MINUTES
WASHINGTON COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
&
ZONING BOARD OF ADJUSTMENTS
WIND SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING
Thursday
2:00 p.m.- 5:00 p.m.
Washington County Operations and Maintenance Center
Conference Room
2615 Brink Drive
Fayetteville, Arkansas, 72701
The members of the Wind Subcommittee are:
Robert Daugherty (Chair) – he was late, but did show up
Cheryl West - present
Jim Gallagher - present
However all Board Members and any members of the public are welcome to attend. The press will be notified of all meeting times and dates. These subcommittee meetings will be conducted like any other public meeting.
Other members that could attend:
Randy Laney
Larry Walker
Kenley Haley - present
Roy Hummel
Juliet Richey, Washington County Planning Director, asked, “In absence of a Chair, do one of you want to make a motion to approve the agenda?” Cheryl West made a motion to approve the agenda. Jim Gallagher seconded. Motion passes.
a. Discussion of power generation, the role of renewable energy in power generation, and tying renewable energy into the grid system.
Special guest speakers:
· Tommy DeWeese with AEP-SWEPCO
DeWeese stated, “Sell regional equipment for SWEPCO utility business I’ve been going on for 21 years. Dialogue about wind energy and how we got to where we are at and what we see in the future. Let’s start out give you a little history here Washington County cover a little bit of Northwest Arkansas. Years ago about 1938 is when the territory lines were drawn. SWEPCO serves inside the City limits. Those lines that were drawn in 1938 have not been moved a great deal. I really can’t explain it there was crazy geography.” Gallagher asked about corresponding with township lines. DeWeese replied, “I wish they did. I worked in Texas and go by creeks, fence corners, and did write surveys, basically, we would go off 500’ off of the centerline of Highway 71. In an electric industry you have some type of generation facility and you have some kind of load and use of the load. The first generation in Northwest Arkansas was down on Dickson Street (in Fayetteville where Powerhouse is now) the water supply is the well under the cash register. The transmission facility ran along the railroad to serve Benton, Springdale, and Rogers. The whole system in Northwest Arkansas has grown up from that one particular generation source and load source. It’s no big surprise that Northwest Arkansas has grown a tremendous amount especially over the past 15-20 years. 1978 the Flint Creek power plat was built by Gentry so you have a generation source. You have a lot of transmission facilities coming from that area. Whether it is Ozark, SWEPCO, or AECC the total load in Northwest Arkansas we really can not support so we import energy. Most of that imported energy comes from the west going to the east out of Oklahoma. You got Flint Creek and three years ago we completed 400 megawatt power plant by Tontitown. SWEPCO does not have any major lines that run directly over the mountains in the areas for wind. We do not have any transmission facilities in that area just because of where our generation is at and where our load is at.”
DeWeese commented, “Generation taps inon our transmission facilities as such. If you had some type of wind farm or wind energy came in there and we did have a transmission facility they would be dealing with Southwest Power Company to get that approved. We do have a long range forecast right now something that ties, basically, go in and have transmission facility big lines that would go in and tie in down towards the energy system on Highway 412; we do not have a major competition line going that way right now. Northwest Arkansas has really grown up as far as electrical energy goes. We are just now in the first phases of starting 345 that will go in go around Flint Creek go in around Madison (County) and north part of Rogers into Benton County and tie to the east.”
Jonathan Oliver stated, “That line is scheduled for 2016. It moves power from what would be this western connection in Northwest Arkansas over to Osage Creek. There’s not a strong tie from the east coming back in. Even though it is going to extend 345 service out to Osage Creek; it’s not going for any support because energy has a very weak tie in comparison over to Osage Creek and its not going to benefit this system.”
DeWeese commented, “Our transmission system is a lot stronger than it was 5 to 6 years ago. It is because of this concept. We built in the last 6 years we’ve tied in three additional 345’s, which is a very high line in Northwest Arkansas. Since that time 40 megawatt plant in Elkins (Elkins Peaking Plant) almost 500 megawatt capacity in Tontitown. We’re in a lot better shape. Wind energy as such is a renewable source the wind that blows all the time. Flint Creek actually only has one base load unit 365 days a year. Whenever the load comes up in the winter and summer time or has plant down for maintenance or something like that. Base load sources are basically coal,energy fuel, and gas, and combination of those. Environmental and property rules and everything that is proposed that’s going to have a huge effect. From SWEPCO’s point of view most of the wind energy sources that I am aware of in location would probably be in your territory. As far as transmission size we don’t have anything. We do go down to Greenland and West Fork. We don’t have strong transmission ties in that area. Just from my point of view I really don’t think we’ll see the type of wind energy development that would dictate the expenditure to build those transmission facilities. There is a lot of interest to build some wind energy out there as far as having the wind and everything like that in Kansas and west Texas I haven’t seen those studies. We’ve got one test project that is not in Washington County; it is in the most northwest corner of Benton County, but nothing in Washington County to my knowledge.”
