Community-Owned Wind Farm Begins Operation in Coastal Maine

Posted by Steven Zweig on November 22, 2009 at 9:05 am

The Fox Islands community underneath one of their wind turbines. (image: workingwaterfront.com)

On October 23 we reported on two Maine island communities which were joining together to create and manage a wind farm. As reported in CapeCodToday on Tuesday, the wind farm has begun operation. The facility is the largest community-owned wind facility on the East Coast, as well as New England’s largest offshore wind farm, and will generate 4.5 megawatts of electricity.

The project’s genesis was simple, sourced in the dual recognition that (1) island residents were paying double the national rate for electricity, which came from the mainland over a submarine cable, and (2) there was an abundant, as-yet-untapped energy resource—the wind. As pointed out by Philip Conkling, who was central in bringing wind power to the islands, the winds off the coast of Maine were instrumental in the area’s original settlement and economy, since they enabled fishing and trading by sailing ship. The winds were largely forgotten once steam eclipsed sail, but they still blew, and were still there to be harnessed.

An initial concern about the project, in fact, was not that the winds would be insufficient, but that they would actually be more than needed: the winter winds blow particularly hard, but electricity demand is lower during the winter. The excess electricity created by the turbines then would have to be “dumped” or discarded in some fashion, possibly simply as waste heat. A variety of ideas were hatched as possibilities for making use of the excess, such as switching much of the residential heating to electric (common, commercially available electric space heaters would have done the trick) or using the surplus to heat greenhouses, which would transform power into food.

Oddly enough, initial discussions of what to do with the extra electricity did not mention the final, and superbly logical, solution: sell it. The island is still connected to the power grid by its submarine cable; cables can transmit both ways. Since the winds, while overall steady, do peak and ebb, there will be times that the islands buy their electricity from the power grid, and other times that they sell their excess back to the grid. On average, it’s expected that the two islands (Vinalhaven and North Haven) will sell slightly more power than they purchase. This provides a built-in hedge against fluctuations in the cost of electricity: when the cost per kilowatt goes up, the islands will pay more for imported power, but also receive more for what they export. Conversely, if prices decline, the islands will receive less for their wind power, but also pay less for what they purchase.

The wind farm is owned by the community. What’s most notable about it, then, is not its technology or how power generation and demand were balanced, but the fact that it is directly under the control of the local citizens, not a utility or a larger governmental body. At a time when so many of the proposed solutions to different issues (e.g. carbon reduction, health care, dealing with the aftermath of Wall Street’s meltdown) seem to call for greater and greater federal oversight, expenditures, and control, there is something very refreshing about a community taking the lead in solving its own problem. Something very democratic, too. Rather than the decision being influenced by polls, filtered through (frequently non-local) elected representatives, and implemented by bureaucrats, the Fox Islands project was driven by a direct vote of the island ratepayers.

The Fox Islands project was a response to a particular set of local conditions: high electricity costs; abundant wind; small, close-knit, and geographically isolated populations. It’s far from a given that this particular solution could be implemented in many other places. On the other hand, viewed broadly—as an example of a group taking advantage of the highly scalable, potentially distributed nature of many green energy solutions—there may be a viable template here. Other than the lack of carbon emissions, the chief distinguishing feature of solar and wind power is that they are both well-suited to “microgeneration.” Unlike fossil fuel power plants, or certain other green energy sources (e.g. hydroelectric, nuclear, geothermal), large-scale capital- and land-intensive installations are not required. Instead, you can install one turbine or ten, 100 square feet of solar panels or 10,000. You can install exactly as much capacity as you need (and scale up later, if necessary).

Possibly, the future of wind and solar will not be the big, much ballyhooed installations, but small projects built on anything from an individual to a town basis, providing power right where it’s needed.

What does this mean for heating oil users? Not much directly…though as we’ve pointed out, the more we replace electrical generation with non-fossil fuel, the more fossil fuel (and carbon emissions) we can preserve for those uses its best suited to, such as heating and transportation.