While admiring their new piece of machinery last week, the couple said they feel like pioneers with a new invention. The Dodge Family, Kris, Zach, Dalton, 6, and Dayton, 7 and Dash hope to conserve energy with the new turbine.
New Richmond News article of August 17, 2006
The Dodge Family of Erin Prairie, near 64 and county road
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On this particular day, the wind blew hair out of place and made tree limbs bend, but it blew the turbine’s blades just enough to create a low, soothing hum.
Since the windmill went up, Zach said he’s met more of their neighbors. And a gentleman who drives a shuttle from this area to Rice Lake stopped a few weeks ago just to inquire about the wind turbine.
The Dodges bought the turbine from a man who had purchased it from a California wind farm. It is a 1986 Jacobs, considered to be the “Cadillac” of the turbine industry, Kris said.
With energy prices on the rise, the Dodges are on the forefront of a trend that is becoming a popular alternative energy source - as long as the wind keeps up.
How it works
When the wind rotates the turbine blades, energy is produced. Because the turbine is wired to the house’s electric grid, the energy being produced by the turbine overrides any energy coming into the house from the Dodge’s utility, St. Croix Electric in Hammond. When the wind is not blowing, St. Croix Electric provides the electricity. During the times the turbine is providing the energy, St. Croix Electric will actually be buying the unused energy it supplies back from the Dodges which could add up to a $200 rebate annually, said Jerry Van Someren, manager of customer service and products for St. Croix Electric.
But when the area experiences a summer like this one, the third hottest July since 1958, he said savings will be minimal due to air conditioning use.
The Dodges estimate their monthly electric bill at about $150. While the turbine won’t eliminate that bill altogether, Zach said overall, they should see a savings.
Green Power
Green power is electricity generated with renewable resources like sun, wind, water and geothermal heat.
At one time, Van Someren said St. Croix Electric had about five turbines on the grid. Now only one other turbine customer, located south of Hudson, is still on the grid. Van Someren blames the lack of wind for the decrease.
“The wind is better in parts of North Dakota and western Minnesota,” he said. “We don’t have good wind here.”
Still, more residents are upgrading their homes to the greener power.
Tom Carhart, marketing director for Innovative Power Systems in Minneapolis, the installers of the Dodge’s turbine, says more customers are going to solar energy than wind but he has seen an increase in both in the last 18 months.
“We expect that trend to continue,” he said.
The key to understanding what alternative energy can do not only for consumers but also energy sources, is to understand peak shaving, said Carhart.
Peak shaving is a technology that allows someone to purchase power from a utility company when the rates are low and manufacture power when the utility rates are high.
In a typical metropolitan area, Carhart explains, one home in 10 on a square block may use an alternative energy source and be set up for peak shaving. On a 90-degree day in July or August at 50 percent humidity, that home’s utility company may be wondering what portion of that neighborhood is going to have to have a disruption in power. Or it may have to buy energy from another company for a hundred to a thousand times the cost of renewable energy, he said.
“An alternative energy customer can be the difference between a brown- or black (power disruption) on that block,” Carhart said. “That one customer keeps that whole area going.”
“It’s those people that are established or ready to go (green) who will have the advantage as energy prices escalate,” he said.
“If oil goes to $200 a barrel and the Mid-East thing really blows up, the price of oil’s going to triple,” he said. “That’s going to affect everything including grocery prices. Everything they see, touch or smell is related to oil. People won’t be so skeptical when they’re paying $10 for a gallon for gas.”
Rising Costs
Utility companies are mandated to obtain a certain percentage of the power tin a renewable energy source, Van Someren explained. So when Xcel Energy announced a possible rate hike last week due to increased purchases of renewable generation, he wasn’t surprised.
It costs money to buy that energy and pay for the turbines, even when the wind is not blowing, he said.
“On the hottest day of the year, when no wind is generated, if you have an investment in a generation plant and it’s not generating any energy, it’s still costing you,” he said.
“Today, we look at alternative energy as something we need but it won’t pay back today,” he said. “Maybe in two generations, whatever the alternative energy of choice is at that time, will pay. We have to reach a point where we tell the Middle East ‘we don’t want your oil.’”
