10 Steps to Developing a Wind Farm

[kristopher]

www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/10stwf_fs.pdf

This information is intended for landowners interested in developing or hosting a wind farm on their property. It briefly addresses key factors in this decision:

Understanding your wind resource

Distance from existing transmission lines

Securing access to land

Establishing access to capital

Identifying reliable power purchaser or market

Addressing siting and project feasibility considerations

Understanding wind energy’s economics

Obtaining zoning and permitting expertise

Establishing dialogue with turbine manufacturers and project developers

Securing agreement to meet O&M needs

10 Steps to Developing a Wind Farm
1. Understand Your Wind Resource. The most important factor to consider
in the construction of a wind energy facility is the site's wind resource. A site
must have a minimum annual average wind speed in the neighborhood of 11-
13 mph to be considered. Local weather data available from airports and
meteorological stations may provide some insight as to averages. You can
also check the wind maps for your state on the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory Web site. Eventually, you will want to install your own monitoring
devices to record the site's wind characteristics. A listing of consultants
specializing in wind resource assessment can be found at the American Wind
Energy Association Web site: http://www.awea.org/directory/consultcde.html.
More information on basic principles of wind resource evaluation can be found
at http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_basics.html.

2. How Far Is Your Site from Existing Transmission Lines? A critical issue
in keeping costs down in building a wind farm is minimizing the amount of
transmission infrastructure that has to be installed. High-voltage lines can cost
thousands of dollars per mile. Whenever possible, availability and access to
existing lines should be considered in selecting a site.

3. Secure Access to Land. Landowners, both private and public, will expect
to be compensated for any wind energy development that occurs on their land.
Royalty or lease agreements will need to be discussed with all parties involved.
Roads, transmission equipment, maintenance infrastructure, turbines, etc. all
need to be considered. Moreover, the construction of a wind farm requires the
use of heavy industrial equipment so developers will need to ensure there are
roads capable of handling significant weight. The planning phase requires
cooperation of landowners and the local community.

4. Establish Access To Capital. Building a wind farm is not cheap. Wind
power development can cost around $2 million per megawatt (MW) of
generating capacity installed. To take advantage of economies of scale, wind
power facilities should be in excess of 20 MW. Assuming the average wind
turbine is rated at 1.5 megawatts (MW) in capacity, this means the installation
of at least 13 turbines and an initial investment of about $40 million.

5. Identify Reliable Power Purchaser or Market....

[phantom power]

1. This is tangential, but they say it's advice for land-owners, and yet it seems to be written...

from point of view of the wind farm developer, as advice for approaching land-owners.

:shrug:

[kristopher]

2. Seems clear enough to me

"This information is intended for landowners interested in developing or hosting a wind farm on their property..."

The co-op structure is a fairly common approach to wind projects, so a landowner wanting to involve neighbors doesn't seem an odd premise to me.

[NNadir]

3. 1. Get Government Money. 2. Get more Government Money. 3. Get Hyped by Gas Interests.

4. Get more Government Money. 5. Don't bother producing much energy.

6. Hype yourself by claiming that PEAK power is AVERAGE power even if this is a bald-faced lie.

7. Get more Government Money. 8. Then get a tax break so you can buy stock in a gas company.

9. Get elected Chancellor of Germany, finance gas lines while talking about wind, then get a six figure Euro salary from the gas company you used Government money to finance.


10. Don't sweat about shitty schools, impoverished families, degraded atmospheres, lack of clean water, closed libraries or any stuff like that, since the purpose of the government is to get government money for wind farms.