FEATURE SMALL WIND TURBINES

Focus on

Small wind
turbines
North America

Can they live up to their potential in the US?

One of the few renewable energy options in which the US still plays
a leadership role is small wind turbine technology in terms of technology development and market share, yet their contribution to
the USs total energy supply is miniscule. California and a few
other states now offer incentives to customers installing small
wind turbines, which is boosting interest in grid-connected applications. However, local governments still often present obstacles
to customers because of their unfamiliarity with the technology.
Peter Asmus reports.
It is fitting that the U.S. still leads the world
on small wind turbines since it pioneered
todays small wind turbines industry, offering a much smaller and lighter alternative to
wind technology that evolved in Europe.
The first prototype of a mass produced
small wind turbine was put together by

Marcellus Jacobs in 1922 when the fan

blade assembly from an old water pumping
windmill was hooked up to the rear axle of
Model T car. His initial commercial
designs, which featured three blades and
were 1 to 2 kW in size, became quite popular in rural regions where the utility trans-

One of Americas leadimg technologies when it comes to renewable energy is the small wind turbine,
typically 3 to 10 kW powering homes, farms, and small businesses.

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mission and distribution grid had yet to be

installed. Shift forward to the 21st century,
and wind power is the worlds fastest growing electricity source in the world.
Nevertheless, utility-scale wind turbines,
often exceeding 1 megawatt (MW or 1,000
kW) in size are driving the wind power
market. And today, approximately 90 percent of these wind turbines are now manufactured in Europe even though utility-scale
machines were initially developed in
California in the early 1980s.

Cinderella
technology
Americas Cinderella technology when it
comes to renewable energy is small wind
turbines, typically 3 to 10 kW in size (but
ranging from 400 watts up to 100 kW)
powering homes, farms, and small businesses. This technology has been growing at a
40 percent annual rate for the last few years.
In contrast to utility-scale wind turbines,
over 90 percent of small wind turbines
installed in the U.S. are still manufactured
in the U.S.
In 2001, four different US companies
manufactured approximately 13,400 small
wind turbines, representing $20 million in
sales, in the US: Southwest Windpower,
Bergey Windpower, Wind Turbine
Industries Corp and Atlantic Orient. Over
half of these wind turbines were exported
overseas. These same four companies produce a third of the total global market for
small wind turbines.
Ironically, when American consumers
think about installing their own renewable
energy system, however, they typically think
of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. Yet small
wind turbines are less than half the price of
an equivalent solar PV system. Because
small wind turbines can operate at lower
wind speeds than the large utility-scale

1471 0846/03 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

FEATURE SMALL WIND TURBINES

machines, over half of the property in the

U.S. features enough wind to drive a small
wind turbine.

Obstacles
In spite of these appealing stats, only 15
MW of small wind turbine capacity has
been installed in the U.S. This compares to
4,300 MW of utility-scale wind turbines.
According to an American Wind Energy
Association (AWEA) report, 50,000 MW of
small wind turbine capacity, or 3 percent of
the total U.S. electricity consumption,
could be on-line for grid-connected utility
customers by 2020.
A great deal of work must be done to
realize the potential for small wind technology, acknowledged Mike Bergey, president
of Bergey Windpower and chairman of
AWEAs Small Wind Turbine Committee.
The current products are too few in number, too expensive and not reliable enough
to ignite the market, said Bergey.
Customers face too many obstacles in
financing, permitting and installing small
wind energy systems. He went on to say
that to meet the 50,000 MW goal, the small
wind turbine industry would have to grow
into a $1 billion per year market and
employ 10,000 people.

Height restrictions
and permits
Some of the biggest barriers to small wind
turbines in the recent past have been local
government height restrictions and local
permitting procedures. For example, Los
Angeles County happens to be one of the
more difficult counties in the state to install
small wind turbines. According to Daniel
Scott, a resident of Acton in northern Los
Angeles County, the same kind of conditional use permit needed to permit the construction of an 100 ft cell phone tower was
needed for a small wind turbine at a cost of
up to $6000. This process entails 6 to 9
months of public hearings and no guarantee of a permit! exclaimed Scott, an
employee of the Los Angeles Department
of Water and power. My specific problem
was LA Countys 35-foot height restriction, he added.
Due to the height restriction, Scott
installed three 3 kW wind turbines on towers 30 feet tall. The ideal height for wind
turbines is 65 to 120 feet because the higher you go, the better the wind fuel. In
response to concerns of consumers such as

Height restrictions have been a major barrier to small wind

Scott, California passed AB 1207, a law

that requires most cities and counties to
allow wind turbines on towers of at least 65
feet on any property of one acre or more in
size and at least 80 feet on properties 5acres or larger.

