I wonder if HKE would be willing to plant a row of tall trees on the Tai Peng side of the windmill hillside to restore the view of residents of this part of the island. I think we have noted HKE's wonderful green credentials, and we are impressed, OK.

Why not simply ask them?

They're very eager & concerned about their "green" reputation and might actually agree to do something like this if it helps to upkeep or further their public image.

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I can't tell from the plans if there is going to be a fence around the turbine. I rather expect there will be a high, ugly chain link fence with barb wire on the top, like that around the reservoir nearby. (Why they need a fence around an underground reservoir, I don't know.)

As for trees, that would be nice.
Reminds me of the hostel pumphouse monstrosity. They delivered a few dozen bamboo trees to the road nearby, left them there for a few months till they were dead, then planted them. A few have resprouted from the roots. Complete fucking idiots in charge of that project.

OK, 1 good question and 1 good suggestion!

Any more before I forward these to HK Electric directly?

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Wind turbine update, a HK Electric press release:

<a href="http://www.hec.com.hk/heh/press/12022005.htm">Construction begins for Hong Kong's first wind turbine on Lamma Island</a>

This will raise quite a few more comments & questions, I think...

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Another tourist attracting site!

Will the power generated supply to our island only (and hence reducing the fare of our electric bills)?

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There was also an article in the Post on Sunday, probably based on that. So apparently there will be some trees, and no fence.
It does look more and more like a PR stunt than a serious engineering project.

Yes, that SCMP story on Feb 13 was based on the press release. But it has amazing mistakes in it, as the reporter did his own calculations and claimed that it would need FOUR wind turbines to power ONE single average household, instead of one wind turbine being sufficient for 200-300 households.

Imagine, every Village House would need TWELVE of these full-scale wind turbines in the garden to power it!

How did such an obvious 1000-times mistake ever get by the subeditors, I wonder. But the SCMP is notorious for getting its facts totally wrong, as I know from having been interviewed a few times years ago.

Here's the full SCMP story, scanned:
Work on wind turbine heralds tiny step towards green power

Other mistakes in the story besides ALL the power figures and percentages being wrong by 100 and 1,000 times:
it claims that the height has been shortened from 71 to 46 metres.
Not true: 46m hub height + rotor diameter 50m/radius 25m = total height 71 metres, as announced before..

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The power generated will be fed into the general electricity grid of HEC and then transmitted via the 2 (soon 3) Cable Routes to HK Island. There the voltage will be stepped down from 275kV to something usable for local distribution to households and then transported back to Lamma Island by the same Cable Routes.

If the power from the wind turbines would be supplied to Lamma Island, we'd be in for a massive price hike! The power from this single wind turbine would be much more expensive than the regular power produced from coal, oil and gas (new Lamma Extension).

Easy to calculate: $10 million building cost, generating power for only about 250 average households, 20-year lifespan, moderate running costs... yes, pretty expensive power, but the power source is free, clean and renewable!

But we've all already got a price increase anyway, 6.5% from Jan 1st, like all their customers...

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Just received the new quarterly CONTACT house magazine from HEC yesterday and it makes for very interesting & amusing reading. The wind turbine is mentioned prominently in several stories, clearly showing how extremely important this project is to their management:

1. New Year Message from Managing Director:
"Initiatives such as our wind turbine project... demonstrate our commitment to exploring renewable energy."

2. 'Power-Smart Kids' Join Energy-Saving Crusade:
"...the Permanent Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works (Environment). Mr. Kwok Ka-keung,... praised HEC for its efforts in protecting the environment as it demonstrates the company's commitment in corporarte social responsilbilities, citing the plan to build a wind power plant on Lamma Island."

3. Fund-raising Concert:
"Visitors are attracted by our booth on wind power and renewable energy."

This is a story about the Lamma Fun Day. The nice story focuses exclusively on the HEC band concert and their fundraising, not a single other non-HEC activity is even mentioned. Well, they were the main sponsor...

4. Wind Power Experts on Visit:
"A six-member delegationfrom Rudong County, Jiangsu Province, visited HK Electric in January to exchange experience on wind project development.
Rudong... has undertaken a two-phased wind power project with a total capacity of 250MW. With another 600MW project under development, the county will become China's largest wind farm in 2006/07."

Lamma's wind turbine will be 0.65-0.8MW, so these guys in Rudong will produce about 1,000 times as much wind power.
I wonder how many turbines they're planning to build...

5. Safety Carnival:
"One of the main attractions was the colourful feathers flying in the wind power game at the HK Electric Booth."

6. CLG to be Revamped:
"...new initative in erecting a wind turbine on Lamma in 2006."

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Alan, I've forwarded your question and Zep's suggestion to HEC. Here's the reply, plus comments about that SCMP wind turbine story full of mistakes:

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Aug 1, official start of the E&M (Electrical & Mechanical) work for the wind turbine.
According to the monthly EIA report from HEC, there are no problems and all is going according to plan.

By the way, did you know that our Magical Spinney Thing has its own website already? Very secretive and nobody seems to have heard of it before one of my Alert Readers (from down under!) informed me yesterday!

Check out this address and see the Spinney Thing spin on the home page!
http://lammawindturbine.hec.com.hk

Construction programme for the rest of this year:
http://lammawindturbine.hec.com.hk/mreport/html/200506/200506wtemna.htm#ad

This seems to be a standard naming convention for HEC, as there's a site for the Lamma Extension project-in-progress as well:

http://lammaextension.hec.com.hk

Anybody got new pictures of the completed wind turbine foundation?

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These pictures are 2 weeks old, no more work since then.

Has been work since then...., the central part has been concreted over as of last weekend.

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Going back to the post on hub height where the SCMP reported the turbine size had been reduced from 71m to 46m is almost correct. The reporter should have clarified that it was hub height he was talking about and not hub plus rotor radius. The model of turbine they considered came in 3 hub height sizes; 46m, 56m and 70m.

As I can see from Wah Fu (after the heavy haze on the 10 Sept.),The windmill tower has now been erected. It's on the right of the "padoga" and the tower looks rather tall and, when the blades are installed, it would bring huge distraction to people like him who enjoy the scenic view of Lamma.

Such structures would do nothing but screaming at people on the HK side "hey look here, we're harnessing wind energy. How green I am."

At least I'll be able to tell which way the winds are coming, from looking at the willmill across the East Lamma Channel.

That's the main purpose of the windmill, isn't it? Nothing wrong with that in my opinion, just corporate PR and image.

Here's my best shot at maximum zoom taken on a reasonably clear afternoon yesterday, from the ferry pier. It's actually much more visible from Yung Shue Wan than I expected, located behind Mt Panorama. The blue "tower" is the crane used to hoist the hub onto the white windmill pole.

Well, I'm personally looking forward to the magical Spinney Thing being completed, another landmark and tourist attraction for hikers, fitting in well with Lamma's well-deserved green image.

It'll also surely generate a lot of hot air, perfect input for my daily blog...

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All three blades has already been installed.

[Edit: all 3, not just one as wrongly observed at 0555 in the morning]

I haven't spoken with anyone who lives near any sort of "wind farm", but I've been wondering how far away you have to be in order not to hear the slow "woosh-woosh-woosh" of the blades on a windy day. I expect that blade designs have improved considerably over the years, but I can remember standing about 100 meters from an early model and noticing how noisy it was. With any luck this one will be nearly silent (I hope).

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See this thread about the Magical Spinney Thing in the Chinese Forum for photos of MST from the East Lamma Channel (pre-blade a few days ago) and the Main Street (blade-ful, yesterday).