CRISFIELD, MD—The wind turbine in Crisfield has once more come to a standstill, just two weeks after crews successfully started it spinning for the first time in nearly a year. The latest setback is prompting city officials to discuss a comprehensive maintenance evaluation.
During Wednesday's City council meeting, the consulting city engineer Jason Loar relayed information from PowerGrid Partners, the contractor that services the turbine.
Loar said crews identified a safety sensor that needed replacement as the primary issue causing the turbine to stall. According to an estimate from the contractor Loar gave during the meeting, a replacement sensor would likely cost between $5,000 and $6,000. The contractor also recommended that the turbine undergo full maintenance for the first time in years.
"The best way to look at it is we've got an antique car," Loar said of the wind turbine. "We get it up and running, and then something else breaks."
Doug Curtis lives and works in the City of Crisfield. He said people are more accustomed to seeing the turbine's rotor blades standing still, which is why he noticed when they started spinning in mid-February.
"I did notice that it did start to spin," Curtis said. "It seemed like the next day it was back to normal, not working properly."
Mayor Darlene Taylor said that the city regularly conducts targeted maintenance on the turbine but that crews have not performed a complete top-to-bottom inspection in several years.
"Right now, we're working between two options," Taylor said. "Whether we are going to go ahead and fix the problem that we have today or if we're just going to leave it down and let them do the full maintenance first."
City officials are waiting for an estimate for the full maintenance cost from the contractor but Mayor Taylor said it will be significantly more than the cost of merely replacing the problematic safety sensor.
"From a standpoint of where those funds come from, that was, of course, not a budget item because we didn't expect that to happen," Mayor Taylor said. "But there are maintenance funds that were associated originally with the wind turbine."
The wind turbine is intended to offset the cost of powering the wastewater plant, which is the City of Crisfield's largest expense. When it is fully operational, Mayor Taylor said the turbine can save the city significant electrical costs.
"It saves us up to $10,000 a month in our electric bill," Mayor Taylor said. "It's imperative to us that it is fixed."
The city is still repaying a state loan for the $4.1 million turbine installation that took place in 2016, Mayor Taylor said.
Doug Curtis said he thinks the city should consider the ongoing costs of servicing the turbine before deciding on a course of action.
"I guess the best thing to do is to have them look at it and see what it will cost to fix it and figure out whether it is worth doing it or is it worth just not fixing it," Curtis said.
Mayor Taylor said decommissioning the turbine is not a beneficial or realistic option for Crisfield at the moment.