Cuban Tests of Wind Energy Deemed Satiisfactory

The chief of the park in Turiguano, Ciego de Avila province, Ridel Cañizares, said this Wednesday to the Cuban News Agency, that the wind mills had already saved the Cuban economy over 1,230 tons of fuel.

That occurs, he added, during the 17 years the facility has been open, leading the Cuban government to look to that energy source.

He told specialists that the amount of fuel saved in that period, prevented the emission to the atmosphere of 3,615 tons of carbón dioxide. He described this energy source as cheap, clean and renewable.

Cañizares said the park generated 4,830 megawatts to the National Power Grid since June 5 of 2000 until the end of May this year.

The site is the first of its type in the country and the speed of the winds there is 6.5 meters per second as average, rank considered acceptable for that type of endeavor.

After a refurbishment of all the system of two wind generators with a power of 225 kilowatts each, ther park shows 94 percent technical availability, insisted the specialist.

Cañizares stressed that before that automatic improvement to the technology, there were frequent failures in the motors due to the many years of exploitation.

That investment consisted in changing the entry and exit modules of the central unit of the process, which is in charge of receiving the signals of sensors, responsible for the generating command.

They also renewed the electronic chips for others of automatic control and the switch, known as tiristor, now it is in only one digital module.

The Turiguano eolic park with its tribute to the national grid, shows the viability of generating electricity with the wind, especially for isolated locations and fragile ecosystems, sentenced the expert.