The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Other briefs from Windletter:

The wind Production Tax Credit is still under debate on the Senate floor, and a nation-wide RPS that would have required 10% of the nation's energy to come from renewable energy sources by 2020 was defeated entirely along party lines, with all Republicans voting against, all Democrats for. The AWEA is still actively lobbying both issues. (These are really important and huge drivers of renewable energy source generating capacity installation. If you feel renewables are good for our nation, PLEASE write your congresspersons in support of these measures.)

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"Thirteen business, environmental, and energy policy organizations, including AWEA, all members of the Sustainable Energy Coalition delivered a list of renewable energy priorities for the 108th Congress to the Majority and Minority leaders of the U.S. Senate as well as the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Committees on Finance and Energy and Natural Resources.

The organizations called upon the Senate, as it takes up consideration of national energy legislation, to support "a dramatic expansion of renewable energy production from our biomass, geothermal, incremental hydropower, solar, and wind resources." Such an approach, they argued, would "immediately benefit the economy and the environment as well as our energy and homeland security."

The priorities list includes production and investment tax credits for renewable energy sources, uniform interconnection and net metering standards, fair transmission access, a renewable fuels standard and a renewable portfolio standard, and a doubling of funding over the next five years for renewable energy research, development, and deployment activities.

The Sustainable Energy Coalition is a coalition of business, environmental, consumer, and energy policy organizations founded in 1992 to promote increased use of renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies.

For more information, contact Ken Bossong, e-mail kbossong614@yahoo.com , or go to the CoalitionWeb site at http://www.sustainableenergy.org ."

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The presence of commercial-scale wind turbines does not appear to harm property values, according to a study the Renewable Energy Policy Project (REPP) presented at WINDPOWER 2003, AWEA’s annual Conference and Exhibition held May 19-21 in Austin, Tex. (Next one's in CHICAGO!!)

They used properties located within five miles of wind plants of 10 MW capacity or greater installed between 1998-current for the study. They found property values actually ROSE quickly after the projects came on line, and that property values in the areas near the wind farms outperformed those further away over the long term as well.

New projects:

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"AWEA reported at the end of the second quarter of 2003 that the U.S. wind energy industry is on track to install 1,100-1,400 MW of new capacity this year, despite the power generation industry's generally poor outlook. The growth that is underway across the country is expected to increase U.S. installed wind power capacity from current levels of close to 4,700 MW to approximately 6,000 MW (enough to serve 1.5 million homes)."

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In the Great Lakes region:

State Project / Total cap / Developer / Utility / Manufacturer / # turbines / Per turbine cap.

Illinois Crescent Ridge / 48 / Illinois Wind Energy / Com Ed / NEG Micon / 32 / 1.5MW
Minn. Chanarambie / 85.5 / enXco / Xcel Energy / GE Wind / 57 / 1.5-MW
Minn. Moraine Wind Power Project / 51 / PPM Energy / Xcel Energy / GE Wind / 34 / 1.5-MW
Minn. Farmers’ Cooperatives / 24 / DanMar & Associates / Xcel Energy / Great River Energy / Suzlon Energy / 24 / 1-MW
Minn. McNeilus Wind Farm / 22.8 / Garwin McNeilus / Xcel Energy / NEG Micon / 24 / 950-kW
Minn. Viking / 12 / enXco / Xcel Energy

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Students at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn drove the installation of a 10kw Bergey turbine at the college. Siting is not the best due to a prominent urban setting and the associated chaotic airflow from surrounding buildings, but they are setting an example.


SOURCE: AWEA Windletter