Wind power is one of the most under-utilized renewable energy technologies in Sri Lanka, with only around 140 MW connected to the grid as of 2023. I made a visit to Puttalam, to have a closer look at WindForce PLC’s 12 MW Daily Life Wind Plant – a singular plant that makes up the 100 MW of installed capacity currently connected in Putalam. The primary purpose of this visit was to gain insight into wind farm development, specifically the auxiliary costs and operations and maintenance costs of the plant. Additionally, I wanted to know how feasibility studies are conducted, evaluating wind resources, in order to determine the optimum site for a wind farm – to aid in my extended essay research.
Plant Specifications
Located on the Kapitiya Peninsula, the plant consists of 8, 1.5 MW ReGen Vensys 82 wind turbines. The turbines stand 85m tall with a blade diameter of 82m, landing it on the smaller end of wind turbine classifications. The turbines are scattered over a small area, usually facing the Indian Ocean as that is where the strongest winds blow. Vensys 82 turbines have a rated wind speed of 12.5 m/s, but the plant usually receives a maximum of 7.4 m/s.
Location of the Daily Life 12 MW Wind Plant, Kalpitiya Peninsula, Puttalam.
I visited the plant in June, during the marked windy season in Sri Lanka where wind speeds can exceed 13 m/s in certain areas. The months of June, July, August, September, and October fall under the windy season where the plant generates close to 80% output. With an investment of 1.5 billion LKR, the plant is expected to break even after around 10-11 years of operation.
ReGen Vensys 82 Wind Turbine pictured in front of Lakvijaya Coal Power Plant, Kalpitiya Peninsula, Puttalam.
Operation & maintenance
The control room of the plant is a humble small one-story building, which houses the main switchboards connecting the turbines and control panels, where turbines can be switched on or off amongst a variety of other functions. The plant is run by just three technicians who monitor the plant equipment and carry out periodic maintenance of the turbine parts.
A Schneider SM6-36 switchboard connected to the 8 ReGen turbines.
The lead technician, Janaka, took me up close and personal with one of the ReGen turbines, right inside the hollow metal tower. It was surprisingly windy at the bottom from the flow of bleed air being redirected down after being used to cool the turbine’s generator. Inside, I got a look at the turbine’s switchboard, which controlled the various systems, including the cooling, pitch control, yaw control, and brake systems.
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- Turbine Switchboard
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- Cable Lift to the top of the turbine.
Janaka also let me have a look inside their maintenance hanger, which housed the massive coil of one generator, dismounted due to damage to the coils after a section of the permanent magnet broke off and made contact with the rotating coil. Luckily, the damage was not significant and could be repaired by technicians on-site without needing it to be shipped back to the manufacturer. The permanent magnet disk was also dismounted and being refitted with new magnets to replace the parts that dislodged.
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- The damaged permanent magnet disk. If you look close enough, you can see individual magnet bars missing.
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- Generator coil under repair in an enclosed hangar.
The sheer size and scale of the magnets and the coil, whilst miniscule up in the air was humbling back down at ground level when put to scale with a human. It just goes to show you the engineering prowess that goes into even the simple wind turbine which has become a common phrase being thrown around at climate conferences around the world. It is sights such as these that remind me of my love for engineering – seeing it in practice and being able to appreciate, what is in essence, one engineer’s solution to another of the world’s problems.
The way forward
These complex machines, standing effortlessly beautiful, hold the key to mankind’s biggest issue – with this small 12 MW plant alone saving 19,300 MT of carbon dioxide every year. Wind power development, although initially slow, has picked up momentum all across the world and will soon transform grids into green powerhouses that drive the growing hunger the world’s economies face today and tomorrow.
The world around us has solutions to every problem we encounter today, it is up to us, hindered by our own short-sightedness, to discover those solutions so we can focus on tomorrow’s goal, which is the problems of the future.