Resource Documents: U.S. (133 items)
Documents presented here are not the product of nor are they necessarily endorsed by National Wind Watch. These resource documents are provided to assist anyone wishing to research the issue of industrial wind power and the impacts of its development. The information should be evaluated by each reader to come to their own conclusions about the many areas of debate.
Memorandum of lease
Author: Upland Prairie c/o Apex Clean Energy
1. Lease. For the term and upon the provisions set forth in that Wind Energy Lease of even date herewith (the “Effective Date”) between Landlord and Tenant (the “Lease”), all of which provisions are specifically made a part hereof as though fully and completely set forth herein, Landlord hereby leases to Tenant, and Tenant hereby leases from Landlord for Wind Energy Purposes, that certain real property (the “Property”) located in Clay County, Iowa, as more particularly described in Exhibit “A” attached hereto, together with all rights of ingress and egress and all other rights appurtenant to the Property, as more particularly described in the Lease. Pursuant to the Lease, Tenant has the sole and exclusive rights to use the Property for Wind Energy Purposes.
2. No Interference. The Lease requires Landlord, during the Term of the Lease, not to cause nor permit any restriction or interference with: (a) the siting, permitting, construction, installation, maintenance, operation, replacement, or removal of Wind Facilities; (b) the flow of wind, wind speed or wind direction over the Property; (c) access over the Property to Wind Facilities; or (d) any other activities of Tenant permitted under the Lease.
3. Term. The term of the Lease shall expire eight (8) years after the Effective Date, if not extended or sooner terminated as provided in this Lease. Tenant may at its sole discretion extend the term of this Lease for an additional thirty (30) year term, with the further option to extend the term for two (2) additional ten (10) year terms.
4. Notice. This Memorandum is prepared for the purpose of giving notice of the Lease and in no way modifies the express provisions of the Lease. In the event of any conflict between the terms and provisions of the Lease and this Memorandum, the Lease shall control. This Memorandum shall continue to constitute notice of the Lease and all amendments thereto, even if the Lease is subsequently amended.
5. Successors and Assigns. The covenants, conditions and restrictions contained in the Lease shall run with the land and be binding on the successors and assigns of both Landlord and Tenant. Tenant and any transferee shall have the right throughout the Term to transfer, convey, sublease or assign this Lease or any interest in this Lease, the Property or the wind facilities to any person or entity without the consent of Landlord.
6. Ownership of Wind Facilities. Tenant shall at all times retain title to the Wind Facilities and shall have the right to remove them from the Property at any time. Landlord shall have no ownership, lien, security or other interest in any Wind Facilities installed on the Property and Landlord expressly waives, relinquishes and quitclaims any lien or security interest in and to the Wind Facilities or any other real or personal property of Tenant, whether arising at law or in equity.
7. No Severance of Wind Energy Rights. Landlord shall not assign or otherwise transfer an interest in the wind energy rights to the Property, or a portion thereof, separate from fee title to such real property, without Tenant’s consent which Tenant may withhold in its sole discretion.
8. Right of Reentry. Upon expiration or termination of the Term, Tenant shall have a license to enter onto the Property for eighteen (18) months following termination to restore the Property and for other activities as set forth in the Lease.
9. Transmission and Access Easement. If a utility requires and/or Tenant requests an easement in perpetuity with respect to one or more of the rights granted to Tenant pursuant to the Transmission and Access Easement, then Landlord shall grant the utility and/or Tenant, as applicable, such perpetual easement which covers the portion of the Property occupied by the utility’s and/or Tenant’s permanent roads, overhead and underground electrical and communications lines, collection and/or transmission equipment, as applicable, upon the terms set forth in the Lease.
As used herein, the term “Transmission and Access Easement” means, collectively, Tenant’s (i) exclusive right to construct, install, lay down, erect, improve, place, replace, remove, relocate and operate permanent roads, overhead and underground electrical and communications lines, collection and transmission equipment on the Property, and (ii) right of access more particularly described in Section 4.3 of the Lease.
