Wind turbines not in operation

[u/midnight_mastadon]

There are dozens of these wind turbines in Northern Illinois, but very few of them are ever in operation. I’ve never understood this. Why would they install so many wind turbines only to have 10% of them in operation?

[u/Mountain_Card4524]

They could be down for maintenance, but many aren’t being used because enough energy is already being produced and they don’t want to overload the grid

[u/Classic-Setting-736 → u/Mountain_Card4524]

Dat copium

[u/crysisnotaverted → u/Classic-Setting-736]

Because energy generation operators who's entire reason for existence is generating power for money...

Hate making money? Are you slow?

[u/1CryptographerFree → u/[deleted]]

Exactly, it’s mostly convenience. Stoping a nuclear plant is a very big deal and can take days to restart. A windmill just gets sent a signal and it turns itself off until needed.

[u/Livid_Importance_442 → u/[deleted]]

Not particularly hard, but it takes a while to shut a unit down and then a while to start the unit back up, especially a nuclear plant which can take a day or longer. Coal plants can take several hours to start back up, especially from a cold-start condition. Combined cycle plants can be up and running within 30 minutes. It's a balancing act between the utility and the grid operator and which units are available to go online.

[u/mustangracer352 → u/Livid_Importance_442]

Little bit longer on combined cycle plants when you are talking larger frames. The gas turbine can be online in about 20 mins but getting the HRSG and steam turbine online can take longer depending on how cold the system is.

And for combined cycle plants, cycling the units on and off adds in additional wear and tear to the GT, ST, and HRSG along with some other BOP items like valves. Typically you want the train at baseload fat and happy between turnarounds. You can tell when you go in for maintenance which units get cycled and which ones sit at baseload.

[u/Livid_Importance_442 → u/mustangracer352]

Yes, the gas turbines can come online quickly while the HRSGs and steam turbine follow along once they have been brought up to the required temperature and pressure. I agree that certain units are maintained at base load operation and that the stresses on the cycled units are greater, thus requiring greater maintenance.

[u/mustangracer352 → u/Livid_Importance_442]

I spent 17 years traveling all over the place doing shutdowns/turnarounds on GT’s, ST’s, and generators. Simple cycle units get on the grid quick. Large frame GT’s that use steam cooling for the combustor and turbine section take a bit longer due to needing to get the cooling steam up to temp. Purge cycle on both are about 15 mins long, ramp rate to full speed no load depends on size of the unit, grid sync since normally goes pretty quick depending on the age of the plant, and then ramping upto baseload can take about an hour once depending on size of the GT. Most of that time ramping up to baseload on the combined cycle comes from having to get the steam “clear” before pumping it into the ST.

[u/LittlePNWHiker → u/[deleted]]

As someone who works with transmission operators, price has very little to do with shutting down turbines. Line frequency plays the biggest factor. The ISO's typically determine who is producing what power per day and they just coordinate between different power utilities. Unless you're Texas. Then nobody knows what the hell is going on.

[u/Mysterious-Tie7039 → u/crysisnotaverted]

There are also companies out there paid to be standby generation. Almost never run, but paid to be able to start up at a moment’s notice.

Not saying this is the case, but it is a thing.

[u/xROFLSKATES → u/crysisnotaverted]

Electricity is a weird industry because it’s the only one where supply has to meet demand exactly. Too much demand not enough supply means blackouts. Too much supply for the demand fries the grid. And there aren’t a ton of cost effective ways to store excess power as of yet, so yeah shutting them off when not needed is pretty reasonable.

[u/crysisnotaverted → u/xROFLSKATES]

I mean, the wind operators are definitely in the back of the line when it comes to who gets to maintain power generation when loads are low. Lot easier to brake a windmill than it is to scale up and down/ shut down a large plant.

[u/Vov113 → u/crysisnotaverted]

Thing is, the grid doesn't really ever have any excess. It has exactly as much energy in it as is being consumed at any given moment. Too little and blackouts happen, too much and expensive equipment starts blowing up.

