March 11, 2014
Prince Edward Island

Kensington council awaiting word on future of wind turbine

Mike Carson | The Journal Pioneer | Published on March 10, 2014 | www.journalpioneer.com

KENSINGTON – Kensington town council is awaiting word on the future of a wind mill that was intended to be a costs savings for the operation at Community Gardens.

The town has taken out a $70,000 loan for a turbine that has generated a kilowatt of power since late last year.

“It’s been down just since before Christmas,” said Deputy Mayor Rowan Caseley. “It was shut down because there’s some sort of a flaw in the piece of equipment It was shut down for a safety reason, I believe It was shut down by the supplier himself.”

Caseley said the town was generating about $500 a moth in electrical power through the wind turbine or between $5,000 and $6,000 annually.

“That’s not enough to pay for the cost of extra insurance for the operation,”he said “It actually cost us money to have the windmill there.”

He said three other rinks, Alberton, Crapaud and Murray Harbour, who have the same wind turbines, have also been shut down.

“All four rinks, we’re all in the same boat,” the deputy mayor said “That’s been part of the discussions that have been going on Whether the province and the Wind Energy Institute of Canada and Seaforth, which is the owner and the rinks, they’re all trying to get together and come up with something that will work I don’t know what it will be Maybe they’ll take them all back. Maybe they‘ll give us a discount Maybe they‘ll find a way to make them all work.”

Caseley said there has been no indication of when a decision will be made on the wind mills but he thought it would be soon.

“The four groups are talking now,” he said. “They are talking to rink managers and those discussions are going on at the rink levels at the management level and (Treasurer Wes) Sheridan was involved from the government side so I think the government is putting some pressure on them to come up with a solution They recognize that this is not fair to the rinks It’s costing the rinks money and it’s not fair It was intended to save money and it isn’t.”

Caseley said the initial loan for the wind mill was $70,000 and the town was supposed to generate enough savings to pay the loan off over a seven year period.

“We were suppose to be able to pay back $10,000 a year from savings which we’re not,” he said “Just to have wind mill insurance is $7,000 Fortunately, for the town (it has a second wind mill) we already had it. We were looking at paying off our loan and a great deal more than that.”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2014/03/11/kensington-council-awaiting-word-on-future-of-wind-turbine/