News

Developers fighting windmill plan

PROVO — How’s this for Quixotic?
Phillip Green’s eye is tilted toward a windmill at Point of the Mountain, where he wants to determine if enough wind blows to spin the blades on power-generating turbines.

By Rodger L. Hardy
Deseret News staff writer

If it does, he wants to build a windmill farm atop the geological boundary between Salt Lake and Utah counties — one big enough to compete with Utah Power to be the electricity provider for nearby cities and towns.

And, of course, that worries developers of two upscale projects who see the presence of windmills blowing away their profits.

The Utah County Board of Adjustment granted Green’s request Thursday but told him to post a $5,000 bond to make sure he takes down the 60-foot testing tower within two years.
Jeff Anderson, president of Suncrest Development, and Steven Christensen, a partner with the Traverse Mountain project, filed protest letters.

But the board set aside the protests, saying they were irrelevant. The protests concerned a potential windmill farm, not testing the wind, which was all Green was seeking.
"Even a temporary tower would diminish property values," Anderson told the Deseret News.

And Green admits ambitious plans after the testing phase. "We’ll put as many windmills on those ridges as we can," he said.
Green must justify the investment a windmill farm would require. He needs 25-mile-per-hour winds at least 90 days a year to construct commercial wind turbines atop the mountain.
"Unless there’s really good wind up there, I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole," he said.

Green wants to use government subsidies and incentives if he creates a windmill farm on the 471 acres owned by his family.
The tower with its wind-testing gauges would be built about a mile and a half from new homes — but roads for future homes come within a quarter mile of the testing site, Green said.

Windmills could help developers in several ways, Green said, including generating power to pump water to the developments for help in fighting potential fires.
It could also generate power to light the new homes, Green asserted. "We could compete with Utah Power."
He estimates state-of-the art windmills could generate enough electricity to justify the expense. The turbines would be much larger than the windmill at nearby Camp Williams, he said, which can be seen from I-15.

That wind turbine, the only one in Utah, generates 0.2 megawatts annually, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Green’s site is 2,000 feet higher, and at a much windier site, which would increase exponentially the amount of power that could be generated, he said.

The protest letters cite more than a dozen concerns, including the danger the tower may pose to low-flying aircraft and wildlife. But Green said the tower would have to be at least 150 feet in height before needing lights to warn off aircraft.

As for wildlife, "I don’t see how they could be harmed," he said, "unless they ran into the steel pole."

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