Richey stated, “The people that we talked to have indicated that they would tie in at Greenland. There is just one major wind company that we talked to. Some people have local interest in wind energy and it is hard for me to gauge how serious they are to actually do anything.” DeWeese commented, “There is a huge struggle in tying into the system. If you go in with a wind energy project; you may have a location on top of a mountain, but how are you going to get that power from there?” Richey stated, “The main company that showed the main interest and put up meteorological towers is Invenergy. They are the ones that indicated that they would tie into Greenland. It is interesting. It is hard for me to understand how their bureaucracy works. The gentleman that I always talked to I think that he is over most of the projects that they have going in Arkansas. I asked, ‘Do you know how much it is going to cost you to acquire all of the right-of-way and everything to get?’ He said we kind of look at that after we look at some other stuff. They know the distance, but as far as trying to calculate how many properties. They have farms all over America and over seas, so obviously they know what they’re doing. I believe they did have an application in with the Southwest Power Pool for connection there.” DeWeese stated, “The last conversation that I heard was that they were very interested in it, but then I found out that they were going to have to do some environmental impact studies such as bats and things like that. Last I heard they were not very interested.” Richey commented, “I’m waiting to hear back from someone on that.” Gallagher stated, “That’s the second time we’ve heard that. You’re confirming with what someone else told us last month (March 18, 2010 meeting).” DeWeese commented, “The bottom line Washington County if 15 or 20 years from now in forms of regulations, permitting, carbon capture, and whatever the price of energy goes up. If the price of energy gets up you are going to see a lot of interest in other generation type sources. Marginal wind that really don’t support a whole lot of generation and low cost energy in place. There is a huge interest in creating energy right now. We supply the University a certain percent of electrons. The cost, reality, supply, and the marginal wind you have with the lack of transmission in this area. It is very controversial; there are pros and cons.”
Richey asked, “Lets say, theoretically, some of this did come to fruition the way I understand it from conversation with Invenergy and other people they build a wind farm they have some sort of substation type thing that connects them to a transmission line that they would build to transmit it to your closest line say Greenland and they would own and maintain all of that line between their farm substation area and then to where it connects to you in Greenland, is that the way that you understand it?” DeWeese replied, “Southwest Power Pool has to do with good transmission plan, basically, that’s it. That is very expensive.”
· Jonathan Oliver with AECC
Oliver commented, “I would be very surprised if the Southwest Power Pool is dictating that interconnection to a generator regardless whether it is wind; build a substation because all those wind turbines generate 300MW, the distribution voltage 1,300-2,000 volts and that station would step up to 69KV or 169KV or whatever that transmission line. I doubt very seriously what will happen they would only build transmission line. You are the transmission owner and you are the actual operator in this area Power Pool would come back AEP and say you have an interconnector request here and you need to tell them how much it is to connect in. AEP will build that line from their nearest substation to their substation where the wind farm is and charge them back at that price. Power Pool will dictate how much of that is for system support when, it is not a liability issue, it is specifically to connect a generator.”
Richey asked, “I was wondering how the Eminent Domain would work. It seems like it would be a nightmare to be a private entity.” Oliver replied, “That’s the reason why they will make that request.” Richey commented, “I didn’t think you could build it for free. Maybe that’s what they meant you would build it and pay. It blew my mind to think that a private individual trying to acquire right-of-way/easement.”
Oliver stated, “As a transmission owner and our responsibility back to Northwest Arkansas there is actually no way that given our responsibility to convert for liability we would ever let an independent owner own and operate a transmission line connected to our system. We have too much at stake confinement a million dollars per day per occurrence not meeting their requirements and that can get pretty serious. Connecting their facility we would set protection and they would pay for it because that is part of that bond that generation resource. They would extend beyond even building that transmission line because part of the obligation to the Power Pool will say depending on size of resource there can be something in Oklahoma, Missouri, or other parts of Arkansas that can effect them because of that resource and they have to pay for those improvements to the overall system. Wind is very small; it probably wouldn’t have a lot of those difficulties. It is beyond just you put your farm here, build substation and tie into transmission system.”
DeWeese commented, “Mostly because of the sensitivity and the load. We can not jeopardize this system.” Gallagher asked, “It is a lot more difficult than putting out a really long extension cord?” DeWeese replied, “You probably will see some interesting windmills just because people will try to do the environmentally right thing. You may see some small wind energy units going up like on a church. You probably won’t see some of that happening just because of a different magnitude of stuff.”
Richey stated, “It kind of seemed like a mystery to us from the beginning. All we know is that they came and put up meteorological towers and they seemed to be somewhat serious and we talked about this a little bit at our last meeting. We have different theories also what might be going on whether or not this company actually intends to build a wind farm or maybe trying to get wind rights.” Oliver commented, “Beyond Washington County.”