Big push in
California
State subsidy programs that cover half of the
installation costs of a small wind turbine are
making the economics of small wind turbines more attractive in California. Nearly
650 kW of small wind turbines have been
installed in the State under the California
Energy Commissions buy-down rebate
program since 1998, and another 318 kW
have been approved and are in the process
of installation.
These admittedly paltry numbers convinced AWEA to launch a campaign to
educate local government staff and consumers about the benefits of owning a
small wind turbine. A mailing to 35,000
California households was sent out in
September and October, which was a follow-up to a 65,000-piece mailing sent out
in spring 2002 to residents of counties that
feature enough wind and land to support a
small wind turbine. San Bernardino
County residents received 38 percent of
the most recent flyers and Los Angeles
County residents 25 percent. These
two counties were targeted because they
feature tremendous wind resources, and
yet few residents have installed a small
wind turbine.
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FEATURE SMALL WIND TURBINES

Some counties, such as San Bernardino,

are taking a leadership role and going
beyond the state minimum standards outlined in AB 1207. Last October, the San
Bernardino Board of Supervisors voted for a
new siting ordinance for small wind turbines that allows for differing heights
depending on terrain and other factors. For
example, in the desert portions in the eastern and northern portions of the county,
landowners can now erect small wind turbines on towers as high as 120 feet on one
acre of land, a standard that is 40 feet above
what the AB 1207 authorizes.
In addition, consumers may petition for a
variance in which they may be able to
increase tower heights by 30 percent. That
translates into a cap on tower height of 156
feet! In addition, a ban on small wind turbines in urbanized areas was removed,
authorizing all residents of San Bernardino
County the opportunity to explore the feasibility of a small wind turbine.

Lighting restrictions
Despite improvements in the Los Angeles
County permitting rules for small wind
turbines, John Supp, director of sales for
Southwest Windpower of Flagstaff,
Arizona, notes that several onerous provisions remain on the books. Lighting
requirements for small wind turbines, for
example, could consume half of the electricity of a 1 kW wind turbine! Such lighting is not required, ironically enough, for
power lines, silos, barns or oil derricks.
Riverside County has also been a difficult place to site small wind turbines.
County officials didnt have a clue about
what I was trying to do, comments Steve
Anderson, who had been trying to install a
small wind turbine for over a year and a
half. The only reason my Bergey
Windpower wind turbine finally started
generating electricity in late September of
this year was AB 1207, he added.

Small wind turbine manufacturers and suppliers

Leading US manufacturers
Bergey Windpower Co.

www.bergey.com

Southwest Windpower Co.

www.windenergy.com

Wind Turbine Industries Corp.

www.windturbine.net

Atlantic Orient Corporation

www.aocwind.net

Other small wind turbine manufacturers around the world

The following is a list of the many manufacturers of micro and small wind turbines
(100kW maximum) currently operating around the world to serve national and
international markets.

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Aeromax Corporation

www.aeromaxwindenergy.com

Ampair

www.ampair.com

J Bornay Aerogeneradores

www.bornay.com

Fortis

www.galeforce.nireland.co.uk/Fortis.htm

Gazelle Wind Turbines Ltd

www.northenergy.co.uk

Genvind

No website; e-mail: sim@post9.tele.dk

Marlec Engineering Co Ltd

www.marlec.co.uk

Pitchwind Systems AB

www.pitchwind.se

Proven

www.provenenergy.com

Ropatec
Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT)

www.ropatec.com

Shield (VAWT)

www.shield.fi

Synergy Power Corporation

www.synergypowercorp.com

Vergnet

www.vergnet.fr

Westwind

www.westwind.co.au

Windside Production Ltd (VAWT)

www.windside.com

Windstream Power Systems Inc.

www.windstreampower.com

WindTech International, LLC

www.windmillpower.com

Wind Turbine Industries Corporation

www.windturbine.net

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REFOCUS

www.re-focus.net

Before the law was on the books,

Riverside County was requiring Anderson
to notify every landowner within a half-mile
radius of ones property including absentee landowners. AB 1207 required me to
only notify neighbours within 300 feet of
his property, which reduced my notification
list down from 50 to six folks. Ironically
enough, the notification procedure served as
a marketing tool. One of my neighbours is
now installing his own small wind turbine
too, noted Anderson.

