Blustery days could save energy

Monday Feb. 9, 2009

BRIDGEPORT, Michigan—Saving energy and money in Bridgeport Township may be a little easier if a wind energy initiative project is approved and put into motion. “What the township’s trying to do right now is take a pro-active approach to allowing development of not only wind energy but solar applications as well,” Zoning and Codes Administrator Bruce Palmer said.

“On October 6, 2008, Governor Jennifer Granholm signed into law Public Act 286 which included legislation called the ‘renewable portfolio standard,’” Palmer said. This requires that 10 percent of Michigan’s annual energy needs are produced by renewable resources, such as wind and solar energy, by 2015.

“Townships are being asked also to create zoning language that basically allows and controls development of wind projects in their areas,” Palmer said. A sub-committee has been formed to look at the draft wind energy ordinance. So far, the draft ordinance for the wind energy project has been reviewed by the sub-committee, and should be reviewed by the full planning commission within the next three months.

“We’re also going to have a series of different public hearings and things like that,” Palmer said. The next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. “We have a speaker coming in from Oliver Township and that’s the site of the Harvest Wind Farm,” Palmer said. The speaker will talk about issues Oliver Township faced while developing their ordinance language for their wind farm.

“I feel wind power would be awesome for Bridgeport Charter Township,” Township Manager Rose Licht said.

“Bruce has been researching and doing a lot of work investigating everything pertaining to wind power,” she said.

Right now, the township is looking for open spaces of land that won’t interfere with agriculture, the availability of transmission lines in the area and the availability of wind in the area. “Saginaw County, according to the recent wind maps, indicate that they’re somewhere between 15.8 and 16.7 mph and that’s pretty much in the area where these wind farms operate,” Palmer said.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Martha Sageman, vice president of the Bridgeport Board of Education and a Bridgeport resident said. “I’d like to see one of them in my back yard.”

“People have electric and gas bills right now, if they don’t support it they’re crazy,” Sageman said.

The township is looking at two wind energy systems. “The larger ones we look at in a utility scale. They’ll tie into the grid to sell power to utilities,” Palmer said. “These are private investors that come in, like John Deer and Mobile and those type of people, that develop these things that, in the end, sell the power to the utilities. “

The second wind energy system is an on-site system. “They can actually supplement their electrical bills through what they call ‘net metering.’ You’re not going to make money by selling energy to the utility, what your doing is cutting your energy cost down,” Palmer said. “The task of formulating zoning language to allow for large wind energy facilities and private on-site small wind energy systems within Bridgeport Township began in earnest, in August.”

Solar energy is done on a person-by-person basis. “That’s not really being controlled in Zoning and Ordinance, that’s more of a building permit issue to make sure it’s structurally feasible. Anyone can do solar,” Palmer said.

Wind energy does have its downfalls, and Palmer said he’s run into two major issues. One is the sound produced by the wind turbines and another is known as “shadow flicker.” As the sun moves behind the turbine blades, light flickers past the blades. “It would be an annoying thing if it was constantly showing through your window,” Palmer said.

“We addressed those two items also in the draft ordinance, there’s ways to mitigate those things with proper siting,” Palmer said. “The newer ones spin much slower and they all have internal gearing and there’s a separation between the towers so you don’t get all of the sound building up in unison from the multiple towers. “

“Last year we went out to California and when we drove back home there were miles and miles of those things and it didn’t bother you at all to drive through them,” Sageman said, commenting on the noise.

“If everything were to go right, it would all depend on not only the willingness of the land owners to lease their land out but the developers to turn around and say, ‘hey we want to develop here, close, nearby,’” Palmer said. Bridgeport wouldn’t be alone in the initiative, either. “We’d have to look at partnering with other townships to make it happen.”

“What you have to look at is not so much if as when. If they run out of room and you’re sitting there and you have available land and you have the wind resource it’s just a matter of when, but there’s no guarantees in this,” Palmer said. “But, to do nothing, is to achieve nothing.”

A closer look:
• www.glrea.org
• www.awea.org
• www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro

Extra credit exercise.

1. The consultant was given $125,000 on Feb. 7, 1980 in Austin, Texas.

2. The temperature fell to minus 14 after a blizzard struck Denver, Colo. in Dec. 1982.

3. Tom Becker, a black man born in the South during the 1930s, was elected mayor of the city.

4. A senior who will graduate next spring said, "History and English are my favorite subjects."

5. The girl's elbow was injured when she fell 12 ft. at noon yesterday in Lincoln Park.

6. Susan Majorce, 7, is five ft. tall and weighs 87 lbs.