Energy Commission Funds Residential Wind Power Outreach
by Peter Asmus
The American Wind Energy Association has launched the second phase
of its campaign this autumn to educate local government staff and
consumers about the benefits of owning a small wind turbine. A mailing
to 35,000 California households is a follow-up to a 65,000-piece
mailing sent out this past spring to residents of Alameda, Kern,
Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, Solano
and Sonoma counties.
The new mailing is being sent to roughly 25,000 people located
in San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Kern, Solano and Alameda counties
who received the first mailing. Another 8,800 new potential small
wind turbine owners are being contacted in Riverside, Napa, Mendocino,
El Dorado and San Diego counties, and the remaining flyers are being
distributed across 18 additional counties.
All told, San Bernardino County residents will receive 38% of the
flyers, Los Angeles County residents 25%, followed by Kern County
residents with 7%, and Napa, Riverside and Solano residents with
5% each.
Cheaper than Solar
“When consumers think about installing their own renewable
energy system, they typically think of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.
Yet properly sited small wind turbines are less than half the price
of an equivalent solar PV system. They are the most affordable renewable
energy systems on the market today,” said Heather Rhoads- Weaver,
the Small Wind Advocate for the American Wind Energy Association.
“Because of California’s high electricity rates and strong
policy incentives, Californians with windy land who install a small
wind turbine may recoup their initial $16,000 to $20,000 within
five to seven years,” said Ann Peterson, Consumer Education
Account Manager for the California Energy Commission’s Renewable
Energy Program.
Owners then enjoy “free” electricity for the remainder
of the system’s 30-year life, she added. “With these figures
in mind, a small wind turbine represents a low-risk, tax-free investment
that delivers annual returns ranging from 15 to 25%.”
Funded by the Energy Commission (CEC), which offers buy-down rebates
that can cover up to 50% of the cost of a small wind turbine, the
latest mailing employed a geographic information system (GIS) analysis
to identify zip codes that contained the highest concentrations
of potential small wind turbine customers. Materials were only sent
to zip codes with at least 20% of the area featuring wind resources
with average annual wind speeds of at least 10 mph, which the industry
considers a Class 2 or adequate wind regime.
Nearly 650 kW of small wind turbines have been installed in California
under the state buy-down program since 1998, and another 318 kW
have been approved and are in the process of installation. All told,
some 15 MW of small wind turbine capacity has been installed across
the country.
According to an American Wind Energy Association report, 50,000
MW of small wind turbine capacity, or 3% of the total U.S. electricity
consumption, could be on-line for grid-connected utility customers
by 2020. To meet this goal, market barriers, many of which exist
at the local government level, will need to be removed.
Local Governments Are Key
 Some
of the biggest barriers to small wind turbines are height restrictions
and local permitting procedures. For example, Los Angeles County
happens to be one of the more difficult counties in the state to
install small wind turbines.
According to Daniel Scott, a resident of Acton in northern Los
Angeles County, the same kind of conditional use permit needed to
permit the construction of an 100-foot cell phone tower was needed
for a small wind turbine at a cost of up to $6,000.
“This process entails six to nine months of public hearings
and no guarantee of a permit,” said Scott, a Los Angeles Department
of Water and Power employee. “My specific problem was LA County’s
35-foot height restriction,” he added.
Due to the height restriction, he installed three 3 kW wind turbines
on towers 30 feet tall. The ideal height for wind turbines is 65
to 120 feet because the higher you go, the better the wind fuel.
In response to concerns of consumers such as Scott, California
passed AB 1207 last year, requiring most cities and counties to
allow wind turbines on towers of at least 65 feet on any property
of one acre or more in size ® and at least 80 feet on properties
five acres or larger.
Some counties, such as San Bernardino, are taking a leadership
role and going beyond the state minimum standards outlined in AB
1207. On October 22, the San Bernardino Board of Supervisors approved
a new siting ordinance for small wind turbines that allows for differing
heights depending on terrain and other factors. In the desert portions
in the eastern and northern portions of the county, for example,
landowners can now erect small wind turbines on towers as high as
120 feet on one acre of land, a standard 40 feet above what the
AB 1207 authorizes.
Consumers may also petition for a variance in which they may be
able to increase tower heights by 30%. That translates into a cap
on tower height of 156 feet. A ban on small wind turbines in urbanized
areas was also removed, giving all San Bernardino County residents
the opportunity to explore the feasibility of a small wind turbine.
New Small Wind Siting Handbook Being Developed
Along with the mailing and a media outreach effort, the association
is also producing a Small Wind Siting Handbook with funding from
the Energy Commission. Available next year, this handbook will be
designed to educate County officials, staff and consumers about
identifying appropriate locations for small wind turbines and addressing
permitting and zoning issues, to help overcome siting barriers and
promote wind turbine installations in areas with the right mix of
good wind resources and low-density rural housing.
In designing the targeted small wind turbine direct mail campaign
funded by the CEC earlier this year, the association discovered
that county zoning staff lacked basic information about small wind
turbine siting issues and were not prepared to field questions from
local residents. The new siting handbook will be a reference document
to assist county officials and staff to issue building permits for
small wind turbines according to the state’s minimum specified
requirements.
“By concentrating on selected California counties the American
Wind Energy Association hopes this outreach can stimulate so-called
’sales clusters’ that will, in turn, ensure long-term
market momentum,” said Mike Bergey, president of Bergey Windpower
of Norman, Oklahoma.
Industry sales experience has shown that referral sales and “word-of-mouth”
are effective within cluster areas, but that a surprising number
of potential customers as well as County personnel remain undereducated
about permitting processes and the viability of small wind turbine
technology.”
Each county has multiple small wind turbine installations in operation
or under construction, good to excellent wind resources available
over large tracts, and thousands of rural homes with sufficient
acreage for a small wind turbine, said Andy Kruse, vice president
of Southwest Windpower of Flagstaff, Arizona. Since rural residents
in these counties received the mailers, many of them are already
familiar with financial incentives available to them because they
are also served by investor-owned utilities.
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