Transforming Clean-Energy Industry Into a Local One—“Community Power”

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/12/AR2009101203097.html

Transforming Clean-Energy Industry Into a Local One

Minnesota Turbines At Forefront of A New Movement: Community Power

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 13, 2009

WILLMAR, Minn. -- From his desk at the local electricity cooperative, Bruce Gomm can see the looming black smokestacks of the city's aging coal-fired power plant. He can also see, on his office wall, framed photographs of sleek new wind turbines. Together, they are a changing world foretold.

Gomm is placing a major bet on wind to produce the electrons that will power his customers' lights and run their dishwashers. He is at the forefront of a movement called community power, the idea that neighborhoods and towns can install their own renewable power sources and rely less on electricity that flows from distant realms.

As costs of solar and wind come down, the concept's popularity is looking up, though challenges remain for an industry in its infancy.

Willmar Municipal Utilities invested nearly $10 million in a pair of 256-foot towers to capture the prairie wind here, about 100 miles west of Minneapolis. Gomm calculates that the wind power will cost less than the equivalent in coal-powered energy and, when the debt has been paid in 12 years or so, the electricity will come virtually free for as long as the turbines are standing.

…

[NNadir]

1. Distributed energy always is sleek and cool as the following photos show.

There is nothing safer than having a bunch of clueless people handle equipment that they can't afford to treat in a safe fashion.