The Wind Mills of Madison County: The Facts Paint A Picture of Degradation and Failure

Guest Post by Roger Caiazza of Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.

This post is about the first New York industrial wind facility with an old New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) report projecting performance. On January 14, 2025 the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) posted a Completed Generator Deactivation Notice for the facility.

The Windmills of Madison County

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% GHG reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by NYSERDA and its consultants quantified the impact of the electrification strategies. The Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% GHG reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by NYSERDA and its consultants quantified the impact of the electrification strategies. The Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.

Overview

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% GHG reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by NYSERDA and its consultants quantified the impact of the electrification strategies. The Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.

The Madison Wind Farm

According to its Wikipedia page:

The Madison Wind Farm is a power generation plant located in the town of Madison, New York. Constructed in 1999-2000, it was the first wind farm completed in New York state and the first merchant wind farm in the country. The power plant consists of seven Vestas V66-1.65 MW wind turbines, generating enough energy to power up to 10,000 homes. The Vestas V66-1.65 MW wind turbines have a hub height of 67m and a 66m rotor diameter totally 100m to the top of the rotor.

It is now owned by EDP renewables. There have been maintenance issuesand last year I mentioned talk about decommissioning the project. On January 14, 2025 NYISO posted a Completed Generator Deactivation Noticefor the facility. The notice said that the Nameplate capacity was 11.6 MW. The notice stated that “The submitting entity has proposed to deactivate the Generator on May 1, 2025. The desired Retirement date is less than 365 days after the completed Notice was submitted.”

NYSERDA sponsored an assessment of the facility that was published in December 2003. The Madison Windpower Project Final Report was prepared for NYSERDA by AWS Scientific, Inc. The Abstract for the report stated that:

This report covers the development and operation of the Madison Windpower Project in Madison County, New York developed by PG&E Generating. The project began commercial operation in October 2000 and consists of seven Vestas V66-1.65 MW OptiSlip® wind turbines for a total capacity of 11.55 MW. Long­ term wind resource estimates predicted an annual hub-height average wind speed of 7.3 m/s. The net annual plant energy production was predicted to be 23,621 MWh, which would produce a capacity factor of 23.3%.

The wind turbines were dispatched and controlled from the PG&E Pittsfield operations center, which was also responsible for substation maintenance. Vestas took charge of inspection, adjustment, and repair of the turbines (both scheduled and unscheduled) and established an operations and maintenance facility in the Madison area.

The wind plant produced a total of 61,379 MWh of electricity for three years for an annual average of 20,460 MWh and an overall capacity factor of 21%. The capacity factor is lower than the expected value of 23.3% primarily due to lower than predicted wind speeds and turbine and grid outages.

Data is available for all New York generating units that participate in the electric market. Universally known as the “Gold Book” it is the best reference for New York electric generation data. The 2024 Load & Capacity Data Report presents observed load and capacity data for 2023. The 2024 data are not available. To prepare this summary of Madison Wind Farm operations I relied on a compilation of observed data from Gold Book reports back to 2006.

The following table lists the observed net energy (GWh) and capacity factors from 2006 to 2023, and the projections made in 2003 by AWS. In that analysis the observed capacity factor was 21% in the first three years. Since then, only one year achieved that level and in the last three years the capacity factor was less than 14%. AWS projected that the energy production would be 23.6 GWh per year. The last column in the table lists the observed minus projected annual deficit.

Table 1: Madison Wind Farm Performance Based on NYISO “Gold Book” Load & Capacity Data Report Table III-1 Including AWS 2003 Projections

Discussion

As the first industrial wind facility Madison Wind Farm performance was evaluated in the AWS project. The report claims that it was a successful demonstration of large-scale wind development. I agree that it provides power, and the information learned from it has been used to integrate other projects. However, I have concerns about the poor availability and decreasing capacity factors.

In my previous article I noted that over-optimism is a characteristic of NYSERDA. The NYSERDA Integration Analysis projected a state-wide wind capacity factor of 29% in 2020 increasing to 34% in 2030. The Gold Book statewide capacity factor in 2020 was 23.9%. The Integration Analysis projected land-based wind in 2030 would generate 5,043 GWh but using that capacity factor he actual production was only 4,162 GWh, 18% lower than they projected. In addition, the Integration Analysis did not acknowledge that as wind systems age their performance drops.

In comments I submitted regarding the Draft Scoping Plan, I noted that the Integration Analysis assumes the expected lifetimes of the wind facilities is indefinite. As a result, units were assumed to remain online throughout the study period and no costs for replacements between now and 2050 were included. This generator deactivation notice blows that assumption out of the water.

NYSERDA’s Integration Analysis quantified the generating resources that will be needed to meet the Climate Act mandates. However, comparison of observed and projected energy production shows that they have overestimated energy production which means that more wind capacity will have to be developed and that the costs will necessarily be higher than they projected. Now we have confirmation that the retirement of wind resources will occur which adds another layer of overestimated wind energy projection.

There has not been any reconciliation between Integration Analysis projections and observations to refine projections. This is in keeping with their complete lack of response to technical issues raised in comments on the Scoping Plan.

Conclusion

The performance of the first wind farm in New York is considerably less than projected and now it is retiring after less than 25 years of operation. The Madison Windpower Project Final Report reported a capacity factor 21% for the first three years, which was lower than the projected value of 23.3%. Performance degraded over the period of record and was only 12% in 2023. Over 18 years the facility produced 93.2 GWh less than projected. This is another indication that the Scoping Plan projections for future wind operations were overly optimistic and means that the Scoping Plan costs for the net zero transition are too low.

This is just one more example of the flaws hidden behind a veneer of political slogans that claim all is well with the Climate Act. Eventually it will become obvious that the Hochul Administration electric system “plan” is incompatible with reality. It is past time to pause implementation and address the many issues that have been identified with the Scoping Plan.

#Caiazza #Climate #WindMills #WindTurbines #ClimateAct #Wind #MadisonCounty #NewYork #CapacityFactors #Degradation #Failure #NYSERDA

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  This post represents his opinion alone and not the opinion of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated. Roger has followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and has written over 490 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.