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Tower of power: Tests to determine if wind is suitable for energy source
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
Photo
Odell Coleman of the ColemanWick consulting company of Cleveland, left, holds an anemometer, while Emily Sauttere of Geen Energy Ohio holds a wind vane. These devices will be mounted on a 160-foot wind- testing tower at the west end of the Austin Village Plaza in Warren as part of a private-public project to determine whether the city has enough wind to make wind-generated energy feasible here. Behind them is the area where the tower is being constructed.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
For the next year, a 160-foot tower to be installed on the west end of Austin Village Plaza on West Market Street will be checking wind speed to help determine whether there is a future here for wind-powered energy.
Emily Sautter, wind-program manager for Green Energy Ohio, a nonprofit organization that promotes the use of renewable energy, said she doesn’t know yet what the results will show.
If the testing indicates that there is a sufficient amount of wind, the next step will be to construct a power-generation tower, possibly in the same location.
“The hope is a wind-power installation would provide clean energy to businesses near the tower and encourage other green-energy projects in the Mahoning Valley,” a press release from the West Warren Industrial Partnership said.
The partnership is constructing the tower under a grant from the Ohio Anemometer Loan Program, which provides most of the funding and technical assistance to wind-energy projects.
The partnership is made up of government bodies and business people, including Joseph M. Shafran, owner of Austin Village Plaza, and Mark Marvin, owner of Reinforcement Systems of Ohio, which is just completing construction of a manufacturing facility across West Market Street from Austin Village Plaza.
The tower construction should be complete next week and will cost between $55,000 and $60,000. The partnership provided $7,500 in matching funds.
Mayor Michael O’Brien said the new factory and wind-testing tower will make for a “progressive appearance” into the city on the West Side — a modern production facility employing about 65 people and research aimed at promoting green energy.
Similar testing towers are being constructed in two other Ohio cities — Solon in Northeast Ohio and Greenfield, which is between Columbus and Cincinnati.
There are four utility-scale energy-producing wind turbines in use in Bowling Green, in northwest Ohio, Sautter said. Those cost around $3 million each, Sautter said.
Wind-speed testing has been done on a limited basis throughout the state, but nothing specific enough for an investor to use, Sautter said.
“If you want to sink some money into a project, you’d better have specific data,” said Odell Coleman, a principal in ColemanWick, a Cleveland consulting company involved in the project.
Sautter noted that 2008 legislation signed by then-Gov. Ted Strickland requires the use of renewable energy by 2025.
The law requires that at least 25 percent of all electricity sold in Ohio come from alternative-energy resources and at least half of that from in-state renewable energy generation such as wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower or biomass.