Wind turbine presentation draws crowd in Homer
By Carey James
Special to the Homer Tribune
March 25, 2009

Photo by Carey James
Interest in wind turbines, like this one on Diamond Ridge, has jumped in recent months as options for plugging into HEA's grid combined with high electric bills.

As he looked out his Bear Creek window Monday afternoon, wind gusted Bill Fry’s house. And while many in Homer saw a chilly March day, Fry sees opportunity. “Right now, we’re between three and seven miles per hour,” Fry said, checking a wind-gauge set up at his house. “Everything over five miles per hour would work.”

Fry is considering a more than $6,000 investment in a wind turbine for his business, Bear Creek Winery. And he’s not alone. On Saturday, more than 60 people packed into a small meeting room at the Homer Library to hear a presentation by Nikiski-based Alaska Wind Industries, which sells the wind turbine systems. It was a mix of the environmentally conscious and those smarting from recent increases in electric costs.

Nadia Daggett, who co-owns Alaska Wind Industries with her husband James, said they were floored by the response.

“We had people laying under the tables and sitting on each others laps,” she said. “My husband took 10 people outside to answer questions.” Since then, the duo has met with more than half-a-dozen people in the area, many along the Skyline Drive and Diamond Ridge areas, who are ready to go right now.

“A lot of people want to start right now,” she said, adding that the company plans to do another presentation in Homer in mid-April. “We’re just waiting for the ground to thaw, and we can start popping them up.”

The wind turbines Alaska Wind Industries is selling – called the Skystream – are capable of generating power at low wind speeds. Anything over 5 mph will make the meter turn backward, Daggett said, and in Homer, where the average wind speed is between 8 and 15 mph, that’s what you need. On the flip side of the coin, it slows itself down when wind speeds top 60 mph, so works for areas with high wind gusts.

Another nifty feature is that Skystreams come with no batteries required. Through Homer Electric Association’s interconnection program, owners can connect their wind turbines directly to the power meter that serves their home. Each month, the turbine’s power production is gauged and compared to the home’s power use. If production exceeds use, the extra power generated goes back into the grid and the homeowner gets a check – albeit at a lower per-kilowatt-hour price than the going rate at HEA.

One down side to this set-up, however, is that if the electricity provided by HEA goes out, homeowners would only be able to access the power from their turbine when crews weren’t working on the lines. It’s not the same as going completely off the grid, Daggett notes, but on the plus side, the turbines can contribute to an overall reduction in dependency on traditional energy sources.

“This helps the whole community,” Daggett said. “That’s definitely a good thing.” For the homeowners currently restless to snip their power bill, Daggett said it’s just a matter of getting a 12-foot-deep hole in the ground to fill with a concrete. After that, it takes about a day and one truck with a winch to put up wind turbines as high as 60 feet. Before people jump in, however, she encourages them to have a consultation so property owners can find the best spot for wind generation. In the case of Bear Creek Winery, which is located in a relatively sheltered area against the bluff, installing a device to measure wind speeds is a good idea.

And while residents outside city limits don’t have to file for a builders permit or a height restriction waiver, it’s important to check your property covenants, Daggett said. There is more information about these and other issues on the company’s web site at www.akwindindustries.com.

Then there is the question about what your neighbors will think about a 60-foot tower in their line of sight. Daggett said most of the people she has talked to find the design aesthetically pleasing, and the noise factor is minimal, unlike the wind turbines of previous decades.

For the Frys, however, it is less about aesthetic and more about the bottom line with the added bonus of environmental consciousness. “We’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” Bill Fry said. “As soon as the ground thaws, we plan on putting it in.”