Gallagher stated, “It sounds like you’re talking about the cost situation similar to the kind of thing we saw in the ‘70’s when the oil pit that they were re-opening wells basin drawing 10 barrels. Why re-opening? Now, it is more economical you can justify all of the overhead on them because you’re going to get more per barrel.” Oliver commented, “That is exactly why the shale for natural gas. There was some new technology for drilling and cracking that shale and extracting gas, but even then it is higher to pull that gas out of that shale then it is for the traditional well. Now the gas prices are well above $5 that is exactly why they drilled so much where before when it was $2 or less.” Gallagher stated, “Mid 20th century where a lot of gold mines in the U.S. that were closed because they couldn’t afford to pull it out.”
DeWeese commented, “There are people and some institutions that absolutely want to buy green renewable and they’ll pay premium for it.” Oliver stated, “If you speculated about developing even in marginal sites may have buyers just because they have to have a renewable resource.”
· Chris Vaught with Ozarks Electric
Vaught stated, “In Arkansas we buy under contract all of our power from Arkansas Electric. One of the big factors is this going to be at some point mandatory part of energy portfolio and if it is then that’s going to move a lot more interest in developmental wind, currently, that is not the case. If you have a 200 megawatt generator; how much do you get out of it? That’s about 35% per good area.” Oliver commented, “That is pretty important because the amount of energy factoring 35 is generous for even the best sites in Arkansas, basically, saying you’re going to make that investment for 100 megawatts of power, but you’re only going to get 35 out of it on average. It drives that cost per kilowatt hour higher because you can’t get as much energy out of it. When you compare Arkansas to Oklahoma and Kansas it is a 10 to 15% disadvantage.” Richey stated, “I’m surprised that it’s not more than that.” Oliver commented, “Wind typically blows in the very early mornings past midnight till 7:00-9:00a.m. That is not peak load except maybe in the wintertime. Not only is it giving you marginal energy it is giving you energy when the price of take a base load plant that can’t shut down there are times at night if you are out there on the market buying power you can buy power for 2 cents or less kilowatt hour. This is going to be generating in at times when power is only worth about 2 cents or less kilowatt hour and you got to pay 8-10 cents kilowatt hour. It’s a great resource. There is some technology that needs to come out to support it.”
Vaught stated, “Everybody is working on projects where some energy storage batteries or what have you store energy and release that energy. University of Arkansas is looking into some sort of wind battery project. It doesn’t always match the peak usage. There is a little bit of a voltage flicker or fluctuation when these blades go past the tower and so there’s stuff you got to do to mitigate that. It’s also why we can’t have a huge wind farm on a small line because the larger percentage of that wind on that line the more power is going to be.”
Richey asked, “Like when they say you can run it off of a generator at home you probably shouldn’t plug your electronics in is that kind of the same thing?” Oliver replied, “It’s a little bit different that’s more frequency. If you have a Honda generator it is going to maintain 60 hertz somewhat. Your clocks really use that frequency, which has to have 60 to keep time it is going to fluctuate the frequency a little bit. Chris is talking more about voltage flicker, which if you have incandescent light bulbs and the air conditioner comes on and notice how it will dim a little bit? What happens is when the air conditioner comes on there is a little bit of voltage shock because of the high current surge. If you get a little bit of voltage fluctuation it could cause some flicker issues. There are standards on flicker that you have to watch out for; some people say I don’t like the flicker it gives them a headache and there is some science behind that.” Vaught commented, “Most people don’t notice it. If it gets more severe or happens more often then people will notice it. Of course, there’s consideration about birds and wildlife. There is some noise associated with large windmills. There are also issues with if we built in our area most likely it is going to be on a ridge top or mountain top. Of course, close to one another you may have 100% wind up higher, but may have 82% of wind may be down lower and in a little draw will have 67%. A typical home will use anywhere 2KW to 15KW at peak depending on the house. For our purposes an average home will contribute 3.5KW to peak usage. It’s all a matter of scale for example the St. Thomas Episcopal Church windmills south side of Springdale and the windmill in Wal-Mart’s parking lot. One of these windmills might be able to power a hair dryer under ideal wind conditions. A typical rural distribution line is single phase that can carry somewhere around 500KW or half a megawatt depending on how big that line is. When you step up with a 100KW generator in Prairie Grove it works; it’s a large system. If you try to hook this to a single phase line it would work, but your service quality would suffer under good wind conditions.”
Gallagher asked, “What you are saying is the Arkansas Electrical Cooperation is primarily an inter-state cooperation?” Oliver replied, “No, we always serve in the State. We don’t own a lot of transmission we had transmission agreements with SWEPCO. Rather then go out and build duplicate systems we use theirs. We buy and sell maybe from out of State some. We kind of stay in-house.”
Richey asked, “Is that the biggest you have in this area?” Oliver replied, “No, actually there are some 345KV lines over around Flint Creek. 161 is predominant transmission voltage in the area.”
