A crisp October wind rustled the yellow tinged trees of Trott-Littlejohn Park in the heart of Peaks Island in Casco Bay. A flurry of leaves drifted down onto a grassy meadow where the Peaks Wind Group, a subgroup of Peaks Environmental Action Team (PEAT), and many island residents hope a wind anemometer will be spinning by March of 2010.
On September 29, Peaks Wind Group received a conditional use permit from the Portland Board of Appeals to erect an anemometer tower on the five-acre parcel of land known as Trott-Littlejohn Park, a former gravel and sand lot. It is one of the few cleared natural areas on the island that isn’t restricted in use by a conservation easement and may be a possible site for a future turbine. The permit overrules the 35-ft height restriction for structures on the island. The 111-foot tower would be in place for at least one year and would provide data to determine the feasibility of installing a power generating wind turbine.
The goal is to erect the testing equipment before the six-month conditional permit expires in late March 2010. Peaks Wind Group is currently applying to the University of Maine at Orono for the equipment through a competitive process with small towns across the state for one of the half-dozen anemometer towers University of Maine is attaining through federal stimulus funds from Efficiency Maine, a program of the Maine Public Utilities Commission. The university would also analyze the data.
According to the existing data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s wind maps for Maine, the potential for wind power generation for Casco Bay is considered “fair” at an average wind speed range of 14.3 to 15.7 mph at a height of 50 meters. Yet according to Unity College Associate Professor Mick Womersley in his preliminary wind power site assessment published in February 2009, much of his data seems to indicate that Peaks Island is a “good” site for wind power generation. Womersley suggested additional testing with the anemometer tower to attain more specific data, as well as using measurements from ocean buoys, home weather systems, and an anemometer at the transfer station.
“We have to do our homework,” says Peaks Wind Group member Sam Saltonstall about the various tasks at hand. In addition to collecting crucial data that is necessary to move forward with a turbine, Saltonstall said that, “in some ways testing the wind with a tower gives us a year to figure some more things out.” Some of those things include the important decision of what kind of entity will pay for and manage the turbine.
Peaks Island is in a somewhat unique situation: unlike other islands such Vinalhaven or Monhegan, Peaks is actually a part of the largest city in Maine and has to abide by city codes and regulations. “The City of Portland has been very supportive,” Saltonstall said. “They haven’t been fast; they’ve had to develop a wind anemometer tower ordinance. They wanted to do that first so they could help us move forward and they are now in the process of creating a wind turbine site ordinance.” The city ordinances need to be able to cover varied residential and commercial sites: theoretically a wind turbine set up in a densely populated residential neighborhood would have to be regulated under the same ordinance as one erected in a grassy field on Peaks. There is also the question of who would benefit from the lower electricity costs and possible sale of electricity back into the grid. Ideally, Peaks Wind Group would like any financial benefits to go to Peaks islanders, rather than the whole city of Portland.
The hope would be to generate power for the transfer station, elementary school, and community center. The power would be net-metered and because the municipal facilities’ usage is slightly higher than the 100 kilowatt turbine generation of approximately 200 megawatts a year, the turbine would be generating most, but not all, of the facilities’ power. Peaks Wind Group is still in the brainstorming stages regarding how the community could tangibly benefit from the turbine, other than from the obvious benefit of decreasing their community’s carbon footprint, but hopes to be able to sponsor island nonprofits and energy efficiency programs with any eventual surplus funds.
At this point Peaks Wind Group is considering a Northwind 100 turbine, built in Vermont by Northern Power Systems and known for its high efficiency, ability to function at lower wind speeds, and quiet operation. The 100 kilowatt turbine would cost approximately $500,000 with installation. The cost to hire Central Maine Power (CMP) to connect the turbine to the existing power cable would be about $60,000. Peaks Wind Group is looking into alternative installation options to bring the costs down, but in their initial contact with CMP, they are confident that although the power company cannot absorb any costs of installation, it is willing to work with Peaks in regards to net metering excess electricity.
Sam Saltonstall and the rest of the Peaks Wind Group are determined to see the project through whether or not a permanent turbine becomes a reality. “You have this feeling that something can work, and you just go a little at a time and you keep knocking down one barrier or you find out one more tidbit of information, but you don’t know where you’re going to end up.”