Talk about a bust.
A multimillion-dollar wind turbine that was projected to generate electricity for the St. Cloud VA health campus is scheduled to be demolished in July after being plagued by problems ever since its blades first turned eight years ago.
"We had 215 acres of land in a handy spot to put a wind turbine and satisfactory winds," said Barry Venable, a spokesman for the St. Cloud VA Health Care System. But, he added, "It spun sporadically for a few months and then it broke down."
The VA built the wind turbine overlooking the Sauk River with help from $2.3 million in federal stimulus money as part of a pilot project to tap a renewable energy source to reduce energy costs, Venable said.
According to projections, the turbine was expected to generate about 15% of the medical center's annual electricity.
But almost from the start, "it didn't work well," Venable said.
The Massachusetts-based company charged with designing and building the turbine conducted on-site technical reviews to figure out why it wasn't operating better and replaced major components. But the turbine never met reasonable standards of performance, Venable said.
It generated a mere 464,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity over three years, at a time when the medical center used more than 37 million kilowatts.