DeWeese stated, “69KV and 345KV really the larger lines are more common.” Richey asked, “Where they raised the poles that go through downtown on Dickson Street and continue to the Ag. Farm?” DeWeese replied, “They wanted us to bury that. The example I used that facility grew up coming up and down the railroad tracks and through the years it had been upgraded to a 69KV and raised it up to 161KV. The tie in with the growth needs a stronger system in there and that was the only way substation behind that’s what we call the Federal Substation.” Richey asked, “That is the same size as this?” DeWeese replied, “That is a different configuration.”
Oliver commented, “We have to designate resources as critical infrastructure and every utility in the country has gone through that. Nobody can see it. NIRC requires us to identify those, but we can’t list. Only the company that identifies them knows.” DeWeese stated, “We do get fined. It is real serious.”
Vaught commented, “Incidentally, when I was there on tour because of insurance and all of these regulations I could only get so close to the tower.” Courtney McNair, Washington County Senior Planner, asked, “If these ever went in it would it be based on how much power each individual farm is routing to their substation on what size transmission line they would need to get it?” Vaught replied, “How large they can go would depend on how much money they want to spend.”
Oliver stated, “Most of the wind would come through the Wyola area in the Ozarks system. If you put in a commercial wind farm and lets say you put windmills on everyone of the dots (potential wind in Washington County) and you spread them out you might get 200-300 megawatts of wind that you could install maybe more than that. You couldn’t support a 69KV system. Somebody comes in and puts 20 megawatts on 161KV line and say that’s fine. They want to put 50-100 megawatts you got to upgrade it so you tell them this and the cost to get the service to you, which may use that existing corridor and there may be a lot of things that have to happen. As Chris mentioned the predominant transmission network in southern Washington County and even eastern Washington County is 69,000 volts, which is not a lot.”
Vaught commented, “In general, there is 161KV that runs through Farmington and runs through the south side of Fayetteville and everything south of there is 69KV. If someone was to develop some wind within this magnitude they would not only have to develop the tie to get it to either AEP or ours (Ozarks Electric) they would probably have to also pay for an upgrade all the way up to the more robust system.” Richey asked, “Where is the closest 161KV; on Highway 62 going to Farmington?” DeWeese replied, “Strickler has the C4 plant. For your practical purposes get somebody in here and they say they got that line there its there for something that was built years ago that is not there anymore.” McNair stated, “Nuclear power plant.” Richey asked, “Experimental. Are you talking about the whole 69KV line?” DeWeese replied, “For Washington County, for your mind set, there really is not a whole lot going on down that way.”
Haley asked, “I hear that we’ve got marginal wind and our lines are questionable to support this and the money factor coming in. Lets say the Federal Government gives all of these incentives to this company lets build it; what then? Lets say they run with it; are we talking 10 years down the road that this can possibly happen? I understand what you are saying, but I honestly can see it possibly moving forward a little.” Oliver replied, “Production tax credits and other tax credits are offered to the wind farms when they are producers. There is no guarantee they have been extended. I’m not sure if they extend through this year or the next year, but they will expire. The real question is do I come in here where I have a 35% or 33% capacity factor in developing wind when the terrain is not flat. If I’m going to put my money on it I’m going to go where I can actually make some money. Production tax credits tend to lower it. They will propose it and most of the time they won’t build it they will come to AEP, municipals around, and AECC and say we’re looking at building a wind farm and we want to sell you power out of it and they’ll say here is our offer on power. Without the production tax credit and without the incentives that the government provides they will say in Arkansas we’ll sell you power at 12 cents a kilowatt a hour and we go ‘sorry just not interested.’ Production tax credits tend to lower that. Oklahoma and Kansas will probably offer you 4.5 to 5.5 kilowatt an hour starting out that will increase that is production tax credits; without it they would probably say we’ll sell it to you for 9 cents a kilowatt hour. They’re not going to come in and develop it until they have somebody that is going to buy it and as much as the government wants to incentivize it they still can’t. A lot of these independent power producers got caught back in the late ‘90’s. Wind wasn’t big then, but natural gas power plants were and they saw this market where they’re paying 14 cents a kilowatt an hour or 20 cents kilowatt an hour for power quite so cheap. We can build these plants and generate power at 2 or 3 cents kilowatt an hour and sell it for 4 to 5 times. We’ll make our money back on these plants in one year. Production tax credits its not necessary incentive now may see the flip side to that, which is AEP, AECC, or OG & E. If I have a renewable requirement in 2015 or 2020 as a mandatory statute. Each one of those large turbines is about 2 megawatt, 2 to 4 million dollars a piece that’s really a lot of money if it meets the requirements so even if it doesn’t get the energy out and take the credit. Forget about the transmission system that is just an added cost. The speculators are really going to have a hard time justifying it because I don’t know that anybody selling power 7 to 8 cents to consumers we’re not going to pay more than that on our end because really what we pay for power almost double it before it gets to you guys. We’re probably paying 3 to 5 cents kilowatt an hour for power at a power plant and all distribution and everything else is what makes it 8 to 9 cents. If they are selling it to you 8 to 9 cents we still got to tack on 4 to 5 cents because we begin to lose money at buying power at that cost.”