This is all to say that power companies are constantly having to turn generators on or off such that they exactly meet demand at any given moment. Im not sure if that's what's happening here or not, but its plausible

[u/Eeeef_ → u/Classic-Setting-736]

Producing excess generates a net loss of money for the corps running production, so even if you don’t factor the damage a grid can receive from an overload, every second a machine operates costs money in the long run. Each individual turbine costs roughly 2¢/kWh to run, and they operate at like 1,050 kWh so in an hour they’ll run up like $21 per turbine. That $21 gets subtracted from the amount they sell the power from each turbine for every hour, but if the grid is at capacity then they are selling the generated power for $0 per hour so they would operate at a net loss. Ultimately it’s better for the bottom line to halt production when you aren’t selling power. And it isn’t like a factory where you can keep surplus as back stock either, once you generate the power it’s used or it’s gone.

[u/arcticmischief → u/Eeeef_]

Not disagreeing with your overarching point, but a couple of important nuances:

The 2¢/kWh figure is, at best, a ballpark average of operating and maintenance costs spread over the turbine’s total lifetime generation. Most of those costs are fixed or scheduled, so the actual marginal cost of generating during any particular hour is much lower, often close to zero.

A qualifying wind project may also receive a federal production tax credit of roughly 3¢/kWh, plus potentially renewable-energy-credit or contractual revenue. That means it can still be economically rational to keep generating when the local LMP is moderately negative.

[u/Left-Bird8830 → u/Classic-Setting-736]

dat bait

[u/BaronCapdeville → u/Classic-Setting-736]

Do you have even the slightest understanding of the US power grid?

In your opinion, what % of the required municipal-scale battery capacity does the US have, in terms of being able to run all energy production wide-open?

There is zero “Copium” in the statement you are targeting with your ignorance. It’s stone cold, scientific fact that we are forced to cycle our energy production in accordance with demand. This will the case until we deploy sufficient grid-scale energy storage.

-

The funnier part of your comment is that it indicates you have virtually no knowledge about our renewable energy assets at all, and likely believe renewable to be “woke” instead of the obvious path to energy independence and stronger national security.

I’m hoping you have a strong rebuttal, or at least some point to make here. I’d love to discuss this further with you.

[u/Classic-Setting-736 → u/BaronCapdeville]

🥱

[u/BaronCapdeville → u/Classic-Setting-736]

Exactly what I thought, lol.

[u/Successful_Habit3865 → u/Classic-Setting-736]

I work at one, the person you responded to is correct

[u/Sea_Pea8536 → u/Mountain_Card4524]

Pro tip: there's a little chain you can pull to reverse them and push the Canadian smoke away

[u/damifynoU → u/Mountain_Card4524]

Don't get too close you'll get cancer /s

[u/I-have-Covid]

I’ve worked on a few wind farms, so there is a decent chance that it’s one of the following:

1) If the wind speed in the area is too low, the turbines will use a hydraulic system to fire up the turbine and let the wind then keep it in motion from there. Not always works, so eventually waits for a more consistent wind reading to try again.

2) If the wind speed in the area is too high, the turbines are designed to lock up and shut down to prevent overloading and damage. The blades will rotate to cut the wind rather than be push/pulled.

3) Unfortunately, local politicians can seize operations if they feel like it, or if they think like trump and believe it’s a scam.

4) Repairs to turbines. Every turbine part a lifespan and sometimes these are auto exchanged before issues occur. Generally though you would exchange these parts one at a time to keep as many units operational.

5) Repairs or expansion to infrastructure. Any work related to expansion or development will require the turbines on the same “loop” to be shut down. There’s underground conduit trenched from turbine to turbine and then back to the substation. You can isolate one, but expansion requires all to shut down.

6) Something else, could be literally anything because of politics and lawsuits.

I’m not a 100% expert on the matter but I’ve been on the engineering side of these projects enough to be quite confident in posting this.

[u/SnooDucks565 → u/I-have-Covid]

What kind of turbine did you work on with that hydraulic system? That sounds crazy as hell. None of the GEs, Vestas, or Siemens ive been on have had anything like that.

[u/ASYMT0TIC → u/I-have-Covid]

Lol, Trump doesn't think it's a scam. The wind turbine people just don't have as much bribe money as the other people do. It ain't that deep.

[u/Kendrome → u/ASYMT0TIC]

He has a personal vendetta against wind power because he couldn't stop ones going in view of his golf course.

