Planners give OK to wind turbine project
HOLLAND TOWNSHIP — Two 50-kilowatt wind turbines planned near soccer fields at a township park won’t generate much more noise than that made by cars and other nearby sources, Zeeland Board of Public Works officials assured township planners Tuesday.
The Planning Commission voted unanimously to give the BPW the ability to erect the 145-foot turbines at Helder Park off Quincy Street and 104th Avenue. The utility needed a special land use approval from the township for the project to proceed.
Some nearby residents had expressed concern about noise levels from the turbines, as well as their visual impact. From about 400 feet away, however, the noise from “the turbines become indistinguishable against other ambient noise you might hear,” said Mark Boumansour of Entegrity Wind Systems, the Colorado-based company working with Zeeland BPW on the project.
Tuesday’s approval leaves one final step standing in the way of the wind turbine project, which would be the first of its kind in West Michigan. The Township Board plans to vote Thursday on a 25-year lease with the BPW, which already has been approved by the Zeeland City Council.
“From what I’ve heard from the Township Board, they want it,” Planning Commission Chairman Marion Hoeve said.
If approved, the turbines could be installed at Helder Park next spring, BPW General Manager David Walters said.
The wind project isn’t expected to generate a great deal of power — about 180,000 kilowatts a year, enough to power about 20 to 22 homes — but BPW officials say it’s still an important part of the utility’s efforts to generate energy from renewable sources.
“Zeeland is not in a good location to put in a large-scale wind turbine, but we believe wind is a piece of the puzzle,” Walters said.
The BPW also plans to build a plant near the Autumn Hills landfill that will convert methane gas from the landfill into power, a project that could go online next summer.
The two turbines will be located 600 feet apart, on 120-foot-high monopoles. The three blades on the rotor are 25 feet long apiece, Walters said.
By comparison, the nearby Holland Township water tower is 171 feet high, Walters said.
Unlike larger wind turbines found on industrial wind farms, the turbines planned for Helder Park can be activated with lower wind speeds, Boumansour said.
Entegrity has built more than 100 wind turbine projects around the world, including in the Siberian region of Russia, Ireland, Canada and the United States.
by Greg Chandler | The Grand Rapids Press
2 September 2008
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