Richey asked, “What do you think they’re doing?” Oliver replied, “They’re doing exactly what we were just talking about they’re saying government incentives these guys will be forced to do it is the State of Arkansas going to say, ‘If you are utility in this State you have to buy renewable power within the State because if they’re not some of these bigger companies are buying solar projects out in the southwest.” DeWeese commented, “30 cents kilowatt an hour; that’s subsidized, too.” Oliver stated, “The going market is really a nickel.” DeWeese commented, “It is subsidized right now, but the thing that I see the legislation and how that effects and how that drives the cost of energy up because somebody’s going to have to pay for it. If you take your most economical cheapest fuel source energy providers and you take those out and you double or triple their cost then you may see something happening.”
Oliver stated, “I have a good comparison presentation. A power research institute did a lot of studies and they have a diagram, basically, they put all that technology; natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, and biomass and you take this legislation from zero dollars to 50 dollars it kind of gives you a good idea where those technologies rank. Wind is at the top. Either carbon has to be 50 dollars a ton or you incentive it enough to bring it down because the absolute cost of wind is 10 cents or higher kilowatt hour, so it doesn’t compete with any fuel source from coal, natural gas, or nuclear it just doesn’t make sense. Solar is off the chart. With installed costs they are expected to last about 20 years. I think that cost $50,000 or $60,000 to put in solar panels. If you look at the life expectancy of that and the amount of energy that we are getting out of it; it is generating power at about 45 cents a kilowatt.”
Richey asked, “Does it make more sense for people to do it on a smaller scale?” Oliver replied, “It really does if you’re a power producer at a central station power plant Flint Creek generates power less than 3 cents kilowatt an hour. You can’t compete with solar and wind at that level. Take residential and you’re 8-10 cents. If you can buy it right, make it work, and put it out at home you’re not competing with a really cheap fuel source you’re not competing with some other infrastructure that may make sense, but these big wind turbines that’s not what you put in your backyard.”
Richey commented, “I have some friends that have some solar on their house and it is interesting. He is an electrician he knows how to install things, but it seems like it is much more affordable on a smaller scale you’re not talking about $60,000 maybe $15,000.” Oliver stated, “The way that California is getting people to put solar on their home is they’re basically paying for it.” Richey commented, “Federal legislation, I wonder if it may take some changes instead of mandating that SWEPCO, AECC, or the State of Arkansas you have to produce that power I wonder if some of the legislation will change to where it starts incentivizing homeowners to do things on their own. As a homeowner you already paid for the distribution costs that might make it more competitive.” Oliver stated, “You’re going to see a lot of a push for energy efficiency. You’re going to see SWEPCO, AECC, and whomever come out and make your homes as energy efficiency as possible. Utilities around the country are going to spend a lot of dollars. The bad thing about energy efficiency you don’t know how much you’re going to take. You’re going to see a lot of push because the State is going to push us to sell energy efficiency. I think it is a good plan, but the next thing is do you incentivize the customer? The State Energy Office they have a lot of stimulus funds to do work; I’m not sure where they’re going with that. They can use it to say go out there and we want you to put solar we want you to do this or that. They have 45 million and I’m not sure where it’s going except to improve the energy efficiency of their State offices. Solar subsidizing now through tax credits 30% of the installed cost. There are some incentives for individual users to either become more efficient or to put in some renewable generation.”
Gallagher commented, “I was in a meeting and a guy was selling solar equipment and his company provides that and we were talking about the cost of it and he said it depends where you want to put it. Anywhere in the U.S. right now you can get 30% paid for by the Federal Government. If you’re going to put it in Austin; Austin gives you another 50% because they own their own electric company. If you help them by putting in a solar complex they’ll pay half of it. In Austin 80% is paid for by the government and here in Fayetteville, Arkansas only 30%.”
Richey stated, “There is a potential that they can use that corridor. That seems like it could be a big cost save.” DeWeese commented, “Twenty years from now; who knows?” Gallagher asked, “Take the money factor out of this. If somebody had all the money in the world and they could do whatever they wanted to do and decided today they wanted to do wind generation how long would it actually put all of this in place and have power going at somebody’s convenience?” DeWeese replied, “You can go in there and you’re looking at about three years probably and getting the lines in there and doing all of the environmental impact statements. Three years would be fast. It would take about five years for us to build transmission lines.”
Haley asked, “Are wind companies responsible for these bats that are $100,000?” West replied, “I can’t see a company wanting to come in there faced with that.” DeWeese stated, “Whenever we built that 345kv line that went through the Natural Forest and through Tontitown we were only allowed to work seven months out of the year because of the mating season of the endangered Indiana Bat. The environmental impact story that I mentioned is expensive.” Oliver commented, “There would be people come out and protest and you would have fights and lawsuits and it tends to slow things down.”
