The town of Port Angeles, WA paid over $100K for 3 of them to light a city park. They now figure that they'll save all of $42/month. That works out to a mere 212 years and they'll be paid for. We should all buy a couple.
Report: Costly wind turbines projected to yield $1.39 in daily savings
Published December 08, 2016 FoxNews.com
The Peninsula Daily News reported that the Port Angeles turbines, which haven’t yet been turned on, are expected to generate $1.39 per day in electricity, or roughly $42 per month.
The turbines were meant to help illuminate a local park. Now, some city council members are having second thoughts about their unanimous approval for the project.
“I did not realize they would produce so little energy. I wouldn’t have voted for it knowing it was that little,” City Councilwoman Sissi Bruch told The Peninsula Daily News.
Bruch said she was disappointed in the savings, though did “appreciate” the fact it “would educate folks about wind power.”
The city, though, challenged some details in the newspaper report.
Nathan West, director of Community and Economic Development for the city, told FoxNews.com in an email that daily savings could be as high as $5.44 “at peak windspeed” but cautioned that “determination of actual benefit in dollars at this time would be speculative because the spires are not yet operational.”
He also defended the city’s investment in the turbines, saying: “[T]he City did not purchase these spires for the purpose of energy creating infrastructure but rather as a park element. There are however many other thoughts that went into the decision making regarding purchase of the spires.” He said they add to a “positive aesthetic” in the park and “symbolize energy creation.”
The city council voted in October 2015 to approve $107,516 out of a total $285,952 county funding grant to purchase the turbines from Urban Green Energy.
While they were supposed to be turned on two months ago, a dispute over safety inspection of the project has resulted in delays.
The electricity that is produced would be used to power 31 lights in the newly built Waterfront Park.
The lower-than-anticipated savings could be even lower depending on the eventual cost of maintaining the turbines in the harsh and salty environment, Port Angeles Deputy Power Systems Manager Shailesh Shere told the newspaper.
Though some members of the council may not be sold on the alternative energy initiative, there were those who never bought into the promised cost savings in the first place.
“My fundamental objection to these is that they are not cost-effective and it’s a waste of money,” former deputy director of power systems Phil Lusk told the paper.
