By LINDA McGURK
Indiana Correspondent

COVINGTON, Ind. — Energy prices may have come down from last year’s highs, but the interest in renewable energy is far from abating, according to Chad Martin, Purdue University renewable energy extension specialist.

“We’re seeing a lot of demand in various areas,” he said during a March 17 bi-state program in Covington, Ind. “What I get the most calls about right now is wind energy, and it isn’t just about the big wind farms, but small, residential turbines as well.”

Several factors are driving the rapid expansion of wind energy in the United States, including uncertainty about fuel prices and concerns about the environmental impact of fossil fuels. Current federal and state policies support renewables as a long-term strategy to energy independence, although Martin pointed out many of the details still have to be hashed out.

Until recently, Indiana was a “white blip on the map” in terms of wind energy capacity, but that’s changing rapidly, Martin said.
The state has 228 megawatts of wind power capacity, mainly from the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Benton County.

And more projects are in the works. Just last week, Houston, Texas-based Horizon Wind Energy announced plans for a 200-megawatt wind farm in White County. The company expects to complete the installation of 121 wind turbines in area farm fields by October of this year, and already has plans for several other wind farms in Indiana.

The frenzied competition for land is prompting Indiana counties to adopt new ordinances to regulate wind farm development. As of last week, 11 counties in the state had such ordinances in place.
“Just in the past five months we’ve seen the level of activity increase tremendously,” Martin said. “These wind farm developers are coming down fast and they’re coming down hard. They are really working the landowners, so it’s important to have ordinances in place.”

Indiana’s wind energy capacity is expected to reach 1,000 megawatts, which would have a tremendous effect on the state in terms of economic development, Martin said. Conservative estimates of the direct impacts include $2.7 million paid annually to landowners for leasing to wind developers, $16 million in property tax revenue and 1,550 new jobs.

“This is a revolution for our rural areas, we’re seeing opportunities like we’ve never seen before,” Martin said.

If wind energy is becoming a cost-effective and commercially available source of renewable energy, solar energy has yet to overcome some hurdles, according to Ted Funk, a University of Illinois bioenvironmental engineering extension specialist, who also presented during the program.

“I think the interest (in solar) is low. The emphasis now is on wind energy,” he said.

Although solar energy technology is available off the shelf, the trick is to make the often-expensive systems pay for themselves.
Funk said passive and active solar technologies are more likely to be cost-effective when used in new construction than in retrofitted buildings, and when the energy can be used directly rather than stored.

“The uses that I like to push are remote location systems for water pumps, electrical fence chargers and battery charging. We know we can get those to pay off,” he said.

For more information about renewable energy and grants available for ag producers, go to www.extension.purdue.edu/renewable-energy