muppandal wind farm case study

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The wind farm paradox in southern Tamil Nadu

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• Muppandal in Tamil Nadu is home to India’s largest operational onshore wind farm in terms of installed capacity. Over three decades, there are visible social impacts on the people living in the districts of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Kanniyakumari.
• The benefits and drawbacks though, are interlaced. For almost every person who regrets the decline of agriculture, at least one person in their family works at a wind or solar farm.
• Young people find the wind farms beneficial and say that the appreciation in land prices, jobs and continuous electricity have improved their lifestyles.
• As the state progresses with its clean energy plans, concerns loom about whether this transition is just for all – young and old, men and women, literate and illiterate.

Driving southward from Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli city, one crosses many towns and villages with all the typical scenes one would expect – busy buses and trains, students in a rush, and construction labourers boarding lorries to head to the workstation of the day. There are hospitals, colleges and universities, shops, and a lot of temples.

Crossing Valliyur town, the landscape begins to change. The lush green fields surrounded by mountains, grazing goats and sheep, active morning birds and pastoralists and farmers gearing up for the day, greet you to the countryside. And just when you would think the scenery could not get more impressive, there emerges a backdrop of wind turbines, standing at average heights of over 50-80 feet.

This is near Muppandal, a village in the Kanniyakumari district, home to India’s largest operational onshore wind farm in terms of installed capacity, since 1986.

The Muppandal wind farm that features turbines from many private players was developed by the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA). The wind turbines here are some of the oldest turbines in the country. What makes Muppandal a great site to install wind turbines is the geographical location that receives uniquely powerful winds from the Arabian Sea. The large wind farm in Muppandal features many wind turbines ranging from 200 kilowatts (KW) to 1,650 KW. There are also many wind farms, scattered across different villages in the Kanyakumari, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli districts. For better or for worse, these farms have certainly brought winds of change for the people and the local economy.

Over three decades, a lot has changed in this region of the southern Indian coastal state, which accounts for about 25 percent of India’s total installed wind power capacity of 40.12 gigawatts (GW).

The villages here were once predominantly dependent on agriculture. Groundnut, sesame, corn, and millets would grow in abundance. Gradually, the wind turbines mushroomed. The wind farms grew in acreages in and around Kanniyakumari and Tirunelveli districts. They found kinship with the land and continued to expand. Land prices soared giving way to infrastructure development and improved lifestyles. People sold their farming lands during this period to make profits. Occupations changed over the years and now, stories about agriculture that once flourished in the region, cascade through generations.

During a recent visit, Mongabay-India interacted with the diverse people that make up the population here – farmers, pastoralists, landowners, engineers, homemakers, shop owners, teachers, and village council officials – all residing near wind farms in Muppandal, Panakudi, Donahvur, Radhapuram, and Mettu Pirancheri of southern Tamil Nadu. They shared how the area has evolved over the last few decades and the social impact that the wind farms have had.

The people understand that the wind farms led to rapid improvement in the region and therefore try to push aside their collective grief for the loss of agriculture, a profession that the youth of the area now hesitate to take up for various reasons. And for every person who mourned the decline of agriculture, at least one person in their family works at a wind or solar farm.

Continuous electricity and green jobs

Thangaraj C., 38, from Mettu Pirancheri in Tirunelveli, wakes up and checks his phone. The first thing he looks into is the status of the wind turbines of the company he works for, which are installed in the area. Thangaraj oversees four turbines – monitors them, fixes faults, if any, and maintains them. Wi-Fi is available in the small office setup near the turbine, which enables the systems to provide the data on his smartphone. A mechanical engineer with over 15 years of experience in the wind energy industry, Thangaraj has worked in different cities across the country and has seen the advancement of technology from old turbines to new ones.

“Wind is a huge boon for the youth of south Tamil Nadu,” declares Thangaraj, standing next to an 88-metre (around 288 feet) wind turbine that makes a heavy sound as the blades tear through the air. “Oh! we’ve got used to this sound,” he told Mongabay-India.

Talking about the importance of wind energy in generating employment opportunities, Thangaraj said, “Many companies are located north of Madurai, however, down south there are many engineers who are unemployed. Therefore, wind farms have been a good source of generating employment. My father is not educated, and my mother passed away due to cancer; but they gave me education. I completed engineering and I am now working in a job that I am proud of. I live in a pollution-free atmosphere, and I am doing a green job.” He also takes pride in the fact that wind is a renewable source of energy. It’s a ‘ suthamaana energy source’ (clean energy in Tamil), he reiterates. Twenty engineers from his village work in wind farms as engineers.

Peoples’ experiences near southern Tamil Nadu’s wind farms. All photos by Narayana Swamy Subbaraman/Mongabay.

The youth Mongabay-India interacted with, in these districts, are in favour of the expanding wind farms, not only due to the possibility of green jobs, but also because they get continuous electricity, which was rare, a couple of decades back.

Sooriya Priya, 27, lives in Moovendar Nagar, a village near Muppandal. Her husband works on a wind farm. “There can be positives and negatives of large-scale renewable energy projects, but we get continuous power now. We have no power cuts except the maintenance cuts. This is a huge relief for us. We feel secure and our lifestyles have improved!” she told Mongabay-India.

