Community-Based Wind Energy Development In New Brunswick

Introduction

The generation of electricity from wind energy is growing rapidly around the world, with growth rates between 20 and 30 percent per year. In Canada there are wind power generation facilities operating in most provinces, and more projects and expansions are in the works. In New Brunswick there are no large-size wind turbines operating now, but a proposal from a private wind energy development company to construct a wind farm on Grand Manan Island has recently been accepted by New Brunswick Power (June, 2004). The proposed wind farm will consist of 14 wind turbines with a total maximum output of 20 megawatts. It is very likely that there will be opportunities to build more wind energy facilities in New Brunswick over the next 3 to 10 years.

Wind energy as a source of electricity has significant environmental benefits, mainly in reducing air pollution. For this reason, there is generally a lot of public support for wind energy. At the same time, when a wind energy facility is to be hosted in a community, there are a lot of public issues that need to be addressed, such as:

• Does the community at large want to have this kind of industrial development?
• Where are appropriate or inappropriate places to install wind turbines?
• Who will benefit financially from having the wind turbines in the community and how much will they benefit?
• How much financial benefit will the community as a whole receive from hosting a wind energy development?
• Will the community have any kind of ownership of and involvement in the wind energy facility?
• Will the facility have any effect on local or migratory bird populations?
• Will the facility enhance or detract from any other aspect of life in the community, such as enjoyment of views, other land uses, tourism, community pride, job opportunities, etc.?

In addition to trying to address these issues, some groups of people have taken a pro-active approach to community-based development of wind energy, through wind energy co-operatives and other forms of community organization.

The purpose of this document is to outline ways that a non-profit or community-based organization could become involved in wind energy development.

Falls Brook Centre's Experience in Wind Energy

Falls Brook Centre (FBC) is a charitable organization in New Brunswick working towards sustainable community development. Our program areas are Organic Agriculture, Forest Stewardship, Renewable Energy, and Community Development.

FBC has experience with wind energy through the following initiatives:

• We have three small wind turbines at our site, one on our off-grid Conference Centre, one on our Climate Change Bus, and one at our Net Metering Demonstration Centre.
• With the assistance of NB Power, Dalhousie University, and a local dairy farmer, we conducted the Knowlesville Wind Energy Study, in which we measured the wind speed in our area for one year to estimate the potential for electricity production from the wind.
• We helped start the Community Energy Co-operative of New Brunswick (CEC), which is in its beginning stages and is intended to provide a means for people to invest and participate in renewable energy and energy conservation projects co-operatively.
• We explored possible involvement in proposals by two wind energy development companies for a wind farm in our area, and subsequently decided not to become involved in the proposals.

Knowlesville Wind Energy Project

The Knowlesville Wind Energy Project was started in 2001 with the goal of establishing and operating a community-owned wind turbine to generate electricity in the area of Knowlesville, New Brunswick, near Falls Brook Centre. The first step in this project was a one-year study of the wind speed at a hill-top site on a dairy farm in our neighbourhood. The results of this study are given in detail in the report entitled “Knowlesville Wind Energy Project: Report on Wind Energy Analysis”, September 2003. Some of the key points are:

• Annual average wind speed at our site was 6.4 metres/second (adjusted to 60 metre height above the ground)
• Estimated annual output from two example wind turbines at the site would be:
• Turbowinds T52 (600 kW turbine):  1,780,000 kilowatt-hours per year
• Lagerwey L58 (750 kW turbine):      2,200,000 kilowatt-hours per year
• On an annual basis, this much electricity would supply about 200 homes.
• The installation cost of these two example turbines was estimated at:
• Turbowinds T52:   $1.2 million Canadian dollars
• Lagerwey L58:      $1.6 million Canadian dollars
• The approximate cost of production of electricity from a turbine like the example turbines would be around 8.5 to 9 cents per kilowatt hour

The two example turbines were chosen because they are designed for moderate wind speeds like those at our measuring site. The Turbowinds T52 is manufactured in Belgium, though at the time Turbowinds was attempting to set up a manufacturing facility near Amherst, Nova Scotia. Lagerwey is a Dutch company, and was chosen by the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-op to supply a wind turbine for Toronto. Some of the parts of that turbine, including the blades and possibly the tower, were made in Canada.

Now that we have a record of wind speed at our chosen site, Falls Brook Centre is seeking ways to organize and finance the installation of a turbine there. The turbine make, model, and size have not been chosen. The turbines we have mentioned were used as examples for the purpose of the study.

Some Other Examples of Community-Based Wind Energy Efforts

Denmark:

Denmark has a history of wind energy cooperatives, beginning with the formation of the Danish Association for Wind Turbine Owners in 1978. Today there is 900 megawatts of wind power generation capacity installed in Denmark, with about 40 percent of that capacity owned by wind energy co-operatives. A history of the development of these cooperatives can be found on the web at http://www.windpower.org/en/articles/coop.htm.

Ontario:

• Toronto Renewable Energy Co-op (TREC) -  TREC has about 500 members and owns Windshare (www.windshare.ca), which operates a 750 kilowatt wind turbine in Toronto in partnership with Toronto Hydro.
• Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA) –- is encouraging the growth of Lakewinds, which is a means for many small wind energy co-operatives in Ontario to pool their resources with the goal of installing a wind farm of about ten to fifteen turbines.

British Columbia:

New Brunswick:

RenewCoop: The Fort Folly First Nation is starting RenewCoop, with the goal of forming a co-operatively owned renewable energy utility company for New Brunswick. They have a website at www.renewcoop.net, and the main contact person is David Belliveau.

Dorchester Wind Energy Project: In Dorchester, a project has been ongoing to install a wind turbine to displace the power use of a new municipal water treatment facility. The main contact person on this project is Marsha Lemos, a municipal councillor in Dorchester.

Tantramar Wind Energy Initiative: The Tantramar area is in the southeast corner of New Brunswick and includes Sackville, New Brunswick as well as Amherst, Nova Scotia. There has been an ongoing effort to start community-based renewable energy projects in the Tantramar area.

Lameque Wind Energy Co-operative: A co-operative formed between the local Caisse Populaire, the local fisher's co-op and others to develop the potential for wind power generation in Lameque, in the northeast corner of New Brunswick.

Community Energy Co-operative of New Brunswick (CEC) (link to pdf document):  The CEC was started through the efforts of Falls Brook Centre in Knowlesville. It was inspired by the idea of bringing together people to invest in wind energy. It was incorporated in early 2004 and has seven members at this time.

Community Interests:

In all the examples given above, the community most actively involved in the wind energy process is the group of interested people who are investing their time, their money, or both into building and operating wind energy generation projects. A common theme is the co-operative nature of these initiatives.

There are also other ways to invite communities to become involved in wind energy development. For example, community members could be invited to participate in planning for whether or not wind turbines are welcome in the community, what locations would be preferable in the area, and how the community wishes to benefit from the development of wind energy.

Interested in helping get this dream off the ground.  Join the Community Energy Co-op or contact technology@fallsbrookcentre.ca.