Talk:Mendota Hills Wind Farm

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A fact from Mendota Hills Wind Farm appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 6 July 2007.
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[edit] Landowner revenues

"Most landowners are paid US$1,200 to $1,500 per megawatt of electricity produced on each tower." This is a quote from the source, but surely it must either be:

  • $1,500 per MW of installed capacity - i.e. a fixed amount of 0.8 x 1,500 x 63, or
  • $1,500 per MW hour of electricty produced, i.e. a variable but much larger amount.
It's probably the former. Ben MacDui (Talk) 07:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, and just put a note on the main page errors about the problem with the wording. -- Johnfos 07:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Ben and Johnfos: You are right in ponting at the vagueness of the figures, but you have a little omission there. A MW is a unit of power, that is, energy (produced or consumed) over time. Hence, payments proportional to that power must be computed over a period of time. On the other hand, it is mentioned that the $1,500 amount is related to each tower, so there is no need to multiply by 63 (towers). The computation is simple:
Dollars paid = $1,500 x 0,8 = $1,200
Now we have the question of what amount of time that amount is to cover.
If t = 1 hour, then each tower renders 1,200 x 24 = $28,800 daily (= $864,000 per month). That's too much, close to the cost of building a tower.
If t = 1 day, then for each tower 1,200 x 30 = $36,000 per month (about right - if I were the landowner, I'd be satisfied, as the effective footprint of each tower is negligible, and the land can still be used to raise some crops. Nice deal!). Regards, --AVM 12:30, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
The t = 1 day figure is very high. The UK figure is circa £2,000/ MW installed per annum. I would be amazed if famers in the US were getting $36,000/ month for renting out a few square feet of land. I suspect t = 1 year (i.e my first example above.) Ben MacDui (Talk) 17:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
See also [1] for typical rents at a fraction of the above suggestion. Ben MacDui (Talk) 12:46, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Output

Does 63 Gamesa G53-800 kW mean:

  • 63 turbines of model G53-800, with an ouput of a kilowatt each
  • 63 turbines of model G53, with an output of 800 kilowatts each
  • I've worked it out now. Ravenhurst 12:38, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nice

Hey, thanks everybody for making the fixes and such. I reverted an anon change that eliminated all U.S. measures in favor of metric units. Since the location is in the U.S. I figured U.S. figures first and metrics in parenthesis, which is what I had and what I reverted to. Thanks again for tending to the article. IvoShandor 11:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)