When the land prices increased with the rise of windmills, it was not only the ones who sold or leased the land to wind turbine owners who benefited. Everyone did. Many farmers sold their lands when the wind turbines were being installed and made profits.

Nature educator Maria Antony from Panakudi who works with children and teaches them about local ecology is one such person who profited from the hike in the land price. “My father sold his land and made a good profit because of which we were able to study well. Many farmers made double or triple the profits during that time which they would not have made by farming,” he explained. Although he feels differently about large renewable energy projects as an ecologist, he acknowledges that the increase in land price was a boost to the farmers’ lifestyles.

Wind turbines near farmlands in Panakudi. Video by Narayana Swamy Subbaraman/Mongabay.

Read more: Expansion of windmills in Kachchh impact unique thorn forest and wildlife

The challenges in pastoralism and agriculture

The benefits and drawbacks of wind farms are interlaced in this region, creating a paradox that makes it hard to pin down whether wind farms have been good or bad for the people.

Raghavan M., 65, from Mettu Pirancheri, has been a pastoralist for 15 years. As he released his 70 sheep to graze, in a landscape dominated by the invasive Prosopis juliflora , he said, “Although grass grows around the areas where turbines are installed, there is no grass under the turbine. The water table has reduced in the spots where the turbines were installed.” While the precise link between the wind turbines and these impacts are difficult to establish, Raghavan told Mongabay-India that people have made these observations over the years, adding that it has been difficult for him to graze his sheep after the wind turbines were installed.

Another farmer and pastoralist from Mettu Pirancheri, Pandaram Velu, 50, shared that he suffered because the fences at the wind and solar farms block access and he can’t take his cattle to graze in different areas like he did earlier. Now, he finishes the round of grazing within a 10-kilometre radius. However, he noted that wind turbines are better than solar farms that “block” the entire land. “No one forced anyone to sell their lands. People wanted to sell the land for profits. Now agriculture has dwindled, and lands are fenced off,” he told Mongabay-India while he was feeding his goats with leafy greens from his farmland. Velu’s younger brother works on a solar farm and assists him in the farmland whenever required.

A fenced wind farm to stop trespassers and cattle grazing in Radhapuram at Tirunelveli. Video by Narayana Swamy Subbaraman/Mongabay.

While pastoralists place their share of concerns, the farmers in some areas state that their produce is affected because of the wind farms.

About 90 kilometres further from Mettu Pirancheri, is Radhapuram where Rasathi I., 52, waters her tomato field. Just a few yards away from the field is a giant wind turbine. “The turbines and the crops don’t set. The natural wind is different. The quality of the vegetables grown has been affected because of the turbine. It hasn’t improved agriculture exactly,” she told Mongabay-India. Her son works for a wind company and is preparing to pursue a Master’s degree abroad.

Another question that was commonly raised by the farmers was, “Who is making the money?”

Annakudi M., 60, a farmer in Mettu Pirancheri with six acres of land, says four members of her family work in the wind farms. “I’ve heard them say that their job is tedious, but they still go. Already agricultural lands have dwindled after wind farms expanded and people sold their land off. However, no job is like farming. Wind farms do generate jobs but it’s the owners of the wind turbines who make the money, not the farmers who sold their lands off,” she told Mongabay-India.

Over the years, as many people sold their farms, agriculture dwindled. Vidangan R., 70, the village head of Moovendar Nagar, near Muppandal, about 20 kilometres west of Radhapuram, reiterated the dual sides of wind farms. He said that although the wind farms are a boon to the district in one way, due to the fast development, it has also indirectly led to the loss of agriculture. “As agriculture got increasingly difficult, people sold their lands to make money. Now, in Moovendar Nagar alone, there are about 30 people working in wind farms. But if the farms were to expand to more areas, it is a threat to agriculture. The money goes to wind farms and a few jobs come our way. Agriculture is important,” he told Mongabay-India, recollecting the days when he saw truckloads of groundnuts being transported for sale. Vidangan’s son works as an engineer with a wind farm service provider.

Lands sold and leased out

A narrow street with wind turbines on both sides, the entry to Radhapuram, during sunset hours, looks like something out of a movie. Sundar Rajan, 85, stops his car. Speaking to Mongabay-India he said, “I sold a few plots of land in Radhapuram to a private wind turbine manufacturer. We had orchards there before. We had mango trees, coconut, etc. Three wind turbines exist in my previous land. It’s a fenced piece of land. We did profit from it.” Just as he drives away, there are pastoralists grazing their cattle outside several fenced pieces of land.

About 30 km from Radhapuram lies Dohnavur, known for Dohnavur Fellowship, an institution started by Irish Missionary Amy Carmichael as a centre for orphans and a safe home for children who were subject to the  devadasi practice (a practice whereby parents marry a daughter off to a deity or a temple and she performs duties for the temple) in the early 1900s.  Speaking to Mongabay-India, Jeremiah Rajanesan, who oversees the Fellowship’s functioning today said, “We leased out nine parcels of land when the turbines were just beginning to get installed in the district and it is part of the annual lease. We get around Rs. 400,000 per annum. We have a deep relationship with the landscape and as long as the ecosystem stays intact, we are okay with the wind turbines staying on.”