Haley asked, “Where does this kind of leave us? I feel like we have two elements going. There is a definite possibility south Washington County on the other side working with educational system. I seen a lot of common sense just go out the window and we do it anyway.” Richey replied, “I don’t know where we’re going from here and I haven’t talked to Invenergy lately.” Oliver stated, “We’re looking at wind as a State, too. It could be even us that say we’re going to develop it.” Richey commented, “Some people have suggested to me that they are signing all these wind leases and that they may be doing this maybe never having had the intention of building a wind farm, but getting all these wind rights so that they can tell somebody else later.”
Gallagher commented, “Not actually build any windmills, but rights to build them.” Oliver stated, “It’s pretty clear where the potential wind is and go out and negotiate with the landlord we’ll pay $1,000 a year if you just let me have the rights to this.” Richey commented, “Courtney and I met with two gentlemen last year and it was very interesting to understand the way the electrical grid works and how renewable tie in.”
Someone commented, “If you go way down south and do it and transmission station; is it feasible even to think about getting it up here. We’re not talking flat land.” DeWeese stated, “It’s a cost and benefit.” Someone commented, “At some point that’s going to have to be brought over to us and help pay.” DeWeese stated, “We have some people that are willing to pay premium prices for green electric.” Haley commented, “You have the Federal government going you have to do this. You’re either going to be paying someone else to meet the criteria there’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle.” Richey stated, “We run on coal now so what if they start taxing.” DeWeese commented, “You watch in the next year or two what comes out in cap and trade and tax and where that pushes us and what that does to the utility rates if you see the rates escalade up to offset some of these costs in the entire generation cost then you’re going to see other alternative sources of energy. It’s not rocket science. Green minded people are willing to pay more in premium for green product to offset the cost of green.”
Oliver stated, “You can ask people are you willing to pay $5 more a month and then you go out and offer it at $5 or $10 for a chunk. It is offered in Northwest Arkansas through Ozarks, Carroll Electric, or SWEPCO.” Richey commented, “I would assume that it would be less residential and somebody who wants to make a statement for their company operates only on green power.” Vaught stated, “The State is taking steps to push people more towards residential generation.”
Haley asked, “Do you offer incentives for people that are conservative?” DeWeese replied, “We should, but we don’t.”
Oliver commented, “Electricity right now is a little bit high. Let’s set your thermostat up a couple of degrees, turn your refrigerator off, and do some other things. Through that you gain this better use of resource.” Oliver stated, “California tends to pioneer everything whether it is laws or education. I think San Diego Gas and Electric has a huge smart grid. They are right now trying to put a smart meter at every home. They have a solar incentive. If you want to see what’s probably coming California is a good example.” Richey commented, “It makes a lot of sense to have everything talk to each other because leaving it to people to make decisions and do things that’s not going to work. You have other things going on; it’s not your priority.” McNair stated, “You’re not home.” Oliver commented, “Don’t really know when those processes are you going to be checking your e-mail or text every time power is 15 cents an hour go home and shut the air conditioner off.” Gallagher stated, “We don’t like that when gas is $4 a gallon. We started thinking lets plan the route and make this into one trip when we can do it for less and the same is going to be for house power.” Vaught commented, “There’s also prepay where you pay ahead.” Gallagher stated, “It doesn’t work on my propane. I’m not sure on electricity.”
Oliver commented, “You look ahead at more restrictions for wind farms.” Richey stated, “We thought it might really be something that is fixing to happen and we didn’t want to be caught blindsided.” Haley commented, “There’s going to be controversy no matter which direction you go. Kind of like I want it, but I don’t want it in my backyard. I don’t think we want to be blindsided and have to react so the more proactive we can be.” Richey stated, “The more we can understand what the true situation is and less that you get not back and forth by citizens versus industry.”
Oliver commented, “The biggest thing I think improve the transmission system do whatever to adjust costs and see a big difference. I don’t think the average citizen in Arkansas understands the size of larger turbines . When the blade is fully extended on the taller hub height that is taller than Regions Bank (136m), which is the shortest one of the two tallest buildings in downtown Little Rock (tallest-Metropolitan Building 166m), but even then the top of that blade is pretty much the same as a 30-35 story building and you can imagine this on the hilltops in southern Washington County. That is probably where you are going to get the most complaints and if you begin to look at local jurisdiction the guy that is getting money for that tower being on this site doesn’t really care. It is the guy that’s not getting any money that’s going to be calling, ‘I keep hearing this noise and it’s driving me nuts. I can’t stand to look at it.’ That’s where you begin to have a conflict. You have dealt with cell phone towers; it’s the same premise. A guy puts a cell phone tower up great for him he doesn’t care he’s getting money off of it. The guy across the street hates it. From the electric prospective there’s going to be some restrictions and Southwest Power Pool is going to have to look at that very seriously because large amount of intermittent resource could be problematic to the operation and liability of the system in Northwest Arkansas. They will do the studies and we’ll work with them and it’s just a matter of cost to keep up. It shouldn’t necessary impact your rates, but it may discourage them from developing. From your perspective it’s the excess. I think Fort Smith just announced they have a wind turbine factory going in. In Little Rock right across from our office they manufacture those blades glass fiber they’re huge. These trucks that are 40 meters the blades are little over 120’ trying to go up these dirt roads up to the top of these hillsides. I know in building the peaking plant we had to pave the road and you will have to look at what improvements you’ve got.”
