A fully loaded tractor trailer pulled into the back lot of Pearl Road Auto Wrecking in Cleveland, last week, as Jon Kaplan watched with a weary smile.
JON KAPLAN: It's finally here.
Kaplan is part of the management team that's run this family owned salvage facility for four generations. It's long been a destination for Clevelanders looking to find the front door of a '91 Buick Century or maybe a rust-free gas tank. But, today, it's Jon Kaplan who's buying a used part --- a big one. It's a refurbished, Danish wind turbine that he got from a California company. He's looking to take his business "off the electrical grid" and use this single, giant propeller to meet all his power needs.
JON KAPLAN: We have compressors in both the buildings, lighting, our air conditioning, electric lifts. In the last twelve months, we used 128kW, and this machine is rated at about 120 kW.
Kaplan has dubbed this project "Pearl Wind", and he hired Stefanie Spear of a new firm called Expedite Renewable Energy to supervise the installation, which will rise 140 feet in the air, towering over traffic along Interstate 480. Spear says it will be the first urban windmill in Greater Cleveland.
STEFANIE SPEAR: Not that many businesses across our entire nation have taken on a project like this. I do believe wind is a great marketplace, and we're going to see it explode over the next decade.
Wind power and other forms of renewable energy certainly seem to be growing rapidly in Ohio, thanks to Senate Bill 221 which provides generous incentives to companies who invest in such things as wind turbines and solar panels that plug into the state's electrical grid. The idea is to reduce the so-called carbon footprint of traditional coal-burning power plants that generate most of Ohio's electricity. Kim Wissman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio says over 300 agreements have been signed in the past year connecting alternative energy sources to the Grid.
KIM WISSMAN: And First Energy has had as many in the first six months of this year as they had in all of last year. The volume is increasing, so Senate Bill 221 is working.
And utility companies like First Energy are working overtime to keep up with the requests. Spokesman Mark Durbin says a business can't just put up a windmill and plug it into the Grid.
MARK DURBIN: They need the utility to come in and do an inspection to make sure everything that they're doing would meet our specs. You make sure every "i" is dotted, every "t" is crossed in order for the system to work as it needs to.
The time it takes to cross all those "i"s and "t"s has prompted some green energy advocates to charge that the utilities are dragging their feet at the thought of losing their monopoly on power generation. First Energy says it has no beef with this growing group of independents. But, the utilities do caution those thinking about installing their own wind turbines to carefully consider the expense. Although the state is willing to back you for 40% of the cost, just one turbine can cost a hundred thousand dollars or more. How long would it take to break even on that kind of investment?
CHUCK NORTON: This remains to be seen --- but it's supposedly about eight years, assuming that electrical rates go up at about 5% a year.
That's Chuck Norton. As Chief Financial Officer of the Lorain County recycling firm, Turtle Plastics, he is cautiously optimistic about the prospects for the turbine that's been up and running in his parking lot for the past couple months. He says the interconnection with First Energy went smoothly. The state tells him he can even make a little money on the deal if he feeds any surplus power back into the Grid. But, he doesn't expect that to amount to much.
CHUCK NORTON: And that's okay with us, we don't want to be in the business of making power. We just want to be as independent and cost-effective as we can.
Norton figures that after a full year he'll have a better idea whether the investment was worth it. Or whether he was just tilting at windmills.