Meanwhile, one interaction with a farmer stood out from the rest. Kanakaraj A., 56, from Panakudi, who was the first person in his village to sell his land to install a wind company, said, “The whole district has benefited from the continuous power supply. My son works in a wind farm in Andhra Pradesh and our family understands the importance of green jobs.”

He told Mongabay-India that he believes that agriculture is possible on the land with turbines. “The turbine owners that I sold the land to, still cultivate groundnut crops, he says,” in the tone of busting a myth.

Kanakaraj stressed that the reason that agriculture has dropped is not because of people selling land off to wind turbines. “The reason agriculture is not being adopted is that people are finding better jobs after getting education,” he explained.

Read more: Given land for power, Pavagada residents now powerless

Is it really a just transition?

The energy transition in the region has been smooth and mostly peaceful. But as Tamil Nadu gears to meet clean energy targets with new plans, it becomes vital to study the long-term social impacts of renewable energy projects to develop a roadmap for a transition that is also just for the people and environment.

Narrating a recent incident, residents of Tirunelveli told Mongabay-India that, a few months ago, a young man climbed over a transformer in a wind farm in Tirunelveli to steal a copper wire that could fetch him some money if he sold it. But he didn’t know that high tension cables could be dangerous to touch. He died because of electrocution. This was not the first event of this kind, the people shared. Attempts to steal copper wires from transformers of wind farms are common in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu.

The security guards at such wind farms are often older people who have no other choice of jobs. Ganesan N., 65, a resident of Aralvaimozhi near the Muppandal wind farm, who has been working as a security guard in a private wind farm for about five years, has a hectic schedule. He shuttles between morning and night shifts, braving both hot temperatures in the day hours and an eerily empty, remote space during the night. His wife Saraswathi G., 58, who is scared for her husband’s safety during the night, hesitantly says that she has gotten used to this lifestyle as there are no other jobs available for them in their old age. The couple, however, said that although there are no farmlands left for the locals to practice agriculture on, the younger generation would get jobs if more wind farms were erected.

There are also instances where people working in wind farms in this region had to quit, owing to different reasons. Kamal Kannan (name changed), who used to work in a wind farm in Muppandal as a crane operator, involved in erecting and de-erecting turbines, quit his job. “Men from other northern states are being employed for a lesser salary. But crane operation is a demanding job with huge risks. I had to move for salary growth,” he said. He now works in a metro city in building construction.

Sasikala K., 42, who used to work as an accountant at a private wind farm had to quit her job too. “The wind farms are situated at very isolated locations, not close to the town centres. I had to drive back alone during the late evening hours after work. After I had children, I felt that I needed to be safe, not just for me, but for them too. Therefore, we set up a small shop here for basic goods,” she told Mongabay-India.

As Sasikala narrates her story, another pattern, common to many other renewable energy projects across the country, becomes clear – safety and accessibility for women is a common concern. Jobs for women in the wind or solar power sector, thus, are limited.

Thangaraj, who works on a wind farm, gives his view on this, “I do acknowledge that women can’t feel as safe in crane operation or security jobs at wind farms. But there are many women in factories producing electrical components that are used in wind turbines. That counts as a green job too.”

Banner image : Thangaraj C. from Mettu Pirancheri says wind energy is a boon as it has brought employment opportunities for many young engineers like him in the villages of southern Tamil Nadu. Photo by Narayana Swamy Subbraman/Mongabay.

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Sustainability in India through wind: a case study of Muppandal Wind Farm in India

Courtesy of Inderscience Publishers

Sustainable development is closely associated with energy availability. It requires a continuous and efficient energy supply. Therefore renewable energy sources such as wind energy are vital for the Indian economy not only from supply side considerations but also for their environmental and social benefits. The current paper undertakes an empirical study of investments made at the Muppandal Wind Farm using different project evaluation methods. The results of the economic and financial analysis show that windmills having rated power more than 500 kW are economically viable and financially profitable after the year 1999. Considering improved technology, volatility of energy markets and the difficulty of huge investments, it is advisable to select windmills with the shortest payback period and to install higher rated power windmills at the Muppandal Wind Farm. The study concludes without government incentives and subsidies it would be very difficult for many firms at this location to break even.

Keywords: wind energy, energy economics, energy cost estimation, energy policy, wind farm sustainability, green energy

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Tamil Nadu Wind Farm

Tamil Nadu Muppandal is a 25.5MW wind farm located on the southern tip of India.

Project Type

Tamil Nadu, India

Start of Operation

Turbine type.

30 850kW Gamesa turbines

The wind farm initially had a capacity of 8.5MW produced by ten turbines erected between March and April in 2005. Additional 20 turbines were added to increase the capacity by 17MW.

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These G58-850kW turbines were supplied by Gamesa Eólica for a total contract of €10.5m by the Indian company Pioneer Asia Wind Turbines.

Towers, blades and components of the nacelle were assembled locally by Pioneer Asia. The wind farm is helping to reduce India’s reliance on fossil fuels, in addition to reducing emissions by an estimated 50,000t CO₂ equivalent a year.

Tamil Nadu Wind Farm details

Gamesa specialises in sustainable energy technologies, mainly wind power. The 850kW turbines are for medium and high winds to class IA/WZII/WZIII for high wind sites.

