Wind blows firms profits, consumers green options

Friday, June 1, 2007

At his Swan Point home, he is being directly affected by the expansion of the Morgantown power plant owned by Mirant Mid Atlantic LLC.

So he is staging a protest, and putting his money behind it.

Robinson is contracting with Potomac Wind Energy in Montgomery County to have a wind turbine erected in his yard, which he hopes will make him less dependent on traditional forms of electricity.

Also, he likes the idea of his windmill being visible from the Mirant location.

‘‘The windmill location will be right in front of the old stacks,” Robinson said of the power plant’s red-and-white-striped smokestacks.

Robinson said he is just a few weeks from getting the windmill installed, and during a telephone interview said he was in the process of getting a master electrician to help with the project. Eventually, he said he thinks the total cost will be about $17,000.

But it’s worth the price to Robinson, who, in his role as president of the Swan Point Citizens Association, has been fighting Mirant over various topics during the past few months.

‘‘Obviously, we all need to do something about” the dependence on fossil fuels, Robinson said. ‘‘I’m definitely going to save money on my electric bill; just how much remains to be seen. It’s a matter of doing whatever I can to reduce the amount of electricity coming from the grid. It’s a way of paying back a little bit.”

Robinson said his Swan Point location affords him a large amount of wind coming off the Potomac River, but not all Southern Maryland locations are so turbulent.

‘‘If I’m in D.C. and the wind is 15 miles per hour, I know it’s at least twice that at home,” he said.

Carlos Fernandez is the dealer who sold Robinson his windmill and helped with the permits and other logistics involved. Fernandez said the model he sells is for residences and was just released in December. He put up his own windmill system about a month and a half ago, and said his first electric bill since then was cut in half.

Fernandez has two homes on his property in Dickerson, the house he and his wife live in and another house where his daughter lives. It is a working farm, so he said he had a lot of electrical needs and bought three windmills, two for his home and one for his daughter’s.

Fernandez said his biggest hurdle so far has been getting permits from the county to construct the windmills. He said he has had to resort to getting the same permit a homeowner would get to build a shed on their property.

‘‘There’s a lot of talk on the federal and state level, but not a lot of talk in counties to help out the individual consumers,” Fernandez said. ‘‘They tell me it’s going to be two years [before a real permit is established.] It takes a bit longer than it should.”

The smallest available windmill stretches 10 meters in the air, or 33 1⁄2 feet. Fernandez said the monopole it is mounted on looks like a flagpole and is sunk into a concrete base, which requires excavation. The pole does not require guy wires like older windmills. He said the towers are rated to withstand winds of 140 miles per hour.

‘‘If you’re getting more than 140-mile-per-hour winds, the least of your worries is this windmill,” he said.

An ideal location for the windmill has few trees and lots of open space. It should not be too far from the house because the wires from the windmill are buried, requiring a trench, which could cost thousands of dollars if it goes too far. So while the center of a cornfield might be great for receiving wind, getting the power to the house would be another story.

The question of wildlife has been brought up by some organizations and individuals, but Fernandez said he has not had a problem with birds or bats hitting the structure or the blades.

‘‘Pollution has killed more birds and bats than these windmills will ever kill,” he said.

Pollution was one of the reasons Fernandez wanted to install and sell windmills.

‘‘I said we should try something to lower pollution, and I started putting my money where my mouth is,” he said. ‘‘As opposed to complaining about pollution, I’m actually doing something about it.”

E-mail Carrie Lovejoy at clovejoy@somdnews.com.