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Installing the Turbine at the Green Leaf Inn

Submitted by admin_green on Tue, 01/26/2010 - 17:36

How do you put a 50k wind turbine in your back yard? Not in one day, that's for sure! After months of planning, however, we are up and generating.

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Our thanks to all the crew from Kettle View Renewable Energy LLC and Endurance who worked through the wind and the cold...and spent a lot of that time in fairly precarious perches that were WAY higher than we'd ever go...to get the turbine up and running:

The Kettle Crew

  • Randy Faller - Project Mgr (tower climber)
  • Ian Sleger – Wind technician, (tower climber)
  • Marc Stevens – Wind Technician, (tower climber)
  • Dave Rosek – (Tower climber)
  • Jeremy Hildebrand – (Ground Crew and Tower climber)
  • Dan Morin – Ground Crew
  • Gary Hannert – Ground Crew
  • Maureen –Safety Officer on Site(50 other jobs in the office as well)

The Endurance Crew

  • Yannick Jacob – Technician and tower climber
  • Gary Harcourt – Technician and tower climber
  • Jeff Matt – Technician

Crane Crew

  • Crane Operator – Ideal Crane (Jeff)

And Let's Not Forget

  • Guest : Student Observer– Hunter Griswold

You can learn more about the turbine on this page.

You can follow the early stages of teh installation process in slideshow format by clicking these links:

We believe our turbine is the largest privately-owned wind turbine in the country...and it is certainly the largest in Walworth County! The work we did this past Summer to secure the rights to install it made for an interesting lesson in the challenges green energy will face moving forward, particularly in smaller communities. There was a fair amount of concern, much of it based on unfamiliarity and uncertainty with new technology. A lot of the obstacles that wind power will face were brought up: that it's noisy, that it throws ice in winter, that it kills birds, that it brings down property values. In the end, we were able to prevail, though it remains to be seen whether those who follow in our footsteps will find that resistance has softened…or perhaps hardened.

The turbine we selected is a 50kw Edurance E-3120 on a 120 ft monopole. Full height, including blade length at the top of its arc, will be 151.5 ft. Shouldn't be hard to find the Inn for people coming in off the highway! We're not actually the first turbine in the area…there's another one up route 43, on the grounds of a local farm, just before you hit the exit for route 164.

  • See the plan for the turbine here.
  • See the site plan, including the wiring to link us to the grid, here.
  • See the site plan, including the range beyond which turbine noise will be imperceptible, here.

This part of Wisconsin is designated a Class 3 wind area…about as good as you get in the state, and the minimum necessary for a turbine that's going to actually feed the grid. Class 7 is the highest; that's the kind of strong, unabated wind you find on the Great Plains and in mountain passes of the great ranges of the Far West, as well as offshore. You can learn more about wind resources in the United States by clicking this link. We decided to add 20 feet to the standard size for the monopole in order to tap a bit more wind power; higher is almost always better when you're trying to catch the wind.

We expect an annual generation of 112,000 kwh. If you're interested, that translates to a 25.5% efficiency. This turbine uses one of the new breed of induction generators, which means it feeds power directly to the wires. Traditionally, small turbines such as this one didn't produce the kind of steady generation required by the grid, so you had to convert the power back and forth from AC to DC to regulate it...very inefficient. The turbine will generate at 480 Volts, which will be stepped down to standard voltage. Once it's up and running, we'll be using a Web-based interface from Endurance to show generation statistics on the site.

So, how much does a 50k turbine cost? Start with $450,000 for the actual turbine, installation and infrastructure. There was also a $29,000 charge from Alliant Energy, who will be purchasing our excess generation, to do the wiring necessary to connect us to the grid. It's a bit more complicated that your typical home stereo hookup.

Incentives from the state and the federal government helped bring the costs down to a level we could afford. Focus On Energy granted us $100,000, and we'll be applying for the 30% Federal ITC. Yes, the same one you use to help cut the cost of getting those new, energy-efficient windows.