Download original document: “Memorandum of lease”
Wind farm participation and support agreement
Author: Apex Clean Energy
Owner is the owner of that certain tract of real property located in Van Wert County, Ohio …
1. Setback Waiver.
1.1 To the extent that any applicable law, ordinance, regulation or permit establishes, or has established, minimum setbacks from the exterior boundaries of the Property (or any structures thereon) for Windpower Facilities constructed on Wind Farm Property, Owner hereby waives any and all such setback requirements (the “Setback Waiver”); provided however, Grantee agrees not to construct a Wind Turbine within One Thousand Three Hundred Twenty Feet (1,320’) of any occupied residence located on the Property (as measured from the edge of the base of the Wind Turbine to the exterior of the closest foundation of any occupied residence on the Property as of the date hereof) and not to allow the blade of any Wind Turbine to overhang any boundary of the Property.For the avoidance of doubt, this Agreement does not grant to Grantee the right to construct Windpower Facilities on the Property. …
11. Confidentiality. Owner shall maintain in confidence all information pertaining to the financial terms of or payments under this Agreement, whether disclosed by Grantee or discovered by Owner, unless such information is in the public domain by reason of prior publication through no act or omission of Owner or its employees or agents. Owner shall not publish or otherwise disclose such information to others except to accountants, lawyers, or other professionals who receive such information under an obligation of confidentiality; buyers of the Property; lenders that have a security interest in the Property; or family members who agree to keep such information confidential. The provisions of this Section 11 shall survive the termination or expiration of this Agreement.
12. Wind Energy Lease Agreement. In the event that Owner and Grantee enter into a Wind Energy Lease Agreement or other similar instrument whereby Owner grants Grantee the exclusive right to install Wind Turbines and/or Windpower Facilities on the Property, then this Agreement shall be superseded by such instrument and this Agreement and all payment obligations hereunder shall terminate as of the effective date of such instrument. The foregoing shall not obligate either party to enter into any Wind Energy Lease Agreement or other similar instrument unless it determines in its own best interest to do so.
FEE SCHEDULE
Grantee shall make the following payments to Owner during the Term:
(1) within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date of this Agreement, a one-time payment of Five Hundred and No/100 Dollars ($500.00); AND
(2) Upon the Commercial Operations Date of the Phase in which the Property is a part (as determined by Grantee in its reasonable discretion), an annual payment equal to one of the following, as applicable:
(B) One Thousand and No/100 Dollars ($1,000.00) if any boundary of the Property is within one thousand one hundred twenty-five feet (1,125’) of the nearest Wind Turbine (measured horizontally from the tip of the turbine’s nearest blade at 90 degrees from the turbine tower to the nearest adjacent property line of the Property) on such date; OR
(C) Five Hundred and No/100 Dollars ($500.00) if neither subsection (A) nor (B) above apply.
The annual payment due hereunder, shall be paid by Grantee within thirty (30) days after the Commercial Operations Date and then annually within thirty (30) days after each anniversary of the Commercial Operations Date until all of the Wind Turbines in the Phase of the Wind Farm of which the Property is a part are decommissioned.
Download original document: “Wind farm participation and support agreement”
Falmouth wind turbines: Decision for larger, overlooked louder
Author: Ambrose, Stephen
Separation distance is the solitary wind turbine noise control method to assure protections for public health and compatibility with the area. (Two international consensus guidelines may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a regulatory statute: WHO 2009 Table 1 noise effects on health, and ANSI S12.9, Parts 4 & 5 assessment of compatibility.) A direct relationship connects sound power level (Lw) to noise source distance: ISO 9613-2, section 7.1: Adiv = 20Log(m) + 11 dB. The MassDEP regulates the maximum noise level increase (LI) to more than 10 dB (Lmax) above the baseline ambient (BA) L90, without the noise source when measured (or predicted) at the neighbor’s property line (PL). A simple equation predicts the highest allowed sound power level by distance: Lw = Adiv + LI + BA.