The generator’s drive train has a main shaft supported by two spherical bearings that transmit the side loads directly to the frame through the bearing housing. This prevents the gearbox from being subjected to extra loads. The generator is a doubly fed machine (DFM) with speed and power controlled through IGBT converters and pulse width modulation (PWM) electronic control. This gives active and reactive power control with low harmonic content and minimal losses.

Aerodynamic primary braking is conducted by full-feathering the blades with a hydraulically activated mechanical disc brake for emergencies, mounted on the gearbox high-speed shaft. The aerodynamic design of the fibreglass blades and Gamesa’s NRSTM control system reduce noise emissions. Gamesa’s SGIPE provides remote monitoring and control with web access.

Gamesa is the market leader in Spain and an important wind generator manufacturer with a world market share above 15% in 2007. It has installed almost 13,000MW of its main product lines in 20 countries over four continents.

The annual equivalent of this production amounts to more than 2.78 million tonnes of petroleum (TEP) a year and offsets over 20.6 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions a year.

The company has its own design and technological development for wind turbines, as well as production capacity for blades, root joints, blade moulds, gearboxes, generators, converters and towers. It can also assemble the wind turbines. The company offers a wide product range with two robust, reliable platforms with outputs of 850kW and 2.0MW.

India’s reliance on coal

India is a heavy coal user and the turbines will help overcome this reliance on polluting fossil fuel. It is estimated that wind energy constitutes approximately 2% of the total solar energy reaching the Earth. That represents almost two billion tonnes of oil equivalent a year or 200 times that consumed by all the world’s countries. However, only a small fraction can be used in practice.

The wind energy harnessed at a particular site is proportional to the air density, the sweep surface and the cube of the wind speed. India’s National Institute of Wind Energy reports that the gross wind potential in Tamil Nadu is 68,750MW at 120m above ground level.

Pioneer Asia of Sivakasi is a leading industrial group in South Tamil Nadu with over 50 years in various markets. It has a turnover above INR2.5bn.

Renewable pilot projects

Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA) has implemented various pilot programmes for wind, solar and bioenergy. TEDA is a leading provider of wind power in India with 61% of the national installed capacity. The first private-sector wind farm in the country was set up in Tamil Nadu in 1990. TEDA now has the single largest area of private wind farms with an installed capacity over 415MW. Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) buys energy from the wind farm.

India is one of the world leaders in installed wind power generation with a cumulative installed wind power capacity of 37.090,03MW as of October 2019.

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Analysis and Evaluation of Power Plants: A Case Study

• Conference paper
• First Online: 28 July 2020
• Cite this conference paper

• Sudeep Pradhan 39 ,
• Dipanjan Ghose 39 &
• Shabbiruddin 39  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering ((LNEE,volume 662))

Included in the following conference series:

• International Conference on Communication, Devices and Networking

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4 Citations

Key factors to evaluate parameters of any power plant include, low cost for investing, minimum operation and maintenance cost, and maximum efficiency. This study is about determining and agreeing to the power plants set up in Tamil Nadu, India using observational data followed by the application of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) analysis to rank the existing power plants according to their optimal usage and generation. Various power plants based on different sources of energy installed in the state are taken into consideration, Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS) method is used to specify which among them the most suitable one for optimized usage is. The acquired solution will also help in deciding the future prospects about the power plants. The methodology used for the study is a basic approach toward handling such a decision problem and can be further applied to any study of similar nature.

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Muppandal Wind Farm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muppandal_Wind_Farm

Fuel Cost, www.controlglobal.com/assets/Media/0809/CG0809_LLtable1.pdf

Nuclear Power Plants are cheaper to operate, https://marketrealist.com/2015/01/nuclear-power-plants-cheaper-operate

Report: Kundakulam Nuclear Power Project Units I and II, Union Government, Department of Atomic Energy, (2017), https://cag.gov.in/sites/default/files/audit_report_files/Report_No.38_of_2017_-_Performance_Audit_on_Kudankulam_Nuclear_Power_Project%2C_Units_I_and_II_Department_of_Atomic_Energy.pdf

Generation cost calculation for 660 MW Thermal Power Plants, http://www.ijiset.com/v1s10/IJISET_V1_I10_94.pdf

V. Natarajan, J.C. Kanmony, Sustainability in India through wind: a case study of Muppandal wind farm in India. Int. J. Green Econ. 8 (1), 19 (2014)

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Pradhan, S., Ghose, D., Shabbiruddin (2020). Analysis and Evaluation of Power Plants: A Case Study. In: Bera, R., Pradhan, P.C., Liu, CM., Dhar, S., Sur, S.N. (eds) Advances in Communication, Devices and Networking. ICCDN 2019. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 662. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4932-8_4

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In this Tamil Nadu village, the benefits and drawbacks of wind energy are inseparable

For almost every person who regrets the decline of farming, at least one person in the family works at a wind or solar farm..

Driving southward from Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli city, one crosses many towns and villages with all the typical scenes one would expect – busy buses and trains, students in a rush and construction labourers boarding lorries to head to the workstation of the day. There are hospitals, colleges and universities, shops and a lot of temples.

