Wind power provides jobs downstate and energy upstate

9th January 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer

Louisiana and other southern states are starting to harness wind power—something that’s done on a larger scale to the north and west of us. Reliance on wind power, which produces about three percent of the nation’s electricity now, is growing. In Europe, breezes have long been utilized, dating back to wind wheels in ancient Greece and Dutch wind mills in recent centuries.

However, as gusty as it can get in south Louisiana, capitalizing on that potential will take awhile, experts say.

Making parts for wind power is bringing jobs to the region, however. Using Louisiana state tax credits, UK-based Blade Dyna­mics set up shop 15 months ago at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans East. Blade is in the process of hiring hundreds of workers, and has made its first product here — a lightweight, wind turbine blade. Those new jobs are welcome after the downsizing that occurred at Michoud as the space shuttle program ended.

Michoud has port access, and Blade’s products aren’t staying in Louisiana. Last week, Blade co-founder Theo Botha said “we just sent out our first American-made blade from the factory. The 50-yard long blade — called Dynamic 49 and designed for a 2 megawatt turbine — is being tested for certification. We’ll be shipping it shortly from New Orleans.”

Botha said “Louisiana has a wonderful opportunity to embrace wind energy, and we look forward to participating.” But he added “for now, our market is outside of Louisiana.”

Upstate power consumers already depend partly on wind, albeit from out of state. In December, the Louisiana Public Service Commis­sion or LPSC approved a long-term contract between Shreveport-based Southwestern Electric Power Co. with a Kansas wind farm. The utility now has two, 20-year wind-power purchase agreements, totaling 110.5 megawatts, SWEPCO spokesman Peter Main said. The new contract is a 31-megawatt accord with Flat Ridge 2 Wind Energy in Kansas as part of the LPSC’s Renewable Energy Pilot Program. And in early 2009, SWEPCO contracted 89.5 megawatts from Majestic Wind Farm in Texas for two decades.

The LPSC authorized a Renewable Energy Pilot Program for the state in June 2010.

SWEPCO serves 225,700 customers in 11 parishes in northwest Louisiana, along with nearly 300,000 customers in Texas and Arkansas. Wind power reaches SWEPCO’s customers through transmission ties in the Southwest Power Pool, a nine-state group. “Oklahoma, West Texas and Kansas have some of the best wind resources available for companies that are part of the Pool,” Main said.

He said SWEPCO continues to add renewable energy to its generation mix, and plans to secure an additional 400 megawatts of wind power by 2014’s end. “The LPSC is implementing its Renewable Energy Pilot Program and Texas has a renewable portfolio standard in place,” Main noted. Trans­mission lines are being built in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and other states to move wind power to population centers.

Entergy may eventually harness wind for its New Orleans customers. Entergy Corporation’s non-regulated, generation business owns 50 percent interests in two 80-megawatts wind farms – one in Worth County, Iowa, and the other in Amarillo, Texas, Entergy spokesman Michael Burns said. At this time, Enter­gy’s regulated utilities don’t own, lease or have purchase agreements for wind power. “But a request for proposals for renewable energy, issued in 2010 on behalf of Entergy Louisiana and Entergy Gulf States Louisiana, is in its final phase now, and we’re negotiating long-term, power purchase agreements with third parties, including owners of wind power,” Burns said.

Like all energy sources, wind power has its pros and cons. Wind energy doesn’t deplete natural resources, and it’s clean, producing no carbon dioxide emissions. Wind turbines can create power in remote areas, like villages in Africa. But large wind farms are needed to generate enough electricity for bigger communities. While wind is free, it’s a variable or inconsistent source of energy. And manufacturing of wind turbines, which require steel, concrete and aluminum, uses electricity—releasing greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. It can take many months of operation for a wind turbine to be “carbon neutral,” saving the amount of greenhouse gases that are required to produce it.

Wind turbines are noisy and when concentrated can interfere with wildlife. Last summer, Palm Beach County commissioners in Florida approved a big wind farm along the shores of Lake Okeechobee, where sugar cane is grown. Wind Capital Group in Missouri has submitted plans to erect a hundred turbines there. But environmentalists say the project could disrupt the patterns of migratory birds, endangered panthers and other animals.

So what’s the outlook for wind power in Louisiana? Nicolai Alatzas, sustainable integration director at Kenner-based Com­fort Engineered Systems, instal­ling solar and wind equipment, said “winds are strong enough offshore and also in western and northwestern Louisiana to make wind power economical, but solar is more cost effective in the rest of the state.”

Louisiana is in a hot, humid air mass and the cost of solar panels has dropped recently, he noted. “Wind power has imbedded technology costs, including the cost of manufactured inputs, two yards of concrete required for the base of a single residential turbine, and maintenance of moving parts.” That makes wind more expensive than solar locally, especially for residential customers. Solar panels have 25-year warranties while residential wind turbines have 10-year warranties, he said. For residences, solar has a greater return on investment than wind power.

“But in offshore Louisiana, particularly at the mouth of the Mississippi River and at 150 to 300 meters high, the winds are some of the best in the country,” Alatzas said. Someday, wind turbines might be installed on platforms in the Louisiana Gulf by energy companies and others, but so far New England states and Texas have been quicker to pursue harnessing offshore wind than Louisiana.

Louisiana has some of the most generous commercial and residential tax breaks for wind power, as it does for solar. “It’s the most progressive state in the nation for credits for wind, solar and fuel cells, though some states have higher utility incentives,” Alatzas said.

While urban areas in Louisiana aren’t ideal for wind power, specific sites like barges near the Causeway and the tops of certain office buildings in New Orleans, are suitable for wind turbines, he said. Pineville-based energy company Cleco installed an experimental, 60-foot tall wind turbine at the north end of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway a year ago, and the power generated there is offsetting energy used at the Northshore Toll Plaza.

In late 2010, Comfort Engineered Systems installed two, 1.2 kilowatt WindSpires operating on a vertical axis in Eden Isles, a Slidell subdivision on Lake Pontchartrain. The WindSpires generate 200 to 300 kilowatts per month or roughly 20 percent of an average home’s power consumption. “However, the solar units we installed in Eden Isles are outperforming wind power,” Alatzas said. But he added “the WindSpires are an investment in clean-energy solutions, and are also beautiful, providing a sculptural, aesthetic effect.”

Meanwhile, plans by the city of New Orleans to install wind mills along a downtown, riverside park have been jettisoned. “They aren’t in the current project as it has been designed and funded since August 2010, when we announced our 100 committed projects,” said Ryan Berni, press secretary for Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

Industry members across the nation hope that Congress will extend the federal wind power Production Tax Credit before it expires at the end of this year. That credit for wind farm owners, based on the amount of electricity produced, has helped U.S. wind power expand in the last decade.

This article was originally published in the January 9, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper