Lori Wilson, Capital Power’s consultation manager.
HEATHER BOA Bullet News KINGSBRIDGE – Lawrence Hogan looks forward to the day when four wind turbines stand among the crops on his 400 acres of farmland north of Goderich.
Not only will it inject approximately $40,000 annually into his farming business but if the K2 Wind Farm goes ahead as planned, he says it will be a good addition to the energy generation mix in the province.
“I’ve been involved in renewable energy since before there was money in it for me, but if there’s money in it for me, it’s even better,” said Hogan, who was attending an open house hosted by K2 Wind Project.
Hogan grew up in the area, married a local woman and has spent his life farming the land. In the early ‘80s, he began to ridge-tille and no-till his land with an eye to reducing topsoil erosion. His farming methods led to economic benefits as well, since his topsoil stayed anchored in the wind and rain.
Along the way, he also built a microFIT solar project on his property, selling the energy to the Ontario Power Authority under a 20-year contract.
“If you protect the environment there is financial benefit and sometimes you don’t see it until you get into it. I think you’re going to see that with wind turbines too,” he said, pointing out that it’s an efficient use of land for energy production. It produces about 350 times more energy per acre than a crop of corn, at a time when 40 per cent of corn crops are diverted from food production to produce ethanol.
Hogan acknowledges that not all of his friends and neighbours share his support of wind energy and “things are testy at times.”
“I think most of the criticism is unjustified. I think it gets blown out of proportion. Every time a story is told, it gets expanded,” he said.
The public open house was hosted by three companies that have partnered to build a 270-MW wind energy project on a rural landscape in the Municipality of Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh. It is part of the REA process required before the Ministry of the Environment will issue the green light for a partnership of Capital Power Corp., Pattern Renewable Holdings Canada ULC and Samsung Renewable Energy Inc. to build the K2 Wind Farm.
The project includes 140 2.3-MW Siemens turbines, a substation, transformer station and a collection system that is primary underground. It relies on municipal right-of-ways and land leased from 90 farmers in Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh. Four turbines will operate at full nameplate capacity while the remainder will be factory de-rated to ensure the provincially regulated noise thresholds aren’t exceeded at people’s homes.
In response to public input, the project will not develop west of Hwy. 21, will buy electrical lines wherever possible, and has created a benefit plan to compensate non-participating landowners within a one-kilometre radius of wind turbines, substation or transformer station, said Lori Wilson, who is Capital Power’s consultation manager.
Anyone who wants to have input into the project must submit comments by Oct. 26 to be part of the Renewable Energy Approval process. Comments will be accepted by the company after that date, but will not be part of the package submitted to the Ministry of the Environment for approval.
Representatives from the three partners, environmental consultants Stantec Inc., wind resource assessment company Zephyr North, acoustics engineering consultants RWDI, environmental and health science consultants Instrinsik, and substation designers AMEC were on hand to answer questions from the public.
The project lies north of Kingsbridge I, a 39.6-MW project that went into operation in 2006. The project area is bound by Hwy. 21 to the west, County Road 86 to the north, Golf Course Road and Blyth Road to the south, and Halls Hill Line with a diagonal jog eastward between the Dungannon Road and the Blyth Road to the east.
The partnership, K2 Wind Ontario Inc., has a power purchase agreement with the Ontario Power Authority, which was signed in 2011 separate from the Feed-In Tariff program. In its agreement with the province, Korean consortium Samsung has agreed to supply 2,500 MW of wind and solar projects in five stages, in return for meeting certain milestones in terms of creating jobs in Ontario.
While Capital Power has held land leases for a number of years, conducted two public meetings and done environmental and archaeological work as part of the Renewable Energy Approval process, the partnership opted to restart the REA process in June 2012 when it changed the layout as a result of a switch in turbines from a Vestas to a Siemens model.
The project is targeted to begin operation in late 2014.
For more information on the K2 project, please visit online.
2 Comments on "Wind turbines good for the environment, says Ashfield farmer"
I have been following BOTH sides of this issue for several years. It is so refreshing to read an account that presents one viewpoint in such a cool-headed fashion, and avoids the extreme language of most presentations.
$10,000 per turbine annual royalty benefit for the farmer seems low. A 2.5-MW turbine at a contract price of 12 cents per kWh would produce about $800,000 annually for the wind farm owner. It is well known that individual wind developers offer differing royalty percentages of the total average annual power value produced by the wind farm. In the case of a landowner receiving a 2.5% royalty, this would give the landowner $20,000 per turbine. With ever increasing agricultural land values, I would expect at least a 3% slice of the pie before income taxes.