Crossing Valliyur town, the landscape begins to change. The lush green fields surrounded by mountains, grazing goats and sheep, active morning birds and pastoralists and farmers gearing up for the day, greet you to the countryside. And just when you would think the scenery could not get more impressive, there emerges a backdrop of wind turbines, standing at average heights of over 50-80 feet.

This is near Muppandal, a village in the Kanniyakumari district, home to India’s largest operational onshore wind farm in terms of installed capacity, since 1986.

The Muppandal wind farm that features turbines from many private players was developed by the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency. The wind turbines here are some of the oldest turbines in the country. What makes Muppandal a great site to install wind turbines is the geographical location that receives uniquely powerful winds from the Arabian Sea.

The large wind farm in Muppandal features many wind turbines ranging from 200 kilowatts to 1,650 kilowatts. There are also many wind farms, scattered across different villages in the Kanyakumari, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli districts. For better or for worse, these farms have certainly brought winds of change for the people and the local economy.

Over three decades, a lot has changed in this region of the southern Indian coastal state, which accounts for about 25% of India’s total installed wind power capacity of 40.12 gigawatts.

The villages here were once predominantly dependent on agriculture. Groundnut, sesame, corn and millets would grow in abundance. Gradually, the wind turbines mushroomed. The wind farms grew in acreages in and around Kanniyakumari and Tirunelveli districts.

They found kinship with the land and continued to expand. Land prices soared giving way to infrastructure development and improved lifestyles. People sold their farming lands during this period to make profits. Occupations changed over the years and now, stories about agriculture that once flourished in the region, cascade through generations.

During a recent visit, Mongabay-India interacted with the diverse people that make up the population here – farmers, pastoralists, landowners, engineers, homemakers, shop owners, teachers and village council officials – all residing near wind farms in Muppandal, Panakudi, Donahvur, Radhapuram and Mettu Pirancheri of southern Tamil Nadu. They shared how the area has evolved over the last few decades and the social impact that the wind farms have had.

The people understand that the wind farms led to rapid improvement in the region and therefore try to push aside their collective grief for the loss of agriculture, a profession that the youth of the area now hesitate to take up for various reasons. And for every person who mourned the decline of agriculture, at least one person in their family works at a wind or solar farm.

Electricity and jobs

Thangaraj C, 38, from Mettu Pirancheri in Tirunelveli, wakes up and checks his phone. The first thing he looks into is the status of the wind turbines of the company he works for, which are installed in the area. Thangaraj oversees four turbines – monitors them, fixes faults, if any, and maintains them. Wi-Fi is available in the small office setup near the turbine, which enables the systems to provide the data on his smartphone.

A mechanical engineer with over 15 years of experience in the wind energy industry, Thangaraj has worked in different cities across the country and has seen the advancement of technology from old turbines to new ones.

“Wind is a huge boon for the youth of south Tamil Nadu,” declared Thangaraj, standing next to an 88-metre (around 288 feet) wind turbine that makes a heavy sound as the blades tear through the air.

“Oh! we have got used to this sound,” he told Mongabay-India .

Talking about the importance of wind energy in generating employment opportunities, Thangaraj said, “Many companies are located north of Madurai, however, down south there are many engineers who are unemployed. Therefore, wind farms have been a good source of generating employment.”

“My father is not educated, and my mother passed away due to cancer,” Thangaraj said. “But they gave me education. I completed engineering and I am now working in a job that I am proud of. I live in a pollution-free atmosphere, and I am doing a green job.”

He also takes pride in the fact that wind is a renewable source of energy. It is a “suthamaana energy source” [clean energy in Tamil], he reiterates. Twenty engineers from his village work in wind farms as engineers.

The youth Mongabay-India interacted with, in these districts, are in favour of the expanding wind farms, not only due to the possibility of green jobs, but also because they get continuous electricity, which was rare, a couple of decades back.

Sooriya Priya, 27, lives in Moovendar Nagar, a village near Muppandal. Her husband works on a wind farm. “There can be positives and negatives of large-scale renewable energy projects, but we get continuous power now,” she told Mongabay-India . “We have no power cuts except the maintenance cuts. This is a huge relief for us. We feel secure and our lifestyles have improved!”

When the land prices increased with the rise of windmills, it was not only the ones who sold or leased the land to wind turbine owners who benefited. Everyone did. Many farmers sold their lands when the wind turbines were being installed and made profits.

Nature educator Maria Antony from Panakudi who works with children and teaches them about local ecology is one such person who profited from the hike in the land price. “My father sold his land and made a good profit because of which we were able to study well,” he explained. “Many farmers made double or triple the profits during that time which they would not have made by farming.”

Although he feels differently about large renewable energy projects as an ecologist, he acknowledges that the increase in land price was a boost to the farmers’ lifestyles.

Pastoralism and agriculture

The benefits and drawbacks of wind farms are interlaced in this region, creating a paradox that makes it hard to pin down whether wind farms have been good or bad for the people.

Raghavan M, 65, from Mettu Pirancheri, has been a pastoralist for 15 years. As he released his 70 sheep to graze, in a landscape dominated by the invasive Prosopis juliflora, he said, “Although grass grows around the areas where turbines are installed, there is no grass under the turbine. The water table has reduced in the spots where the turbines were installed.”

