Carmel’s electricity bill surprised me. The mayor’s office says it’s close to $700,000 a year. For some reason, I assumed powering a city would be even more expensive than that.
A big portion of that expense goes into powering Carmel’s wastewater treatment plant at 96th and Hazel Dell Parkway. Mayor Jim Brainard says the site uses a lot of power now and will use even more with the addition of a water plant at the complex.
Brainard says the city recycles some of the methane produced at the wastewater plant. But, in an interest to reduce costs further, the city began a study of the wind in that area — to see whether wind energy could power plants, someday.
Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard
My story tonight on MyINDY-TV and WISH-TV notes that the average wind speed is below the level preferred by wind power users. Carmel’s consultant says typical wind power projects aim for wind speeds of 16 mph or more. That does not necessarily mean the idea won’t fly. Mayor Brainard says, with a year’s worth of data, “we can start to match the design of the turbine to the wind speeds that we have available.”
The consultant, Daryl Stockburger of North Coast Wind & Power in Ohio, says “start up wind speed necessary to begin generating power is generally 8 to 9 miles per hour for many wind turbines.” That start up speed is Carmel’s average.
Brainard is not deterred by that observation. He says the cost of further study is minimal. “There could, potentially, be a lot of savings as we learn more about the ability to produce electricity from wind,” he says. “We wouldn’t do it unless we thought we could actually reduce expenses or future expenses with the project.”
The initial outlay could be significant. Stockbridge says lower power turbines could cost $325,000. Higher power machines would cost more than a million dollars apiece. Brainard says “there would be no increases” in Carmel taxes from such an investment because “utilities are not paid for out of taxes. They’re paid for solely out of user rates.” He would also investigate the availability of federal money for such a project.
The choice of turbines will also be limited by the FAA. The Federal Aviation Administration has height restrictions on the land where the turbines would be built. The turbines can’t interfere with flight paths for the nearby Metro Airport.
Mayor Brainard believes “the long term trend of energy prices is up.” So, even with the impediments, the wind power study goes on. “Then, if prices go up,” he says, “our project looks even that much better.”
May 24th, 2009 at 2:58 pm by Eric Halvorson under Eric Halvorson's Blog, Uncategorized