1. Locate Wind-1, Wind-2 and Notus on Google Earth (GE),
2. Using GE’s ruler circle draw, measure each wind turbine distance to the nearest residential property lines.
3. The highest allowed wind turbine sound power levels are shown in the table below comparing manufacturers published noise data.
Falmouth Wind Turbines: Cape Cod Commission vs acoustic experts
The Cape Cod Commission recognizes that wind turbines harm public health when installed near residential communities. Unfortunately, wind turbine acoustic experts emphasize sound measurements and noise predictions, omitting assessing for activity disturbance and nuisance. The Commission has chosen an alternative and potentially a more reliable screening tool than blind and deaf noise level predictions, by imposing a mandatory setback distance based on 10 times the rotor diameter. How effective is their approach?
1. Locate Wind-1, Wind-2 and Notus on Google Earth (GE),
2. Using GE’s ruler circle draw, measure each wind turbine distance to the nearest residential property lines.
3. Divide the property line distance by 10.
4. Use Siemens sound power chart (Low-noise wind turbine design, Stefan Oerlemans, Peter Fuglsang, Siemens Wind Power A/S, 2012 EWEA-Noise-Workshop-Oxford-2012-1-1-Stefan-Oerlemans.pdf (page 11)) to estimate maximum allowable wind turbine sound power level (Lw) from rotor diameter. Compare to wind turbine sound power levels.
Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar
Author: Clack, Christopher; Qvist, Staffan; Apt, Jay; et al.
[Abstract] A number of analyses, meta-analyses, and assessments, including those performed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the International Energy Agency, have concluded that deployment of a diverse portfolio of clean energy technologies makes a transition to a low-carbon-emission energy system both more feasible and less costly than other pathways. In contrast, Jacobson et al. [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2015;112(49):15060–5 (ref. 11)] argue that it is feasible to provide “low-cost solutions to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of WWS [wind, water and solar power] across all energy sectors in the continental United States between 2050 and 2055”, with only electricity and hydrogen as energy carriers. In this paper, we evaluate that study and find significant short- comings in the analysis. In particular, we point out that this work used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions. Policy makers should treat with caution any visions of a rapid, reliable, and low-cost transition to entire energy systems that relies almost exclusively on wind, solar, and hydroelectric power.
[Introduction] Wind and solar are variable energy sources, and some way must be found to address the issue of how to provide energy if their immediate output cannot continuously meet instantaneous demand. The main options are to (i) curtail load (i.e., modify or fail to satisfy demand) at times when energy is not available, (ii) deploy very large amounts of energy storage, or (iii) provide supplemental energy sources that can be dispatched when needed. It is not yet clear how much it is possible to curtail loads, especially over long durations, without incurring large economic costs. There are no electric storage systems available today that can affordably and dependably store the vast amounts of energy needed over weeks to reliably satisfy demand using expanded wind and solar power generation alone. These facts have led many US and global energy system analyses (1–10) to recognize the importance of a broad portfolio of electricity generation technologies, including sources that can be dispatched when needed.
[Conclusions] The scenarios of ref. 11 can, at best, be described as a poorly executed exploration of an interesting hypothesis. The study’s numerous shortcomings and errors render it unreliable as a guide about the likely cost, technical reliability, or feasibility of a 100% wind, solar, and hydroelectric power system.
Christopher T. M. Clack, Staffan A. Qvist, Jay Apt, Morgan Bazilian, Adam R. Brandt, Ken Caldeira, Steven J. Davis, Victor Diakov, Mark A. Handschy, Paul D. H. Hines, Paulina Jaramillo, Daniel M. Kammen, Jane C. S. Long, M. Granger Morgan, Adam Reed, Varun Sivaram, James Sweeney, George R. Tynan, David G. Victor, John P. Weyant, and Jay F. Whitacre
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Published online June 19, 2017. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1610381114
Download original document: “Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar”
Download Supporting Information Appendix containing the details of this evaluation.
Download Dataset 1 and Dataset 2 containing data and calculations used to produce the figures.
