Scanlin Testifies At Wind Resources Hearing By Scott Nicholson Though the jury is still out on the fate of a proposed commercial wind farm in Ashe County, a local man’s data suggests the winds of change won’t die down anytime soon. Small wind turbine on Beech Mtn. Photo courtesy of Dennis Scanlin Dennis Scanlin, professor in the Appropriate Technology program at Appalachian State University, testified at a hearing of the N.C. Utilities Commission about his research on wind resources in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The hearing was held to determine the future of a wind farm in Ashe County, where Richard Calhoun of Northwest Wind Developers LLC has proposed placing 25 to 28 large-scale wind turbines in the Creston community. As Ashe County planners work on an ordinance regulating wind energy, modeled largely on an ordinance passed a few months ago in Watauga County, the utilities commission addressed the issue with a second hearing that pitted developers and landowners against Calhoun and alternative-energy advocates. The commission concluded Tuesday’s hearing by granting Calhoun a 120-day postponement that will allow both sides more time to gather data. Under the granted motion, Calhoun has until June 13 to deliver expert testimony supporting his project, opponents can offer rebuttal testimony for 30 days following that deadline, and then Calhoun will have two more weeks to respond to rebuttals. Scanlin, who has been teaching and studying alternative energy systems for more than 20 years, testified about the region’s wind energy history, including a NASA project in the late 1970s that placed a large wind turbine on top of Howard’s Knob in Boone. Though the project ended in 1983, Scanlin said the experiment’s results showed promise. Though interest in wind energy waned because of high cost and relatively inexpensive electricity, the mountains remained suitable for more research. “I continued to measure wind velocities throughout the region and was quite impressed with some of the data I collected on high mountain ridges and occasionally had the opportunity to share this research with others in regional and state conferences,” Scanlin told the utilities commission. “Wind technology was also steadily improving and by the mid-90’s was producing electricity at competitive prices in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.” In 2001, Scanlin worked on a wind assessment study presented to the Department of Energy. Scanlin said the study confirmed the presence of outstanding wind resources throughout western North Carolina and also documented the feasibility of producing electricity with modern wind energy technology. ”Using this map data, we identified 770,000 acres of land in the 24 western North Carolina counties with Class 2 or higher resources, which are generally considered adequate for electricity production,” Scanlin testified. “These windy lands are primarily located along close to 2,000 miles of ridgeline throughout the region. By combining county parcel map data with the wind data, we were able to identify more than 50,000 property owners in western North Carolina owning land with these wind resources. ”We also examined wind resources in each county and produced wind maps for each of the 24 counties. Based on our analysis, Ashe County, the site of the proposed project, has the fourth-greatest number of windy acres of land and the second-greatest number of privately owned utility scale acres of windy land in the 24 western counties.” Scanlin also testified about the limiting effect of the state’s ridge law that was adopted in 1983, largely as a result of construction of a multi-story condominium building at Sugar Mountain. Scanlin delivered a statement to the utilities commission from David Diamont, a state senator at the time the bill was enacted, saying the law’s language was meant to exempt wind energy systems. The North Carolina Attorney General’s Office has maintained the ridge law would only exempt solitary windmills. Scanlin said after the meeting that his research suggested Watauga County had the highest number of privately-owned acres suitable for wind energy of any county in the state. Tuesday’s hearing was a follow-up to one held in Ashe County on Jan. 25.