Gallagher stated, “To answer your earlier question we anticipated the possibility when the meteorological towers where proposed. The next logical step is going to be they will want to put towers, so what does that involve? We already done a minimal amount of research and knew that wildlife and people’s well being was effected, and all these kinds of things. We’ve been at it four months and we’re just starting to get our hands around it. Can you imagine that reason we were researching it was because of an application came to the Board. We would have to do all this stuff and it would have taken us months just to get up to speed and understand it or perhaps turn them down without any good reason or accept it without knowing what we accepted.”
Oliver commented, “Europe is probably a little more advanced. I think they have the restriction I want to say a little more than one kilometer from any primary residence you can not install wind turbines, so if you’re going to go out there even outside the U.S. you can find some pretty good resources.” McNair stated, “Some of them do that, but others that I’ve seen (because I have been the primary research for all other systems) have been putting them in residential neighborhoods next door to subdivisions.” Oliver commented, “My fear with that is if you go back a few years and find that we have a higher instance of cancer at this school because there’s a big transmission line behind it; its EMF and what are they going to do when my kid has behavioral issues because every night he can’t sleep because of the noise. I understand the issues that will come up.” McNair stated, “It is just so varied on what you find a kilometer away from a residence or next door it’s hard to figure out what people are doing with this because it is so varied on what the regulations are.” Richey commented, “We pulled about 15 ordinances and we have a comparison spreadsheet. We have done quite a bit of research on the technical portion of how and what might work for Washington County and Staff has a fairly decent grasp of what people are going to freak out about in Washington County I’m pretty sure this will be one of those things. What we can’t really research is how these work with the electrical grid and because you are so linked you have a good understanding of what the Federal Government is up to like the incentives and all that. We’re not an industry and you understand all those things effect and counterbalance each other.”
Oliver stated, “There’s a lot of hurdles to develop wind in Washington County. If I was to rank them in order Arkansas would be on the lower end of the scale before I would come in and try to develop it. They can come talk to you; they will look at it as interest, but I’m going to go to Kansas, Oklahoma, west Texas, and other places and look at that first before I would come here.”
DeWeese commented, “You have the manufacturers as close as you have them (Fort Smith) is going to be on people’s minds.” Vaught stated, “There’s only one optimum place in the State of Arkansas as far as wind is concerned on the higher elevations of the Ouachita Mountains, particularly near Mena.” Richey commented, “I saw that on the State wind map.”
Oliver stated, “We talked to the Natural Forest Commission about developing wind in the Natural Forest. The Federal Government says the Natural Forest is not hands off. As long as you don’t have to build any new roads, as long as you don’t have to cut any trees down, as long as you can do that you can build wind in here. Would you like to buy any scrap wood we have a lot on the forest floor for biomass?”
Richey asked, “What do you think about biomass? We have a contact with the State and Energy Office, Jenny Ahlen, she said something about biomass and more for agricultural.” DeWeese commented, “Fibrowatt has been around Northwest Arkansas for the last five years they burn chicken litter.” Oliver stated, “It is a negative pressure unloading facility so we don’t get the odors and try to contain them. It all goes down to price it’s higher.”
Gallagher commented, “I was at the Portland, Oregon airport and they had a big front page story about wind generation controversy all over the state and it is the same old thing. I am sure that is going to be a significant component when someone wants to come to Washington County. You can imagine if somebody came in here and said we want to provide this wind farm and we want you to approve it and we would have citizens walk up to the microphone and saying what about the bats, Cardinals, and Eagles. We would have said I don’ know anything about it and kept postponing the thing until we got to the point we are maybe now.” Oliver stated, “I think if I was in that position I would say bring us your environmental impact statement because they will have to access wildlife impacts: Where it happens to be in that and you can review it before you begin to make any decisions on it that gives you the ammunition to say they have to do the environmental impact statement. I’m used to what we have to do in regulating; I think they would have to hire a third party consultant to come in.” Gallagher commented, “Maybe that is what needs to be in our ordinance is that this particular use they have to have an environmental impact statement as part of their initial submission.” Haley stated, “The other thing that we might consider is residential wind production. We need to step back and evaluate that too because we have nothing.”
