Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
the city of Stara Zagora (if you have a Bulgarian map handy, it's the middle of the country)

I know it is a railway hub :-)

I will see what I can do to provide some details, there was some media coverage on the issue.

Thanks!

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Feb 28th, 2006 at 06:34:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I found information about a windmill park in the region of Shabla, which is in the most north-eastern part of the country, but couldn't dig up technical data. No info about those three or four windmills I've spotted near Stara Zagora either.

Check this out:

Windmill experts are searching for the most dense currents (not the fastest ones) on a height of 10m. Using that, experts depicted the perfect spots for windmill power in Bulgaria. The darkest areas are the most efficient spots, the lighter ones are not efficient for windmill energy production.

So we have the eastern part of the country (next to the Black Sea - Burgas and Varna, but with natural reservations)and the mountain areas, which are hardly exploitable. The northern part of Bulgaria has a lot of gray areas, which are perfect for windmills (only plateaus there).

Stara Zagora, is in one of the lighter areas - what's up with that? Are people richer there, or are they trying to get the best out their land? Maybe they are better informed (supposedly there is big EU grant for development of clean energies in the region).

Be careful! Is it classified?

by darin (dkaloyanov[at]gmail.com) on Tue Feb 28th, 2006 at 07:38:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for the map! A 10-m high study, that is very low-altitude. I am guessing that it is either an old study, or one based on normal meteorology stations. The 500-kW-class turbines on 40-m-high towers would certainly get better wind in larger areas (80-m-high towers probably again significantly more), that may explain the Stara Zagora turbines.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Feb 28th, 2006 at 08:15:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Regarding the mountains, I found this:

Bulgarian company Ecosource Energy will build 44 wind turbines with a combined capacity of 100MW in the area of the 1687 m Murgash peak, in the Balkan Range, the company's manager Vladimir Nikolov said on Wednesday, February 8.

...The 156 mln lev project will be implemented in 2 stages with half of the turbines to be installed by the end of 2006. The 2.3MW turbines will be supplied by German manufacturer Enercon.

That will be an uprated version of the same E-70 type as the five on my photo.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Feb 28th, 2006 at 08:31:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Apparanetly I've should have searched foreign media, not Bulgarian. Oh, an about the altitude, the Stara Zagora windmills are quite small, I seriously doubt they are over 50 meters tall. I should search into the matter more.

Be careful! Is it classified?
by darin (dkaloyanov[at]gmail.com) on Wed Mar 1st, 2006 at 02:11:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series