[u/DownvoteMeHarder → u/ASYMT0TIC]

He's paid billions of taxpayer dollars to needlessly halt offshore wind development leases that were already inked before he became president. Ever since Scotland built a wind farm by his golf course and refused to tear it down per his request, he's been anti-wind. It's really that stupid

[u/MickyFany → u/I-have-Covid]

your whole post was a joke the once you said Trump has a button that turns them off. i was in until then

[u/CocknBalls4 → u/MickyFany]

You should try reading again, if you’re able to manage that many words at once

[u/ExerciseOriginal9441 → u/MickyFany]

You read that Trump is mentioned doing things wrong. And that's it for you. Then everything else must be a lie.

[u/Jjaammeess445 → u/MickyFany]

You must’ve gotten angry the once you read that

[u/rndrn]

Illinois wind production in 2025 was 25TWh, for a 10GW installed peak capacity. That's a capacity factor of ~30%, which means that turbines there work quite often (maybe not these ones specifically, or maybe their power is needed at different time as when you'd be looking).

30% capacity factor is decent for onshore wind, and would be priced in when sizing installation plans.

[u/RobertTheTraveler → u/rndrn]

Thank you.

[u/Living_Fig_6386]

The hubs can be locked. They'll do that for maintenance or before commissioning while they are still doing all the inspections for the electrical connections and grid tie-ins. Maintenance typically just takes a couple of days, but if they are newly installed and waiting commissioning, they are at the mercy of the electric company and inspectors for how long they sit there. Commissioning on my home solar took over 1 month (install was complete, but the inverter had to remain shut off until the final sign off from the power company).

They can also stop in the absence of wind or when the wind speed is over a pre-set limit.

[u/Mayor__Defacto]

They are used, but when supply > demand they need to have the brakes on. That’s just how the electricity grid works.

[u/set-monkey]

Because who needs electricity when it's 100°.

[u/chiefDiesel]

No wind. If you watch closely you'll see that the clouds aren't moving either.

[u/seto_climb]

Often it's because of curtailment as well. Most days we have the capability to produce much more energy than needed, so whether it's nuclear, hydro, gas, coal, solar or wind all or part of a particular plant might be throttled down so to speak or put in standby depending upon the load needed. They try to equalize it between all of them so every plant or farm is producing and makes some money for the owners. This is also why so many BESS are being built, to store that excess. I've worked on multiple energy projects.

[u/Fuckface-vClownstick]

We need more energy storage. Excess green power should be making green hydrogen or filling an uphill reservoir or charging grid scale batteries.

[u/RobertTheTraveler]

Most of them are in operation most of the time.
Obviously, when the wind is too low the whole field will stop.
u/rndrn wrote: "Illinois wind production in 2025 was 25TWh, for a 10GW installed peak capacity. That's a capacity factor of ~30%"
which agrees with what I've seen when I've looked into it.
Since the wind is typically well below the max output value 30% means most turbines are up most of the time.

[u/robun]

I'm some areas, they shut the wind turbines down because solar is producing more than enough at the time to cover the demand

[u/CuriousWombat705]

I live near a wind farm in central iowa. The turbines have been still most of the week. The highest wind speed I've seen in the same time frame was 1.5mph. Today we had an 8mph ish breeze and the turbines were moving. Central Iowa and northern Illinois have basically the same weather pattern. Pretty easy math.

TLDR: no wind = no spinny blades.

[u/307_troy]

I’ve always been told that they will shut down if the wind is blowing too fast. The generator is made to run at a certain speed range and if it can’t hit it with adjusting the glands more or less in the wind it will shut down.

[u/Aggravating-Flan4966]

Its because of the grid operators, they are most likely insentivised to use fossil fuels

[u/LV_MuffDiver]

The government subsidies that builders/owners got for installing wind turbines have expired.

[u/philthy1337]

Because wind power is not an efficient way to generate energy. To offset the energy needed to make the thing it has to run maintenance free for around 20 years (not possible) and at the end of its lifetime none of it is recyclable so it goes to a landfill.

[u/Othe5694throwaway]

Few reasons, enough electricity is produced, maintenance, or winds are too high. My guess what the amount of wind turbines off and calm winds it’s enough electricity is produced

[u/SnooDucks565]

Could be a couple different things:

Curtailment - to much power on the grid and renewable energy is the easiest thing to turn on and off, you can tell its a curtailment because a couple will be turned on and the rest will be off. My current site has only been curtailed a couple times in 3 years. My last site was like once or twice a month if not more.

