by Jon Dember
The vision that Kenny Christianson and I encountered driving eastward on Route 20 in Madison County was nothing short of astounding, dramatically representing the future of sustainable energy production. On a 120 acre ridge outside the Village of Madison, about 45 miles southeast of Syracuse, most of the seven newley erected wind generated were slowly rotating in the brisk autumn breeze, pumping 100% emission-free electricity into the grid.
The occasion was an open house for the recently dedicated Madison Windpower project, the first merchant wind generation farm in New York State, and the largest facility of it's type in the Eastern US. The giant white towers, reaching 220 feet high, support huge turbines with blades measuring 108 feet each. Together the seven turbines have a capacity of 11.5 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power about 4,000 homes. For each megawatt hour produced, the turbines spare the surrounding communities the emissions of 5.36lbs of sulfur dioxide, 1.57 of nitrogen oxide, and 994 lbs of carbon dioxide.
Kenny and I, who are committee members of the EnergyPlus Co-op project, had traveled to Madison on Saturday morning, September 16th, to attend the open house by PG&E National Energy Group. Hoping to join the bus tours shuttling between the local high school and the wind farm down the road, we instead encountered an uncharacteristic traffic jam. While PG&E personell had prepared for about 500 visitors, by mid afternoon they had been inunudated by crowds that had reached closer to 5,000.
Although Kenny and I were not deterred from viewing the wind turbines on our own, we quickly understood that public response to the project speaks loudly about broad interest in non-polluting electricity generation. Nationally, dozens of utilities are selling wind-generated electricity as part of green power programs, and consumer demand for green power is beginning to result in the building of new wind power projects like this one. The world's fastest growing energy source, wind generating capacity has nearly doubled in 10 years, dropping the cost of it's power by 80% to a range of 3 to 6 cents/kWh. Only a month later, a second windpower facility opened in Whyoming County (southwest of Rochester). Developed by the Western New York Wind Co., its capacity is 6.6 megawatts, or enough electricity to run 1,700 New York homes. Still another facility is scheduled to begin construction soon, also in Madison County, which will be capable of producing 12 MW. New York's windpower potential is estimated to be about 5,000 MW, enough to power close to two million homes.
Because part of the mission statement of the EnergyPlus Cooperative is to accelerate the transition toward environmentally sustainable technologies of the energy industry, it is supportive of the Madison Windpower Project, and hopes to be in a position in the future of helping to market sustainable produced energy.
... for more information, visit the American Wind Energy Association website: http://www.awea.org/...
[reprinted from the Spring 2001 edition of EnergyPlus matters, the EnergyPlus Cooperative Newsletter. The mission of the EnergyPlus Cooperative is to promote a sustainable energy future by uniting small energy consumers to more effectively obtain economical energy resources while promoting a strong community through energy conservation and environmental stewardship. For more information, write
Energyplus Cooperative of the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes
PO Box 6637
Ithaca, NY 14851
607-387-8340
energypluscoop@yahoo.com]
