Pruskowski: "You are farming the wind"

LOCH SHELDRAKE – New York State has implemented a “Renewable Portfolio Standard”, requiring that 25 percent of electricity sold in the state come from renewable sources by 2013.  Right now, New York is at about 20 percent, with most of that coming from hydro power.

Pace Energy & climate Center, affiliated with Pace University, and a private company, Sustainable Energy Developments (SED), say wind could, and should, make up the balance, and then some.  Representatives of both co-sponsored a forum on community wind energy at Sullivan County Community College, which is constructing its own wind turbine.

About 15 people attended the two-hour forum.

Todd Olinsky-Paul, an energy policy analyst with Pace, says the economy, and cost of energy in New York, make wind a viable option.

“It has to do with the price of electricity, the retail-wholesale price of electricity, which varies from place to place.  In New York, for example, electricity prices tend to be very high, which makes it more viable, even though the wind resource may be a little lower in this state.” 

New York, in fact, ranks 15th in the nation, and highest, east of the Mississippi, in wind potential.  Most of that, however, is on Long Island, and east of Lake Ontario. 

A map of Sullivan County does not show a high percentage of land where there would be the approximately 15 mile-per-hour annual wind average to make wind generation viable. 

Still, Loren Pruskowski, a cofounder and current vice president of SED, says a project based on a ‘community’ model, rather than corporate venture, could work, particularly in an area hoping to preserve a rural lifestyle.

“The noise associated with homes, the increased traffic, the more roads, increasing the infrastructure upgrades associated with bringing more people into a community gets bypassed.  You can actually make revenue from your resources without actually having to draw more people, more business there.  The business is the wind turbines.  You are farming the wind.”

The power would be put into the electric grid.  Private homeowners probably would not see a decrease in electric bills.  However, whatever community entity is set up to run the operation … possibly even the community itself … could use the revenue to offset property taxes.

There are no community wind projects up and running in New York State, but one is in the planning stages in the Albany County Town of Knox.