While the precise link between the wind turbines and these impacts are difficult to establish, Raghavan told Mongabay-India that people have made these observations over the years, adding that it has been difficult for him to graze his sheep after the wind turbines were installed.

Another farmer and pastoralist from Mettu Pirancheri, Pandaram Velu, 50, shared that he suffered because the fences at the wind and solar farms block access and he cannot take his cattle to graze in different areas like he did earlier. Now, he finishes the round of grazing within a 10-kilometre radius. However, he noted that wind turbines are better than solar farms that “block” the entire land.

“No one forced anyone to sell their lands,” he told Mongabay-India while he was feeding his goats with leafy greens from his farmland. “People wanted to sell the land for profits. Now agriculture has dwindled, and lands are fenced off.” Velu’s younger brother works on a solar farm and assists him in the farmland whenever required.

While pastoralists place their share of concerns, the farmers in some areas state that their produce is affected because of the wind farms.

About 90 km further from Mettu Pirancheri, is Radhapuram where Rasathi I, 52, waters her tomato field. Just a few yards away from the field is a giant wind turbine. “The turbines and the crops do not set,” she told Mongabay-India . “The natural wind is different. The quality of the vegetables grown has been affected because of the turbine. It has not improved agriculture exactly.” Her son works for a wind company and is preparing to pursue a Master’s degree abroad.

Another question that was commonly raised by the farmers was, “Who is making the money?”

Annakudi M., 60, a farmer in Mettu Pirancheri with six acres of land, says four members of her family work in the wind farms. “I have heard them say that their job is tedious, but they still go,” she told Mongabay-India . “Already agricultural lands have dwindled after wind farms expanded and people sold their land off. However, no job is like farming. Wind farms do generate jobs but it’s the owners of the wind turbines who make the money, not the farmers who sold their lands off.”

Over the years, as many people sold their farms, agriculture dwindled. Vidangan R, 70, the village head of Moovendar Nagar, near Muppandal, about 20 km west of Radhapuram, reiterated the dual sides of wind farms. He said that although the wind farms are a boon to the district in one way, due to the fast development, it has also indirectly led to the loss of agriculture.

“As agriculture got increasingly difficult, people sold their lands to make money. Now, in Moovendar Nagar alone, there are about 30 people working in wind farms. But if the farms were to expand to more areas, it is a threat to agriculture. The money goes to wind farms and a few jobs come our way. Agriculture is important,” he told Mongabay-India , recollecting the days when he saw truckloads of groundnuts being transported for sale. Vidangan’s son works as an engineer with a wind farm service provider.

A narrow street with wind turbines on both sides, the entry to Radhapuram, during sunset hours, looks like something out of a movie. Sundar Rajan, 85, stops his car. Speaking to Mongabay-India he said, “I sold a few plots of land in Radhapuram to a private wind turbine manufacturer.”

“We had orchards there before,” he said. “We had mango trees, coconut. Three wind turbines exist in my previous land. It is a fenced piece of land. We did profit from it.”

Just as he drives away, there are pastoralists grazing their cattle outside several fenced pieces of land.

About 30 km from Radhapuram lies Dohnavur, known for Dohnavur Fellowship, an institution started by Irish Missionary Amy Carmichael as a centre for orphans and a safe home for children who were subject to the devadasi practice (a practice whereby parents marry a daughter off to a deity or a temple and she performs duties for the temple) in the early 1900s.

Speaking to Mongabay-India , Jeremiah Rajanesan, who oversees the Fellowship’s functioning today said, “We leased out nine parcels of land when the turbines were just beginning to get installed in the district and it is part of the annual lease. We get around Rs 4,00,000 per annum. We have a deep relationship with the landscape and as long as the ecosystem stays intact, we are okay with the wind turbines staying on.”

Meanwhile, one interaction with a farmer stood out from the rest. Kanakaraj A, 56, from Panakudi, who was the first person in his village to sell his land to install a wind company, said, “The whole district has benefited from the continuous power supply. My son works in a wind farm in Andhra Pradesh and our family understands the importance of green jobs.”

He told Mongabay-India that he believes that agriculture is possible on the land with turbines. “The turbine owners that I sold the land to, still cultivate groundnut crops,” he said, in the tone of busting a myth.

Kanakaraj stressed that the reason that agriculture has dropped is not because of people selling land off to wind turbines. “The reason agriculture is not being adopted is that people are finding better jobs after getting education,” he explained.

Just transition?

The energy transition in the region has been smooth and mostly peaceful. But as Tamil Nadu gears to meet clean energy targets with new plans, it becomes vital to study the long-term social impacts of renewable energy projects to develop a roadmap for a transition that is also just for the people and environment.

Narrating a recent incident, residents of Tirunelveli told Mongabay-India that, a few months ago, a young man climbed over a transformer in a wind farm in Tirunelveli to steal a copper wire that could fetch him some money if he sold it. But he didn’t know that high tension cables could be dangerous to touch.

He died because of electrocution. This was not the first event of this kind, the people shared. Attempts to steal copper wires from transformers of wind farms are common in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu.