Happy customers
Because of Californias high electricity rates,
Californians who install a small wind turbine may recoup their initial $16,000 to
$20,000 within 5 to 7 years. Owners then
enjoy free electricity for the remainder of
the systems 30-year life. With these figures
in mind, a small wind turbine represents a
low-risk, tax-free investment that delivers
annual returns ranging from 15 to 25 percent. California already has many happy
small wind turbine customers.
I always saw the wind as a negative. I
wanted to turn it into a positive, commented Patrick Campbell, who installed a
10 kW wind turbine on a remote ridge in
the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County,
I have a deep well on top of a hill and I was
looking for ways to cut my energy costs.
Here we had these terrible winds, a resource
that was just going unused. I am the only
one who lives on this ridge and for eight
years I just watched the wind blow.
Campbell gets the best power production
in the winter, spring and fall, when the wind
turbines produce up to 80 percent of his
electricity. Campbell feels secure knowing
that he has an independent source of clean
electricity. I think we are all going to be in
for a big shock because we are so dependent
upon fossil fuels. Those who are prepared
with their own wind, solar or other renewable energy systems will do a lot better than
those totally dependent upon the grid.
Campbell is not alone in reporting that
he actually paid nothing for his power during some months of the year. I havent had
to pay an Edison bill for an entire year!
exclaimed Gus Sansone of Oak Hills,
California, which is located in San
Bernardino County. He installed his 10 kW
small wind turbine in August 2001. Its
accomplished everything Ive wanted it to
and then some, he added.
The total energy savings over the course
of a year adds up to at least $1,200. On top
of not having to pay for electricity, Sansone
was able to cut his winter heating bill too by
supplementing his propane-fired heating

FEATURE SMALL WIND TURBINES

system with electric room heaters in the

bathrooms and master bedroom. Our
small wind turbine has been working so well
that my wife and I are considering replacing
our gas dryer with an electric one to take
further advantage of the wind blowing
across our property, added Sansone.
Joe Mathewson of Paso Robles, which is
located in San Luis Obispo County, is one
of the few businesses to install a wind turbine. He operates a 16-acre farm and uses
about $15,000 worth of electricity to irrigate his 40-acre vineyard. The wind blows
steadily here during the winter and from
about 3 pm to midnight during the summer, said Mathewson. I figured I could
cut my costs by half or two-thirds by
installing a wind system, he continued. His
10 kW wind turbine was installed on a 10foot tower in February 2002. Mathewson
added that with buy-down rebates, net
metering, and accelerated depreciation
available to business such as farming, folks
like me cannot afford not to install a small
wind turbine.

Conclusion

rural electrification markets overseas, gridconnected markets have witnessed some of

the largest growth recently.
The cost of energy from small wind turbines will fall to that of grid power within
the next five years, predicts Andy Kruse,
vice president of Southwest Windpower
Co. These cost reductions are critical to
meeting AWEAs aggressive goals for the
small wind turbine industry. Long-term
trends of rising electricity costs, concerns
about national security, as well as global
climate change, all contribute to an energy
market increasingly receptive to clean, distributed sources of electricity. Adapting
high-volume manufacturing techniques to
wind turbines in the 1 to 5 kW range sited
in adequate wind resource regions will
bring the cost of the technology down to a
level where the energy produced would pay
for itself in less than three years, added
Kruse.
Those types of numbers bode well for a
technology whose potential is just beginning
to be realized and which could be a key solution to energy supply challenges in both the
developed and undeveloped world.

Small wind set for take off in the USA?

The recent success of Americas small wind

turbine industry, modest as it is, is all the
more impressive when you consider that
only $3 million out of a $40 million federal R&D budget for the Department of
Energy was devoted to programs assisting
the small wind turbine industry in 2002.
While corporate heavyweights such as
Texaco, Chevron, Amoco, Exxon, Siemens,
Sharp and British Petroleum have all invested in solar PV technology, not one Fortune
500 firm has made similar investments into
small wind turbines. Why havent more
Americans taken advantage of this homegrown renewable energy supply option?
The simple answer is common misperceptions that small wind turbines are much
larger than they actually are, that they represent threats to birds, and that they are too
noisy. Once people see and hear these
machines in action, they typically realize
that small wind turbines can be easily integrated into rural areas. In terms of birds, the
probability of a bird strike is no more than
any other tower, building or tall structure.
Todays small wind turbines also feature
rotor blades specially designed to run quietly. The future market for small wind turbines in the US, and across the globe, is
extremely bright. According to Garrad
Hassan Pacific, the well-known European
consulting firm, the small wind turbine
market will witness a 50-fold increase in
sales within the next ten years. While much
of this anticipated growth is expected in
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