Vaught commented, “Not really economical, but there’s a lot of people that are committed to it.” Gallagher stated, “They’ll do it just for the self gratification for having taken less off the grid.” DeWeese commented, “With no maintenance, no additional cost, everything running perfectly ideal wind is about 35-40 years at the best that they wanted to do it.” Gallagher stated, “There are people that don’t understand what that concept means.” Haley commented, “I’ll sum this up; it’s just not going to work.” Oliver stated, “Transmission network in Northwest Arkansas is fragile don’t mess with it.”
Oliver stated, “If you take a corridor from west Texas go up through the plains the capacity factor, which is really how much energy compared to what you have installed is fairly good it is in the 45+ percent range, which means if I install 100 megawatts of wind I’ll get 45 megawatts on the average. It’s pretty good from west Texas on up. There are locations up at the Great Lakes, on the coasts, and places out in California. Arkansas is not the best it is 33% capacity factor. Places where wind is marginally viable in Arkansas are on these plateau peaks, which are extremely difficult to construct. If you took an average cost to build a wind turbine on a flat level place at $2,000 a kilowatt at least add another $500 or $600 to that just to build it in the terrain here. It has a pretty hefty penalty not only a upfront cost if you get it built in particular Washington County we mentioned that transmission network in the area where the wind is predominant is pretty weak it is at the end of the system. Not only you have this hefty penalty on just the construction side the infrastructure improvements and then you have to deal with the fact that it doesn’t produce as much energy as you would want it to. You can do it, but the cost is going to be pretty high.” Richey commented, “All the better if you have to turn it off at the night for the bats.” Gallagher stated, “Then you have 120’ long blades and a school bus sized turbine.” Richey commented, “We’re mainly just trying to educate ourselves.”
DeWeese stated, “Keep in mind what we talked about in Northwest Arkansas and the system and especially Washington County and where your transmission system is and lack of it down in those areas and the cost associated with getting it where it is. I think those basic things would be the thing I say you need to relay on or maybe to your other members. The cost, one thing that I would encourage you to do is to keep up with the energy legislation and how the cap and trade and the carbon issue and all that turns out however it does and monitor your cost of your energy and see how that effects Ozarks, SWEPCO, and everything and as you see our costs go up.”
Richey asked, “Do you think prior to the bat situation; do you think that Invenergy ever actually intended to build a wind farm here?” Oliver replied, “They approached us trying to sell power purchase agreement, so they had prospected it begin to try to sell a potential for developing it.” Gallagher stated, “They might have gone ahead.” DeWeese commented, “So much of this right now is key to timing what is available. If for some reason they triple or quadruple those incentives. Watch what happens in the legislation concerning energy and how it is going to drive us, but right now; no energy.” Haley stated, “My personal opinion it’s not going to go away.”
Haley commented, “There is too much of a green movement.” DeWeese stated, “Then you get into some pay back how many years does it take to pay back.” Gallagher commented, “It is an economic issue rather than an energy issue.” Richey stated, “Fayetteville Economic Development is rebranding themselves as Green Valley. They still have the same people running it.” DeWeese commented, “I am on their Board, basically, trying to encourage green type development.” Gallagher stated, “We also need to be concerned that the wind farms come in under rolling subsidies and grants.”
Richey stated, “An ordinance that we were looking at was a dismantling clause if it is not in use and bonding for parts and it does get pretty complex, but we get burned even with the bonds we make people put up now; it is so hard when people are going bankrupt. We get burned on little stuff all the time right now. I didn’t even know that was going to be a problem.”
Gallagher stated, “We got to be careful if someone puts up a commercial wind farm could be unsuccessful.” Richey commented, “Crucial who would own the transmission lines the impact of building that will probably impact more people than the wind farm itself.” Oliver stated, “If a wind company and a power producer came in to build a 1,500 megawatt and they went bankrupt. The bank owns it and AEP or AECC comes in and buys it we make a bid on it and we’ll cut our cost; that’s typically what happens.” Richey commented, “Unless the technology becomes obsolete.” Oliver stated, “15-20 years is the technology life.” Richey commented, “Somebody goes bankrupt and then technology moves beyond the point where you want to buy 15 year old technology. It could be a completely different way to harvest the wind than they are.” DeWeese stated, “Anytime you start a generation facility you got to have your fuel source: wind, coal, or whatever and you have to have a way to get the power out. Where those two things cross that’s where you put the plant. That’s the reason we decided to put a plant in Tontitown because there is a gas transmission line and an all electric transmission line going through there and where they cross is a good site for a generation facility.”
West commented, “We appreciate you coming it has been very enlightening to us.” Gallagher stated, “What you were describing was in the urban planning for centuries whether it’s where a railroad crosses the river or a highway meets the coast those are where things happen.”
Cheryl West moved to adjourn. Jim Gallagher seconded. Motion passes.
Wind Subcommittee meeting adjourned.
Minutes submitted by: Amanda Kimbel and Courtney McNair
Approved by the Planning Board on:
_______Randy Laney___________ Date: ___05/06/10_______
Randy Laney, Planning Board Chairman