| Green energy group embarks on Ohio Solar Tour, Oct. 5-7 |
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| By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent
COLUMBUS, Ohio — More than 200 sites demonstrating solar, wind, biomass, green design and other energy saving features can be seen on the Ohio Solar Tour, Oct. 5-7, organized by Green Energy Ohio (GEO).
The statewide event features guided or open house tours in all corners of the state.
GEO is a nonprofit organization, which promotes the use of energy and energy efficiency, said GEO Executive Director William Spratley.
“We are expecting in excess of 6,000 visits on those tours,” Spratley said. “We do a couple of things of interest to farmers. We are involved in what we call small wind, the smaller systems for farms or homes. At the Dull Farm (on the tour in Montgomery County, Ohio) there are six small wind turbines, not utility scale, which serve the farm.”
The tour will also visit a commercial wind turbine location in Bowling Green. Twenty-five more turbines are planned for that site, Spratley said.
“We also have a number of homes (on the tour) that have solar and wind power and they complement each other,” Spratley said. “In summer the wind is poor in Ohio, but the sun is the best in summer. A small farm on the tour Rain Fresh Harvests, (visit www.rainfresh harvests.com) is a greenhouse operation powered off-grid by solar and wind.”
GEO is interested in what Spratley called community wind. Other states have turbines, which are owned by farmers. They are initially owned by a company, Spratley used John Deere as an example, for the first 10 years. After the company gets the federal tax credit they turn the turbines over to the local landowners.
“They could be farmers or municipalities,” Spratley said. “The idea is not rows and rows of turbines but to have smaller, community-sized wind turbines. These could go into the grid because these are huge machines.
“Behind the scenes there is as much as 2,400 megawatts of wind farms being planned in Ohio,” Spratley said. “The community wind does not exist in Ohio, but it is something we would like to see along with Ohio Farm Bureau and the Ohio Farmers Union. It would be a plan that would keep the money from the revenue in the local community.”
“We’re very encouraged since the governor announced his plan (Governor Strickland announced grant awards totaling $5 million for the development of utility-scale wind projects)” Spratley said. “There is a provision that would move Ohio to where it should be.”
“He is saying Ohio should get at least a minimum of 12.5 percent of its power from renewable energy by the year 2025,” Spratley said. “That is a huge step forward and that is what we need to drive renewable energy particularly the wind industry in Ohio. Farmers stand to benefit as a cash crop and it has a huge manufacturing job potential for Ohio.”
For information on the tour visit www.green energyohio.org or call toll-free 866-473-3664. Guidebooks for each region will soon be available and can be downloaded by computer as a PDF file.
This farm news was published in the Sept. 12, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
| 9/12/2007 |
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