APCO to buy electricity from Greenbrier wind farm

By The Associated Press
August 14, 2008
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Appalachian Power Co. plans to buy electricity from a wind farm that's being developed in Greenbrier County.

Appalachian Power's parent, Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power, announced the 20-year purchase agreement with Beech Ridge Energy LLC on Thursday.

AEP says Appalachian Power plans to buy between and 100 and 147 megawatts, the entire output of the 186-megawatt project's first phase.

The deal is subject to approval from the state Public Service Commission. AEP says it also hinges on renewal of the federal production tax credit for renewable energy for 2009.

http://www.wvgazette.com/latest/200808140288

Well I saw that in the paper zig.

What is your comment, yea or nay?

Yea.

Beech Ridge will be the first working model for wind farm permits issued in WV under the PSC's new (2003-04) wind energy facility siting rules. I was on that siting rules task force.

Then I was a pro se intervener in the Beech Ridge case at the PSC. I defied the board of directors of the largest environmental organization in West Virginia to bring the applicant, the Construction Trades Unions as well as the PSC's both engineering and legal division staff together to convince the Commisioners to require, as a condition of the Beech Ridge permit, the strictest post-construction bird and bat mortality studies and adaptative management techniques designed to minimize such mortality of any wind farm in the eastern United States.

The legal trail in that application case will be the model for wind farm permit applicants, interveners and the PSC's staff for years to come. It is refreshing to see the sweat of one's labor finally bear some fruit on this one.

How will post construction management techniques on this project differ from previous projects?

Can those be adapted to meet the new standards?

Are there high numbers of birds and bats killed using the "old" techniques?

I was able to find this link...

http://wvhighlands.org/wv_voice/?p=663

How will post construction management techniques on this project differ from previous projects?

There were virtually no "management techniques" on previous wind power facilities other than to let the turbine blades run when there was enough wind to run them. (Actually, during very low wind conditions wind turbine blades are sometimes motor driven by electricity FROM the grid- allowing the blades to "catch the wind" when it does blow- the theory being that it takes more wind energy to start a turbine blade from a dead stop than to start generating power from 10 or 12 RPM. But that is a different discussion).

Can those be adapted to meet the new standards?

There is nothing to adapt, because there were no previous adaptive management techniques. The key word is "adaptive" for the new management techniques. The idea is to adapt the operation of rotor blades such as to have them not turning during the times of highest bat activity (the first couple hours after dark") if wind speeds are low.

Bat mortality at wind farm is mostly limited to certain times of day and certain meterological conditions. When the weather fronts are coming through and the winds are brisk, bat mortality is low. But after the fronts have gone through and wind speeds are low and atmospheric pressure is rising, bat mortality greatly increases during certain hours if the blades are turning.

The idea of "adaptive management" is to find a formula of times of day and meterological conditions by which the turbines would be stopped. The preciseness of the formula is important to strike a balance between minimizing bat mortality while also minimizing power generation losses. Fortunately the industry is at least nominally agreeable to such adaptive operations techniques because the most bats are usually killed while the turbines are producing the least energy anyway- and the ability to sell wind energy as "green energy" at a premium porice is being threatened because consumer groups are arguing that it is not "green" to kill lots of wildlife- especially if it can be minimized at little cost.

The Beech Ridge facility will be a live laboratory to perform detailed studies of bat and bird mortality, as well as for development of ways to minimize bat and bird kills.

Are there high numbers of birds and bats killed using the "old" techniques?

On Appalachian ridges, wind farms killed significant numbers of bats inder certain conditions- just how "significant" being the subject of considerable debate. At the Tucker County wind farm, for example, in 2004, searches for dead bats, conducted by the Bat-Wind Energy Cooperative (which is an organization funded by several entities- including the wind power industry, the Tucker County wind farm operator FP&L Energy, the U.S. Department of Energy and the conservation organization Bat Conservation International), using actual carcass counts, searcher efficiency adjustments and "grabbed by predator adjustments", projected that some 2200 bats were killed in a six week period at the Backbone Mountain wind farm in Tucker County. (This from my memory, so it is subject to some error). But I can give you web site links to verify the terms and results of the studies.

During 2003 the numbers of bird mortalities at the Backbone Mountain wind farm were less than 10 percent of the numbers of bats killed- based on the bird mortality searches and adjustments done that year.

That is interesting that more are killed at low speed as opposed to high speed.

As America looks into alternative energy, it must also look into where that energy will come from.

As environmentalists say: Think globally, act locally.

Those who want wind power should be under some pressure to build turbines in their back yards, too.

http://www.dailymail.com/Opinion/Editorials/200808150200