The security guards at such wind farms are often older people who have no other choice of jobs. Ganesan N, 65, a resident of Aralvaimozhi near the Muppandal wind farm, who has been working as a security guard in a private wind farm for about five years, has a hectic schedule.

He shuttles between morning and night shifts, braving both hot temperatures in the day hours and an eerily empty, remote space during the night. His wife Saraswathi G, 58, who is scared for her husband’s safety during the night, hesitantly says that she has gotten used to this lifestyle as there are no other jobs available for them in their old age.

The couple, however, said that although there are no farmlands left for the locals to practice agriculture on, the younger generation would get jobs if more wind farms were erected.

There are also instances where people working in wind farms in this region had to quit, owing to different reasons. Kamal Kannan (name changed), who used to work in a wind farm in Muppandal as a crane operator, involved in erecting and de-erecting turbines, quit his job. “Men from other northern states are being employed for a lesser salary. But crane operation is a demanding job with huge risks. I had to move for salary growth,” he said. He now works in a metro city in building construction.

Sasikala K, 42, who used to work as an accountant at a private wind farm had to quit her job too. “The wind farms are situated at very isolated locations, not close to the town centres. I had to drive back alone during the late evening hours after work. After I had children, I felt that I needed to be safe, not just for me, but for them too. Therefore, we set up a small shop here for basic goods.”

As Sasikala narrates her story, another pattern, common to many other renewable energy projects across the country, becomes clear – safety and accessibility for women is a common concern. Jobs for women in the wind or solar power sector, thus, are limited.

Thangaraj, who works on a wind farm, gives his view on this, “I do acknowledge that women cannot feel as safe in crane operation or security jobs at wind farms.”

“But there are many women in factories producing electrical components that are used in wind turbines,” Thangaraj said. “That counts as a green job too.”

This article first appeared on Mongabay .

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Electrical Engineering and Systems Science > Systems and Control

Title: autoencoder-based and physically motivated koopman lifted states for wind farm mpc: a comparative case study.

Abstract: This paper explores the use of Autoencoder (AE) models to identify Koopman-based linear representations for designing model predictive control (MPC) for wind farms. Wake interactions in wind farms are challenging to model, previously addressed with Koopman lifted states. In this study we investigate the performance of two AE models: The first AE model estimates the wind speeds acting on the turbines these are affected by changes in turbine control inputs. The wind speeds estimated by this AE model are then used in a second step to calculate the power output via a simple turbine model based on physical equations. The second AE model directly estimates the wind farm output, i.e., both turbine and wake dynamics are modeled. The primary inquiry of this study addresses whether any of these two AE-based models can surpass previously identified Koopman models based on physically motivated lifted states. We find that the first AE model, which estimates the wind speed and hence includes the wake dynamics, but excludes the turbine dynamics outperforms the existing physically motivated Koopman model. However, the second AE model, which estimates the farm power directly, underperforms when the turbines' underlying physical assumptions are correct. We additionally investigate specific conditions under which the second, purely data-driven AE model can excel: Notably, when modeling assumptions, such as the wind turbine power coefficient, are erroneous and remain unchecked within the MPC controller. In such cases, the data-driven AE models, when updated with recent data reflecting changed system dynamics, can outperform physics-based models operating under outdated assumptions.

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John Goldsmith on scientific misconduct and the Lilienfeld study (An oldie but still relevant today)

Background to the Lilienfeld study and the “Moscow signal”:

In the early 1960s it was discovered that from 1953 the Soviets had been beaming highly focused microwaves directly into the US Embassy in Moscow at an estimated power density that ranged from .005 mW/cm2 to .018 mW/cm2.112 Averaged measurements determined that although the intensity reaching the Embassy was approximately 500 times less than the US standard for occupational exposure, it was twice the highest limit allowed in the Soviet standard.This created a quandary for the US, for if they truly believed their thermally-based 10 mW/cm2 standard was safe they could hardly conclude that the level of microwaves at their Embassy was undermining the health of the Embassy staff. Concerns were raised about the purpose of irradiation of the Embassy. Was it eavesdropping or a more sinister attack on the health of the employees? An initial study was done on the Moscow personnel in 1967 that examined a group of 43 workers, (37 exposed and 7 not exposed). They were tested for abnormalities in chromosomes and 20 out of the 37 were above the normal range among the exposed, compared to 2/7 among the non-exposed. In the final report the scientists urged a repeat and follow-up study which was clinically indicated for 18 persons, but was not undertaken by the end of the contract period, June 30, 1969. The evidence of chromosome changes was strong enough to have triggered clinical guidelines that would have recommended ceasing reproductive activity until the condition had improved. At a Superpower summit in June 1967 the irradiation of the Moscow Embassy was the subject of a confidential exchange between US President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Prime Minister Alexi Kosygin. Johnson asked that the Soviet Union stop irradiating its Moscow Embassy with microwaves and harming the health of American citizens. In 1966 a covert study, called Project Pandora, was commenced to study the possible effects on health from the microwave irradiation of the Moscow Embassy staff, who were not told the true reason for the investigation. In a related study, Project Bizarre, a primate was exposed to microwaves at half that permitted by the US standard. The findings of this study concluded, “[t]here is no question that penetration of the central nervous system has been achieved, either directly or indirectly into that portion of the brain concerned with the changes in work functions”�.

