" Wisconsin utilities have long blamed the state's modest wind resource as the reason so little wind energy development has occurred to date. The similarity of the wind regime at Traverse City to Wisconsin's wind regime tells us that the problem has much more to do with utility indifference to customer attitudes than with wind speeds."

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Though its service territory is not especially windy, Traverse City Light & Power is now home to a 600-kW Vestas wind turbine. Installed last summer on the edge of town, it is the largest wind turbine currently operating in North America, and is expected to produce about 1.2 million kilowatt-hours in a year, roughly the annual needs of 200 average TCL&P residential customers.

This project did not require a government mandate to get off the ground. The driving force behind the Traverse City installation was the willingness of 165 residential and commercial customers (about 3% of TCL&P's customers) to pay a premium on their electric bills in order to justify the higher costs of wind generation vis a vis other resource options.

It is worth noting that Traverse City Light and Power, a municipal utility, could just as easily have purchased an equivalent amount of coal-fired electricity from another utility for less money. However, some of TCL&P's customers didn't want to be responsible for the utility's dependence on fossil fuels, and they took the unusual step of demanding a cleaner option, at whatever cost.

Instead of ignoring the preferences of those customers, as utilities typically do, TCL&P fashioned a voluntary "Green Rate" for these customers while leaving the rates of non-subscribing customers unchanged.

TCL&P's residential customers currently pay 6.8 cents/kWh for their electricity, while commercial customers pay a slightly lower rate. To become program subscribers, residential and commercial customers must commit to paying a 1.58 cents/kWh premium, which raises their rates anywhere from 17% to 23%. Residential customers pay this premium over a three-year period, while commercial customers commit to this rate for 10 years. However, these rates are not subject to variable fuel costs as are other rates, meaning that subscribers don't have to worry about rate increases. Another 80 customers are on a waiting list to join the program, which may lead to the installation of a second turbine near the first.

At an installed cost of about $650,000, the wind turbine produces power at a real cost of about 5.5 cents/kWh. Between the voluntary premium and the 1.6 cents/kWh federal production tax incentive, Traverse City Light & Power is able to "dedicate" wind-generated electricity to subscribing customers in a revenue-neutral manner.

TCL&P expects the average annual wind speeds at hub height (50 meters) to range from 14 to 15 mph, a decent but by no means exceptional resource. Wisconsin is endowed with a number of sites (chiefly on the Niagara Escarpment) that have a comparable if not stronger wind resource.

TCL&P's web site characterizes the project as a "back­door approach to solving this economic/environmental problem­­while demonstrating that many consumers, if given a choice, are intelligent enough to do the right thing. They just never get a choice."

Wisconsin utilities have long blamed the state's modest wind resource as the reason so little wind energy development has occurred to date. The similarity of the wind regime at Traverse City to Wisconsin's wind regime tells us that the problem has much more to do with utility indifference to customer attitudes than with wind speeds. As long as Wisconsin utility managers prevent environmentally minded customers from choosing where their electricity comes from, they need only look at the mirror to find the most prominent barriers to renewable energy development in Wisconsin.

For further information, contact the TCL&P web site at http://kermit.traverse.com/wind.