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High above Coatbridge stands a lonely windmill that can be seen for miles around. I always wondered why only one was ever build as most of the time you see vast numbers of these massive monsters all grouped together. Was it a test rig, a planning issue, or something else?
Well the answer is simple, its privately owned by a local farmer who fancied expanding into what is currently know as 'renewable's' and having spoken to him, the simple reason for there only being one was that he thought that spending over a million pounds was quite enough for one device never mind financing two or more.
For the technically minded the beautifully painted Enercon E-53 wind turbine is fitted with a rotor which is 53 meters in diameter, and rests on a 73-metres tall hub. The turbine produces a rated power of 800kW and works efficiently at lower wind speeds. In an average year (2500 hours of full load wind) the site should generate around 2 GWh of electricity.
At present (Aug 10) the current wholesale cost of electricity is £50 per MWh so it would appear that the blades going round and round must produce about £100,000 of electricity a year. The life span of the equipment is 25 years so looks like a nice little earner to me if you have the space available.
The cache is a simple cache 'n dash with space for a single car to park around 20m North of ground zero.
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