February 2, 2012
Nova Scotia

Wind turbine symbolic for municipality

Jonathan Riley, The Digby County Courier, 2 February 2012

The Municipality of the District of Digby has voted to purchase a 5 kW wind turbine and install it at their wastewater treatment facility in Smith’s Cove.

The municipality will spend $42,000 plus HST for the small turbine installed on a 120′ tower near the pump shed.

Council hopes the turbine will mitigate the electrical costs at the treatment facility.

With 22 kmh winds, the turbine could generate 12-15,000 kWh per year-not enough to run the plant-but enough to reduce power costs.

The project is not a COMFIT project but it will be net-metered-meaning whatever extra energy they produce, will be sold back into the grid at normal retail rates.

Terry Thibodeau is the municipality’s new renewable energy and climate change coordinator. He says the turbine project is important symbolically.

“It gets us on the map,” says Thibodeau. “It shows we are committed to looking at renewable energies in earnest.”

The S-343 made by Endurance Power weighs 300 kg and will sit on a 120′ tower with guy lines and a gin pole for lowering and raising the turbine for maintenance.

Thibodeau says the turbine could also serve as an anemometer-for measuring wind speeds-in the Smith’s Cove location, and due to its portability, in other locations around the municipality, like in the industrial park for example.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/02/02/wind-turbine-symbolic-for-municipality/