ATHOL –In anticipation of a possible rewrite of zoning bylaws for the siting of wind turbines, the Board of Planning and Community Development enlisted the help of Stuart Smith, who has been involved in the industry for decades.

Smith, a resident of Enfield, Conn., spoke with the board at its meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 4 providing details on a number of issues that should be weighed before construction of the energy-generating towers is given serious consideration. Stuart was born and raised in Athol, graduating from Athol High School in 1975.

Athol Planning and Development Director Eric Smith began the discussion by noting that Peter Gerry has been expressing interest about wind turbines on his property off of South Main Street. He said there is some restrictive zoning language regarding placement of wind turbines above a certain elevation – 25 meters, or 720 feet. Then there’s also the setback criteria – about three times from the top of the turbine blade to any existing structure.

“So we’re really limited,” said Eric. “We can sort of go through a rezoning exercise, but we’d have to get back to the voters. But we wanted to take a look at the current market for what I’ll call inland wind turbine projects. And we also wanted to know what your experiences trying to put together a project have been like.”

Acceptance of wind turbine projects in the Northeast, he said, “is a tough sell.”

Smith said a number of problems arose early in the development of the wind turbine industry, including equipment failures, broken blades, and excessive noise. He added that bird strikes also became a big issue, particularly in the Altamont area of California.

“It really was isolated in that area, but it affected the entire industry,” Smith said of the bird strikes. “When I hear they kill birds, well, they did – and they do, there’s no doubt about it. But I’ve worked on several wind farms, large scale and medium scale, and I really had to think about how many eagles, or raptors, were hit by wind turbine blades on projects I was involved with: one, maybe two. It’s something that’s brought up all the time but is not really an issue. I see more dead owls and raptors along the highway.”

Analyzing the property

Smith said that several years ago he had examined the Athol area, including Gerry’s property, to determine what kind of “wind resource” it has.

“It’s marginal,” he said. “For a wind project you want to be in the 7 ½ to 8 meters per second to get up around a 30 percent capacity factor, maybe 35. What that means is – a one megawatt wind turbine will power a thousand homes, if it was making one megawatt. But it doesn’t. The wind doesn’t blow all the time, of course.

“When I look at Peter Gerry’s land objectively, he probably has like maybe 6, 6 ½ wind speed – Maybe a 30 percent capacity factor. But that doesn’t mean it can’t produce electricity. What that means is, you are looking to capture the wind up higher. You’re talking about a very tall turbine with very long blades to catch as much wind as possible.”

Smith then explained that wind turbines require a great deal of space. As an example, he suggested the entire field at the high school, including the parking lot, could probably accommodate one turbine. He then added that construction of a turbine requires a lot of equipment being brought onto the site, generating a lot truck traffic.

“It takes over 50 semi-trucks worth of parts to construct a crane on site,” he said.

Before construction even begins, Smith continued, “You have to do a system impact study. Those are $4 million. You’ve got to find out which substations all the power is going to go into. You have to find out the capacity of the line, if there’s available capacity on the line to plug into, basically. If not, where are the system upgrades going to be?”

In response to a question from board member Aimee Hanson, Smith said, “There’s a lot of industry standards when it comes to setbacks, especially from property lines and from houses. It’s a tough call. The unfortunate thing is that for that area (the Gerry property) and other areas like that, you need a very tall wind turbine to catch the airflow high up. When you’re talking three times, that’s not just the tower, that’s the height of the blade.”

When Hanson followed up, asking if the setback requirement of three times the height of the turbine is too restrictive, Smith replied, “Not really. It’s not terribly restrictive.” He added that a variance can always be sought from the board.

That being said, Smith added that he’s never heard of a wind turbine toppling over. The board will continue deliberations on what changes, if any, should be made to the town’s regulations governing wind turbines in Athol.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.

Correction-Stuart Smith is from Enfield, N.H., and the system impact study was $250,000.

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