It’s Monhegan’s turn.
Vinalhaven and North Haven approved a wind power project this summer. Swan’s Island and Frenchboro are in the second year of a study to figure out if wind power makes sense from them.
Now the Monhegan Plantation Power District is exploring the possibility of using wind power for the island’s electric needs, but keeping the current system of diesel generators to run when the wind is not blowing. The proposal could also include distributing portable heaters, linked to the wind turbine, so that excess wind power in the winter could be used for heat for year-round residents.
On Sept. 20, the power district’s board voted unanimously to go ahead and study the project’s impact on birds and the environment and its economic feasibility, according to Katy Boegel, the district’s president. The board is also seeking funding for these studies, she said.
The decision comes as the power district raised its rates from 55 cents a kilowatt-hour to 70 cents a kilowatt-hour. The state’s Public Utilities Commission approved the rate hike on Sept. 15.
With no power cable to the mainland, Monhegan gets all its power from a 300-kilowatt diesel power station. In 2006, the island used 30,740 gallons of diesel fuel.
Soaring diesel prices this summer created a crisis when the operator of the boat who delivers diesel fuel to the island asked for cash on delivery for the $17,000 shipment of fuel (ordinarily the district has a month to pay). The district asked islanders to pay their bills early in order to get the summer fuel delivery.
In September, the district also received a $20,000 loan from Monhegan Plantation to pay for the fall delivery. “Everyone realizes that we just can’t go on this way,” said Boegel.
The power district is a quasi-municipal agency that gets its funds from ratepayers, not taxpayers, said Boegel. Although the power company’s finances are not tied to the plantation, the trustees are elected at Town Meeting.
Before the COD crisis hit, the district had already decided to explore the possibility of wind power. Suzanne Pude, a graduate student at Tufts University who worked for several summer on Monhegan, did a study about alternative energy on the island for a class in clean energy technology. When she came back to the island to work at the start of the summer she gave the 40-page report to the power district.
After getting that report, the board decided at its June meeting to look into wind power. The report “laid out a clear plan for us to take-and it made so much sense,” that they decided to move forward, Boegel said.
The district asked Dr. George Baker and Dr. Richard Podolsky to come out to the island to make a presentation. Baker, a Harvard University business professor on sabbatical, advised the Fox Islands Electric Cooperative about the North Haven and Vinalhaven wind power project. In August, he was appointed CEO of the Fox Island Wind LLC, which is the company created by the electric cooperative to run the wind project. Podolsky is a scientist with Vella Systems of Rockport who advises wind power projects about bird impacts.
Baker and Podolsky came to the island on Sept. 13 and talked to a standing-room only crowd at the Monhegan School. The reaction from the approximately 60 people in the room was favorable, according to Boegel.
“It was so positive, I was kind of stunned-I would have expected some negatives,” said Boegel. At the end of the meeting she asked those in the room if they favored moving ahead on the wind power idea. “If there was a hand raised against it, I did not see it,” she said.
The challenges of wind power on Monhegan are much different than the situation on Vinalhaven.
There is plenty of wind. “The wind resource on Monhegan is fantastic-it is really good,” said Baker. As in the case of all Maine islands, the wind blows harder in the winter, when there is less demand for power.
The difference between energy demand in the summer and winter is much greater on Monhegan than on other islands. “They burn almost half their fuel oil in three months in the summer, when the wind resource is the weakest,” Baker said.
With no cable to transmit excess electricity to the mainland, Monhegan has no way to store power. In Pude’s class project “The Monhegan Sustainable Energy Plan,” battery storage was not recommended due to high costs, a short lifespan and possible toxic impact to the island.
The problem with wind power on Monhegan is what to do with the excess power generated in the winter. “If you build a wind turbine to make any kind of a dent into the summer load, you have much more power than you need in the winter,” Baker said. “People couldn’t see a way to make the project economical given that mis-match.”
So the idea for Monhegan is to create a wind-diesel hybrid generation facility, according to Baker. The proposal would include building a 100-kilowatt wind turbine and link that turbine with year-round homes.
Winter residents would buy portable electric heaters that can be found in any store. The heaters would include a radio frequency device, linked to the wind turbine, which would allow the portable heaters to be automatically turned on when there is excess electricity.
“When the wind is blowing, the electric radiators come on and you don’t have to burn as much propane,” said Baker, referring to the major fuel residents use for heat. “All that excess power you generate in the winter would go into heating people’s homes.”
“A system like that could cut down on the fuel required for the power plant by 50 percent, and cut down home heating bills by as much as 30 percent,” said Baker.
There are two major issues Monhegan faces as they consider wind power. One question is how would people react to the wind tower’s visual impact, Baker said. It would likely be built near an existing microwave tower.
The second question is how significant an impact the tower would have on birds. “That will require significant study,” Baker said.
“These are big issues that have to be sorted out on the island,” he said.