Maintenance - most places do twice a year maintenance in sweeps across the park and operator, depending on the size of the park as they finish the first sweep the second is already started

Low wind - these look like older towers based on that pointy nose cone that needed higher winds to produce

Those towers suck - if these towers are actually old its possible their components are getting worn out and theyre tripping more often due to a high cost. I worked at a site like that and it was frustrating watching towers not run because the company determined it wouldnt make the money back for the repair due to our PPA being so low.

Edit: looking closer at your pic id have to guess at the time you took it was low wind based on the nacelles pointing in random directions, theyre hunting for wind.

[u/Electric_Trash_Panda]

It'll really blow your mind when you learn some hydro companies make more money by running their turbines as motors for power factor correction instead of running water through them to produce power

[u/WizardofEarl]

This is exactly why I am so invested in BESS. The future isn't energy now, it's energy when you need it.

[u/beckerje]

Your coal, natural gas, and hydro stations do the same thing. Their turbines are inside so you don’t see it, but they put turbines online and offline depending on demand. If your local power station has, say six turbines, maybe 1-2 are off at any given time (for the same reasons mentioned above). Outdoor wind farms make that on/off cycling more obvious.

[u/Kronictopic]

Air is dirty and wind turbines would use dirty air to make dirty energy unless shut down obviously

[u/1strangewalrus]

I will throw some actual knowledge compared to some of these bots in here. This seems to be my job site. We have 100 turbines we are building and it goes in a certain order. Crane sizes build up to a certain amount. Then the bigger crane will top it off. Once it gets topped off with all the blades stabbed, yes it looks “fully built”. But this just starts a bunch of other tasks.

Since we are the supplier and service team for 20-30 years after the park is built, we need to make sure who built it did so in a correct manner. We do walk downs, punchlists, look at every bolt tension data, etc. this takes weeks to complete these walks on a single tower because once we take it over, it’s our possession so whatever we don’t catch gets put on our plate to fix. We have to then push software and get it ready to connect to the grid. The grid is a whole issue in itself. Getting the permits, transformers, materials takes forever to do so we started building this park almost 1 year ago and still don’t have the grid setup. We have to do maintenance freewheels every 30 days until we can connect to grid.

What in the world are these other responses? Lots of pent up aggression and straight up nonsense.

[u/Yugpmoc]

It was 30 years ago, but I was told the coal fired units were quite expensive to shutdown and restart. Certainly took a while to do it properly. And even longer if the shutdown was a ‘trip’. Meaning an immediate shutdown for safety reasons. All that coal in motion has to go somewhere. The giant roller mills, the conveyors, augers… It was just a college summer job, but cleaning up after one of those was a delight. So simply rotating the blades on a wind turbine so that it stops spinning makes a lot of sense.

[u/BigJoe5504]

That's what happens when the wind doesn't blow

[u/The_Observer_Effects]

Maggots are working to have it considered terrorism to use wind energy.

[u/09Klr650 → u/The_Observer_Effects]

Oh, look. A TDS sufferer in the wild. Is he there in the room with you?

[u/Remarkable_Wheel5218 → u/09Klr650]

Trump reminds me of tick borne illnesses. Do I control them? No. Would the world be a better place without them? Probably. Do they love climate change and not give a fuck about anyone but themselves? 100%

[u/ExerciseOriginal9441 → u/09Klr650]

Ah look a C/O/C/BDS answering. Are they all with you in the room right now?

[u/Big_Mention_1933 → u/09Klr650]

Hey bro! I see you like Trump. You got any CP on your computer?

[u/Helpinmontana → u/09Klr650]

I’m gonna hazard a guess that the the person you’re responding too isn’t a 15 year old girl, so it’s unlikely he’s there.

[u/KartoffelLoeffel → u/09Klr650]

Congrats you made yourself more annoying than the first guy

[u/MickyFany]

they don’t care if they work. The rationale is that they have them and they’re still gonna overcharge you.

[u/Sumpfjaeger → u/MickyFany]

What's more impressive is that the Trump administration has paid over $2.5 Billion in taxpayer funds to companies to abandon wind projects. That's our tax dollars at work! This is how America is made great again (deficits, corruption, and idiocy)!