A haematologic study by J & S Tonascia in 1976 found highly significant differences between Moscow Embassy employees and other foreign service staff (control group). White blood cell counts were much higher in the Moscow staff as well as several other significant changes noted over time. These results were never published, but obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. At this time there was a US Congressional radiation inquiry underway and the Department of Defense (DoD) was arguing that the US RF/MW Standard was already strict enough. They argued that there was no scientific evidence for the Soviet Standard being set at a level one thousand times lower than the US standard. The Moscow Embassy employees and dependants were studied for possible health effects of microwave irradiation by a team from John Hopkins University, under the direction of epidemiologist Professor Abraham Lilienfeld. Dr Lilienfeld noted that the study group was quite small and that the follow-up time too short to generally identify significant health effects such as cancer. He recommended that continued health status surveillance should be carried out, but this was not done. The incidence of sickness and death were compared with employees & dependents in other Eastern European embassies, and with the average US rates. The incidence of multiple-site cancers was far more frequent in the Moscow Embassy group than in any other population studied. It was noted that while multiple-site cancers are characteristic of older populations, the Moscow Embassy group was relatively young. According to Goldsmith, concerns of the John Hopkins team were “downgraded”� by the state department and the wording of the team report altered to lessen its impact. Lilienfeld strongly recommended that additional follow up studies be undertaken since the latency periods for some types of cancer had been insufficient for cancer to occur, if indeed it were to result from microwave exposure. Nevertheless, according to Goldsmith, the overall findings were consistent with excess cancer incidence both in the Moscow Embassy cohort and in the other Eastern European embassy personnel.Data on exposure and occurrence of some cases of cancer were withheld from Professor Lilienfeld until after his report was completed and it was too late to include in the results. Reviews of the work done by contract investigators were interpreted as inconclusive because the State Department had failed to complete the necessary follow-up work which was recommended by the Lilienfeld team.

From The Procrustean Approach , pp. 105 – 107

*******************************************************

From Iris Atzmon, June 1, 2012:

Where the trail leads… Ethical problems arising when the trail of professional work lead to evidence of cover-up of serious risk and mis-representation of scientific judgement concerning human exposures to radar

– Prof. John R. Goldsmith, M.D., M.P.H.

Epidemiology and Health Services Evaluation Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, 84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 5 (1995), 92-4. Introduction

Professional interaction over fifteen years between myself, an epidemiologist, and a lawyer started in 1974, when we were both in Washington, evaluating environmental health problems. The lawyer, recently disappointed with the outcome of a case which hinged on the testimony of an epidemiologist, began a dialogue about the criteria for use of probabilities in the scientific and judicial system. We agreed on the importance of making clear these differences, and he documented them in an article.

These differences can be misused in both legal and scientific procedures, under circumstances in which the failure to demonstrate conventional statistical significance (scientifically) is erroneously interpreted as meaning that preventing exposure would not be a reasonable public health measure.

When the lawyer started his private practice he sought expert epidemiological advice in the case of foreign service workers with cancer who had been exposed to microwave radiation in the US Embassy in Moscow.

The trail then led to a major investigation of health risks of Embassy staff by a leading U.S. epidemiologist. The report of this study was said to be negative but actually had some disturbing findings. The trail took a sharp turn when the lawyer provided me copies of documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which indicated persistent cover-up and deliberate distortions of views of highly regarded scientists with respect to risks from these exposures. A published report on personnel risks from radar exposure in the U.S. Navy diluted the experience of increased leukemia in an exposed group with the low rates in a less exposed group, bringing down likelihood of a significant result and concluding that no effect occurred.

The ethical issues concern whether a scientist who inadvertently finds this evidence should disclose it, in light of security considerations among other matters. The trail, in this presentation, ends with an application of the legal use of probability in interpreting epidemiological evidence on the central scientific issue, the possible health risks from microwave radiation.

For the full paper: http://www.eubios.info/EJ54/EJ54H.htm

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We estimate fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations daily using MODIS satellite observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD) for a major biomass burning event around Moscow during summer 2010. Evaluation of MODIS AOD with the Moscow AERONET site supports a MODIS-AOD error estimate of ±(0.05 + 0.2 x AOD) for this event. However, since the smoke was often thick (AOD > 4.0) and spatially variable, the standard MODIS algorithm incorrectly identifies some aerosol as cloud. We test relaxed cloud screening criteria that increase MODIS coverage by 21% and find excellent agreement with coincident operational retrievals (r2 = 0.994, slope = 1.01) with no evidence of false aerosol detection. We relate the resultant MODIS AOD to PM2.5 using aerosol vertical profiles from the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model. Our estimates are in good agreement with PM2.5 values estimated from in-situ PM10 (r2 = 0.85, slope = 1.06), and we find that the relationship between AOD and PM2.5 is insensitive to uncertainties in biomass burning emissions. The satellite-derived and in-situ values both indicate that peak daily mean concentrations of approximately 600 µg m-3 occurred on August 7, 2010 in the Moscow region of the Russian Federation. We estimate that exposure to air pollution from the Moscow wildfires may have caused hundreds of excess deaths. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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