Winter's warming winds

The foundation has been poured and the building permit has been issued for what is believed to be Digby County's first domestic wind turbine.

The turbine is expected to be providing power to Larry Melanson's home in Gilbert's Cove within a month.

Hubert Legge, Second Source Power’s representative, said his company is now awaiting a ‘weather window’ for installation of the 60-foot wind tower. “The ground needs to be frozen enough to support the weight of the heavy equipment and we need a still day—the crane will arrive very early in the morning.”

Melanson says once his wind turbine is operational he expects it to produce more than enough electricity for his personal consumption. This includes heating the 150 year-old home he shares with his 94 year-old father.

Melanson first got interested in the possibility of a domestic wind turbine last August. His brother attended a trade show in Halifax and collected literature and information for him.

Melanson decided on a turbine slightly larger than the norm for domestic use—a five kilowatt (kw) turbine capable of producing 1200 kw hours per month. “There really nothing very fancy or complicated about the system,” says Melanson. Electricity produced by the wind turbine just feeds into my electrical box. Second Source will service it regularly, and there’s a brake in my house if I ever want to turn it off.”

He has already had a net meter installed, and has signed a net metering contract with Nova Scotia Power.

Melanson says if he decides to use electric heat exclusively, in the winter months he will use more electricity than his wind turbine produces and he will draw power from Nova Scotia Power’s grid. But in the summer months, his excess electricity will go onto the grid.

At the end of the year—a 12-month period defined by Melanson—the power company will do the math and as long he has not used more ‘grid power’ than he has provided them, he will not owe them anything.

The Nova Scotia Power net metering contract prohibits the owner of a domestic turbine from sharing with a neighbour. “The contract says the turbine must be on your property and can only be used by your property,” says Melanson.

The life-long Gilberts Cove resident says he sees himself purchasing an electric car in a year or two, and this is one of the reasons he has bought a wind turbine slightly larger than what he presently needs. “The Chevy Volt is scheduled for release in 2010. It will cover 65 kilometres from a single charge. So if I buy one of them, I’ll easily be able to drive to Digby and back without using any fuel,”

Melanson acknowledges that he put his plans together quite quickly and says this is partly because of the wind turbine bylaw being developed by the municipality of Digby. Once it is adopted, that bylaw will govern setbacks of future industrial and small-scale wind turbines. Melanson attended a couple of meetings and found himself perplexed that the committee developing the bylaw seemed to view domestic turbines as smaller versions of industrial turbines. “They are entirely different animals,” says Legge, whose company has installed more than 50 small-scale turbines in the province. “Domestic turbines are so quiet.”

Domestic turbines are also ‘so new’ that ING, the company that has insured Melanson’s home for many years, told him they would cancel his policy if he chose wind power. Melanson says he called a couple of other insurance companies and was told they would have no problem insuring him.

Melanson says his dad and many of his neighbours have become very interested in the project. For years, the winds off Saint Mary’s Bay have contributed to mounting heating bills, so the notion of those using those winds to provide heat is an intriguing one.