Winery harnesses power of wind

• One of Homer’s first businesses embarks on journey into alternative
energy

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

The owners of Bear Creek Winery and Lodging are some of the first in town to install a wind system, hoping to generate enough electricity to operate equipment in the winery – including keeping the building warm enough to allow the wine to ferment.
Dorothy and Bill Fry, who established Bear Creek five years ago, set up a 70-foot wind tower at the winery on Friday. Installed by Alaska Wind Industries, the turbine has already generated 12.4 kilowatts. That’s enough to produce 400 kilowatts per month; enough to supply a small house, approximately 900 square feet.
Dorothy Fry said the wind turbine started producing power the same day that Homer Electric Association hooked the turbine to the grid. The wind system at Bear Creek Winery is at 2.4kw, which means it will produce 2.4 kilowatts through the electrical line at 24 mile-per hour winds at its maximum capacity. This turbine has a 12-foot diameter blade to grab as much wind as possible. It starts producing energy with eight-mile-per hour winds.
In shopping around for the wind system, Fry said she did some research and checked out what others were doing. She also won some grant money to help defray the costs.
“It’s exciting to see how many people are willing to make an investment,” she said. “I can’t wait until we get to a point when it‘s automatically incorporated into the grid.”
The Skystream 3.7 runs between $12,000 to $18,000 to purchase and install, although costs vary significantly depending on the site, said Nadia Daggett, a wind coordinator at Alaska Wind Industries.
“Depending on the tower and installation costs, wind speed average, rebates and local electricity costs, Skystream 3.7 can pay for itself in as quickly as five years,” Daggett said.
Now that it’s up and running, Dorothy Fry said the only sound it makes is something like the sound of knobby mountain bike tires on a road.
“We’re not hearing it constantly. It doesn’t wake you up. It’s quiet,” she said. “If you were standing by the car and it’s running or idling, you wouldn’t be able to hear it.”
The Bear Creek Winery, located about three miles out East End Road, is not considered a very wind-blown area like the bluff or the Homer Spit.
“It’s not where there’s more wind production, but we do as much as we can to lesson our carbon footprint,” Fry said. “We felt very strongly that you can’t just talk the talk. You have to walk the walk.”
Since it is a relatively new way to generate electricity, Fry said she believes people need to share their information about how it all works. It’s a dialogue she is happy to participate in.
Watching as Homer City Council has debated wind turbine guidelines for the past few months, Fry said she found the discussion interesting. Since she is outside the city limits, the newly adopted wind ordinance doesn’t apply to her. Land outside the city limits has no restrictions on wind systems, while those inside the city can only be installed on an acre or more of land.
So far, Fry said she isn’t sure what portion of the electricity her new wind system will supply the separate building that houses the winery. The operation uses a lot of electricity, including a heater to keep the wine at a certain temperature needed for fermentation, as well as bottling equipment, freezers for berries, a filter system and lights. Discovering how much can be operated on wind will be part of the learning process, she said.
“Not everyone can go purchase a windmill and put it up, because it is an investment and it’s not an inexpensive system,” Fry said. “I don’t know how long it will take to get the pay back, but it was worth it to us to make the investment. The costs might come down so that it becomes an automatic process when people do construction. We’ll find out what’s going to work and what’s not going to work.”
Bear Creek will hold an open house on Oct. 11 from noon to 5 p.m., to offer information to others in Homer about how the system operates. Alaska Wind Industries will hold a renewable energy conference at Island and Ocean Visitor’s Center from 2 to 4 p.m. on Oct. 10. The conference will feature wind and solar experts to offer instruction on the latest products tested in Alaska. For more information, go to www.akwindindustries.com.

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Posted by Newsroom on Sep 30th, 2009 and filed under More News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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