Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Wind turbines will continue to be rebuilt as long as it's economical.
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Right.
That usually averages about 20-25 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
The power collection grid around the wind turbine farm will still be like new after only 20 years.
The wind turbine foundation and monopole are not going to wear out.
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Yes. But...
If you have a wind farm full of 20 year-old, 750kW, 50m towers how do you plan to keep them running?
Parts for old turbines are hard to find and expensive because the manufacturer has moved on to larger turbines.
You can do a partial repower and replace the nacelle... but you can't put one on that is larger because the blades will hit the ground and the tower isn't designed to handle the load.
Or you can do a full repower and decommission the entire wind turbine and put a new one in it's place (actually, usually replacing several small turbines with one large one as they need more space). This is what is usually done.
And, since that grid was based on 750kW turbines, your new 3.0+MW turbines will likely overpower your grid, so you may need to upgrade that too.
Full disclosure: My company supplies components to wind turbine manufacturers.