Wisconsin Serves a Mixed Bag
Wisconsin lawmakers tackled the thorny issue of siting standards for wind projects by directing state regulators to draft rules. Those regulators have just signed off on their final document.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) of Wisconsin finished administrative rules governing the siting of wind turbines, which considered the work by a task force of utilities, wind developers, environmentalists, realtors and others in response to a state law. The rules apply to wind sites of less than 100 megawatts of nameplate capacity.
I recently spoke to task force member Michael Vickerman when the commission was still holding hearings on the rule. I caught up with him this week after its work was completed.
Vickerman is the executive director of the renewable advocacy group RENEW Wisconsin.
"Having a rule in place by the end of the year is better than having no rule," Vickerman said. "We really don't want to go back to the way things were."
He's referring to the 72 sets of standards - one for each Wisconsin county - currently in place that creates headaches for development, unequal treatment and in some cases akes wind projects impossible.
But that doesn't make for a ringing endorsement of the PSC's work. There are more than a couple objections. Vickerman cited a few.
Setback requirements for turbines are the first provisions he mentioned. Turbines that are not on a host's property must be 3.1 times the blade height distant from a "non-participating" dwelling, that is, a neighbor's house. In other words, that's about 1,200 feet from a GE or Vestas turbine commonly used over the past decade. "That kind of locks us into the technology of 2008," he said.
So newer turbines in the 2.5-megawatt class with blade tip heights of well over 400 feet are out. In eastern Wisconsin that makes siting especially difficult, if not impossible.
One other area that causes concern is a provision that lets local government require "good-neighbor payments" up to a half-mile away from a turbine, in effect a one-mile-wide area. Every homeowner within that circle would be eligible for payment. The annual payments can be 25 percent of what the wind farm owner pays to the landowners where the turbines are planted.
"That's going to increase costs," Vickerman said. "We championed good-neighbor payments as a way to bridge the jealousy question that occasionally polarizes communities." But the amount is excessive.
He said the provisions don't address the public health and safety concerns that should have been the focus of the PSC or even go beyond its legislative mandate. "Money doesn't make you less aware of shadow flicker," for example, he said.
Are there provisions that RENEW can endorse wholeheartedly? A few, it turns out, like setting the benchmark for small wind at 300 kilowatts. "Small wind came out unscathed," Vickerman said.
There is still the chance a state legislative committee could opt to change any of the provisions of the rule, but that decision won't be made for about a week.
But there's one take-away from our conversation. "I would be surprised if there were a stampede of development coming into Wisconsin if this rule was adopted as drafted," he concluded.
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