for a wind farm.
The local community does not derive any benefit. Their homes are surrounded by giant wind turbines which produce electricity for San Diego, 87 miles away.
The site was politically expedient in 2012, when America was embarking upon a crusade to fight climate change. There were massive tax credits, which enabled developers to see a quick return on their investment.
Only there are many pathways to a low carbon future.
The Ocotillo Wind Farm should never have been built.
Now the manufacturer and developer have made their money, and people like Parke Ewing are left with the mess.
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Their claimed capacity factor, since they became operational, is only about 21.3%. This figure is not a net energy figure and it does not account for all the transmission losses to end users. Currently over a third of California energy consumption ( which does not include Defense Dept consumption) is being imported and these numbers are growing annually. The source for most this energy, coal, nuclear and naturals gas. The losses from transmitting this long distance energy from 7 other states exceeds all the wind energy being produced in CA.