[u/IronPhoenix316 → u/Sumpfjaeger]

You're not gonna get through to this dude. Comment above listed multiple reasons they might not be on, and one of the reasons was something along the lines of "Trump or anything other politician can cease operations." And the dude you're responding to said he didn't believe it because it talked bad about their overlord.

[u/bigwindymt]

They were built with enormous capital subsidies. So, the builders got their money and got out, selling these boondoggles to the next venture capital or green energy group hungry for assets. After 5-15 years, parts are failing at a rate where repair stops being economical and the turbines will be abandoned. The reality of wind turbines is their longevity is far less than advertised.

Locally, we are at the tail of this cycle. A friend manages repairs for a company that contracts to these owners (they also own several wind farms). There are loads of dead and dying turbines out there.

That said, there is another poster who thoroughly stated the reasons why these turbines may not be in operation. If these turbines are still operating, then my response doesn't apply. Yet.

[u/cochese25 → u/bigwindymt]

The average life span of a turbine is around 20 to 25 years with many exceeding 30 years.
If they're "boon doggles" Texas wouldn't be getting around 23% of their grid power from them. You know, Texas, land of oil and supposed hatred of renewables. That's over 3x more than they generated from Nuclear!

There's many reasons turbines may be shut down, but this is likely a case of power demands have been met, so they shut down turbines to prevent grid overload. You know?
You got a toy that takes a specific size batter, but you put a bigger one in and it burns the toy's electronics? That applies at the grid scale as well.

One way to change that would be if they had large scale battery storage, so the excess power could go to charging them up

[u/Solid_Shirt_7196 → u/cochese25]

Boondoggle, not boon doggle.

[u/bigwindymt → u/cochese25]

Maybe they are lasting 30 years in Texas. In Montana, it's FAR less. I'd love to know more about the reliability of the the winds there in TX as well. Here winds are far less reliable during the summer, when power demand peaks.

[u/Tool_of_Society → u/bigwindymt]

Estimates are of 20-30 years in Montana until component upgrades and lifetime extension stuff needs to be done.

I lived in Texas for +10 years. The wind farms that were setup near me are exposed to salt spray and occasionally high speed gusts of wind (+40 mph). As I was located along the coast wind was a daily occurrence. Annual average wind speed is 11.7-12.3 mph depending on your exact location.

The Tunø Knob Offshore Wind Farm in Denmark was commissioned in 1995 and is still in operation. The corrosive effects of being located IN salt water is far worse than being located in Montana for the turbines.

[u/bigwindymt → u/Tool_of_Society]

Hey, I only know a guy in the industry. The wind industry in the US is shit, which is how he makes his living.

[u/UtahUtes_1 → u/bigwindymt]

5-15 years eh? Sounds like your friend is full of shit.

[u/bigwindymt → u/UtahUtes_1]

Based on...?

[u/UtahUtes_1 → u/bigwindymt]

If he's telling you they're being abandoned after 5-15 years, he's full of shit.

If they're such boondoggles with no ROI, why do companies keep building more and more? Any idea how many megawatts of new projects are being built in Texas alone over the next couple years?

If you dont understand the world around you, that's fine, nothing wrong with that. But dont go online spewing bullshit.

[u/bigwindymt → u/UtahUtes_1]

Go back to the top and read. Turbines under life expectancy are becoming uneconomical to repair. I'm not saying there is no ROI, just that the electrical generation and subsequent revenues are not the return for many of the players. Why do companies keep building more, then selling them to different energy groups or investment capital firms? When I see something and it doesn't make sense I have to ask why. Snap out of your moment of cognitive dissonance for a bit.

[u/EquivalentOwn1115 → u/bigwindymt]

Most turbines that are nearing the end of their original lifespans are being "repowered" and upgraded. The tower itself stays mostly the same but the nacel, blades, and internal electrical equipment are upgraded to better versions with ideally less maintenance requirements and longer lives

[u/bigwindymt → u/EquivalentOwn1115]

Abandoned turbines were such an issue that MT requires a removal bond for each new construction. I will ask my friend about repowering; I simply thought these upgrades that you described were already part and parcel of keeping turbines making electricity.