Wind farmer seeks deal with Union land owners
From an article by Paul Snyder in The Daily Reporter:
A company that wants to construct a three-turbine, 4.5-megawatt wind farm in Union won’t give up even though a town ordinance essentially leaves no room to build.
“I wouldn’t say it’s the end yet,” said Curt Bjurlin, wind project developer for Elgin, Ill.-based EcoEnergy Engineering LLC. “I still need to take a close look at the ordinance, and we’ll probably just have to leave it at that until I can do a more thorough review.”
The Union Town Board last week approved an ordinance requiring half-mile setbacks from property lines for wind-farm projects unless developers earn consent from property owners.
EcoEnergy wants to build three turbines in Union and sell the power to Wisconsin Public Power Inc. The company did not release estimates for construction costs.
Nina Plaushin, WPPI’s vice president of external affairs, did not admit defeat, but said the ordinance casts a pall over the plan.
“It will delay the project if it does happen,” she said. “And it could delay it significantly.”
Plaushin said there’s still a chance EcoEnergy could strike a deal with a private owner. She said some farmers in the area expressed interest in generating extra income by selling land for a turbine. Plaushin did not give the names of those who are interested.
Tom Alisankus, a municipal judge and Union resident, said the town’s ordinance is legally sound, adding it will be a long time before any turbines are built within Union’s borders.
“It’s a matter of perspective,” he said. “But I don’t know that it would be a financially viable project.”
Nor does it seem to be a necessary project. Plaushin said WPPI’s renewable standard requirements are secure without the wind farm, and the utility can stand to lose the 4.5 megawatts the project would generate.
“It’s not a small amount of power for the size of smaller communities,” she said. “But we serve 45 communities throughout the state, and we’re on track to do so even without this project.”
Still, Plaushin said producing more renewable energy in Wisconsin should be a shared goal by all local governments. She said WPPI would support action in the state Legislature to create wind development standards for projects that generate less than 100 megawatts of energy.
In May, RENEW wrote to the town board in support for the project:
If erected, EcoEnergy’s Community Wind project would diversify Wisconsin Public Power Inc.’s resource mix, which is at present heavily weighted toward the combustion of fossil fuels imported from other states and nations. This overreliance on fossil fuels is the primary reason why energy prices are rising this year. Bear in mind that when the cost of diesel fuel increases by 60% over 12 months, the cost of coal delivered to Wisconsin power plants will go up. And when the price of natural gas shoots up by more 50% since January 1, utilities become motivated to look for energy sources whose price they can lock into. Windpower is one of those few energy sources that can help utilities there.There is one additional benefit from a Community Wind project that might not be apparent today: electricity for vehicular transport. WPPI, which now has four plug-in hybrid vehicles, is a leading utility advocate for electrified transportation. It now costs the average car owner about $8.00 to buy enough gasoline to drive 50 miles. The amount of electricity it takes to drive 50 miles, some 12 to 13 kilowatt-hours, costs an electric vehicle owner about $1.50. Given the current disparity of costs between electricity and gasoline, it seems to me that the transition to plug-in vehicles is a matter of when, not if. I believe that plug-in vehicles, whether hybrids or all-electrics, will become a common sight on city streets in five years. Why? Because the alternative–to leave things the way they–will become too expensive for the average person. And when these vehicles hit the mass market, their owners will want to fill their batteries with clean, renewable, locally produced energy. Imagine the feeling of security, environmental responsibility and civic pride that Evansville citizens would experience knowing that the electricity that powers their motor vehicles is produced from a wind project that’s visible from town. The EcoEnergy Community Wind project can make that future possible for Evansville and the surrounding area, if you let it.
