Southwest Windpower is the manufacturer of Skystream 3.7 and we appreciate becoming part of the discussion around village power in Alaska. We recognize and applaud the work that AVEC has done over the past several years in bringing wind power to their village power plants. They have successfully negotiated the federal and state grant and loan process for the benefit of the residents of their villages, and continue to do so on an ongoing basis. The Northern Power NorthWind 100 installations have been very successful at cutting diesel usage in many of these villages, and this turbine has proven itself capable of standing up to rural Alaska's harsh climate.

At the same time, we feel that smaller turbines should be considered in villages with small average and peak energy requirements. Perryville's 10 Skystream installation is just one example of what Skystream is capable of in a village of about 100 people with a moderate (some have said low) wind resource, where close attention is paid to overall installation costs vs. payback. We worked closely with Susitna Energy to supply, ship and oversee installation of the turbines in Perryville in November 2008, and as such can confirm that the complete installed cost of the 10 turbine system was $150,000 for 240 kilowatts of rated capacity. We have received information on the amount of energy produced and amount of diesel saved directly from Gerald Kosbruk and the Native Village of Perryville, but we did not have direct, reliable and consistent remote monitoring in place until very recently, so we cannot confirm or deny those numbers at this time. We would leave that part of the discussion to the individuals who are on the ground in that location, but we can certainly make available our data since mid-March 2011 which indicates that those turbines have produced more than 4,800 kWh from that time to the present. We would also invite anyone who is interested to review the daily production of the turbines in real time at the following site: http://track.windenergy.com/view/reports/sitevw/index.pl?site_id=117.

Though I now live in Flagstaff, AZ and work for Southwest Windpower, I lived in Nome, Alaska for 17 years--more years than I have lived anywhere else in my life. Thus, I have also "walked the walk" and though I feel, for instance, that Skystream would not be appropriate as an energy solution installed on the supply side of Nome's power plant due to the size of the loads (though they are completely appropriate when installed by homeowners or businesses on the load side); I do feel that a multi-Skystream installation tied directly to the power plant could make a lot of sense in many of the smaller villages throughout the Bering Strait region (and Alaska as a whole) that have average energy loads of 50 - 100 kW and peak energy loads of 150 - 200 kW. There are many such villages in Alaska with an appropriate wind resource, both within AVEC's sphere of influence as well as outside. The ease of logistics to get Skystream and balance of materials to remote locations, the small/simple foundation requirements, the tilt-up nature of the turbine and tower (using only a winch mounted on a pickup) and the ability to maintain with locally trained, resident technicians make it very reasonable and affordable for village power projects in small, remote villages. It is also appropriate in villages with a moderate wind resource (like Perryville) because of its low cut-in wind speed and low installed cost.

There are currently two Skystreams installed on the load side of the utility by the Shaktoolik Native Corporation and you are also welcome to view the behavior of these turbines in real time at the following website: http://track.windenergy.com/view/reports/sitevw/index.pl?site_id=105
These two turbines have been installed since approximately November 2008 as well, and have produced almost 34,000 kWh overall (this information comes from a combination of reading the dedicated meter on the turbines and our remotely monitored data link with the turbines).

We applaud Craig Medred and the Alaska Dispatch for taking the initiative to publish this article, and giving us, as well as AVEC, the chance to open a comprehensive discussion of the options available in wind energy for village power in Alaska. We would like nothing better than to work with AVEC in mutually agreed locations to prove Skystream's logic in village power scenarios.

Therese Umholtz, Senior Technical Advisor
Southwest Windpower
Flagstaff, AZ

Wow! This thread has certainly gotten lively. I wanted to make a couple of comments. I live in an AVEC village that has the northwind 100 turbines, and just seeing them at work every day makes me smile. I salute AVEC, Ms Kohler, the Denali Commission and everyone else that helped make it happen (including the ratepayers!). However, the following quote from the article caught my attention:

"The smallest of the diesels is, however, still required to throttle up at times as a sensor detects a greater community demand for electricity than can be provided by wind alone."

As I understand it, in my village of Kasigluk at least one of the 3 generators is running at all times. Even when the wind is blowing powerfully for days at a time, supplying more power than Akula Heights (new side of Kasigluk) and Kasigluk and Nunapitchuk need. This is so that they can guarantee 100% up time. AVEC keeps one generator running at all times IN CASE the wind drops down, to avoid a temporary blackout.

This has always struck me as an opportunity for big savings. A battery system that could power the villages for as little as 5 or 10 minutes could perhaps allow the generators to all be turned off when the wind is strong. The battery could send a signal when it is down to 2 minutes left, for example, and turn on one of the generators. I can tell you that in winter in particular we frequently have unrelenting winds for several days in a row. You might scoff at this. You wouldn't believe it until you live here. The summer time is far more calm. Anyway, doing it this way might allow for fuel savings far beyond the 20-30% mentioned by Ms Kohler.

I know that battery technology is still coming along. They are heavy and expensive buggers. But isn't this worth a look?

And according to the quote above, "the smallest of the diesel generators is still required to power up at times," that seems to indicate that sometimes they have NO generators running. How have they solved the problem of occasional down time?

Another aspect of rural utility behavior which I think is counterproductive is they and their employees ought not be located in urban centers where power is relatively cheap. I can imagine a lot more motivation by coop officials and employees if they were located in the villages instead of Anchorage

The same could be said for Inside Passage Electric of Juneau, which doesn't serve Juneau but is headquartered there, instead of say Hoonah, Angoon, Kake or Klukwan. And I'm not saying that some employees don't live in the communities they serve. I just think that having these leaders living the life, facing the cost of electricity day in and day out would do something positive to their psyche - at least for some real compassion instead of just giving the high cost of power lip service. If nothing else their electric bills and facing the consumers day in and out would add some pressure to accomplish more cost reductions.

It's a bit like having our senators and representatives living in our midst instead of Anchorage, Washington DC and Juneau. You can bet that if they are experiencing our pain, they will come to understand it more and really want to alleviate it as fast as possible.

Again not Craig Medred

The Skystream is a great little wind turbine and it ceertainly serves a useful purpose doing what it was intended to do - harness the wind in a small, consumer power application. But the numbers bandied around in this article are somewhat dubious.

I have been asking in vain foryears for verifiable data on the Perryville project and none has been forthcoming, other than the unsubstantiated numbers reported by Garoutte. FY10 was the first year in many that the Alaska Energy Authority actually reported some data on Perryville, and the numbers in their report indicate 13,361 kWh generated by wind. That would have displaced about 1,100 gallons of diesel (reportedly 23,000 gallons were used for generation last year). The report says the fuel cost $3.15 a gallon, not $6.00.

Generating 4% of electricity in Perryville sure doesn't sound like major progress to me.

For some reason, AVEC was liberally slammed in this article, yet we were not even afforded the courtesy of a phone call to determine what our wind philosophy is. Our desire is to replace 20 - 30% of generating fuel in our villages. If Perryville's turbines cost $150,000 (they might have - not including installation cost) the $5,000 they saved last year equates to a 30 year payback. Our 100kW machines cost about $1,000,000 installed and have a 15 - 20 year payback.

The Denali Commission has done amazing work in rural Alaska infrastructure. Their investment in wind turbines has been actually relatively modest - largely leveraging USDA High Energy Cost Grant funds to assist in building the projects.

And, for the record, AVEC is a non-profit member-owned utility. We are not "federally funded." We compete for federal, state and other grant funds so that our villages (which are as poor as any) can get some capital investment that they don't have to pay back. We actually have more than $120 million non-grant-funded utility plant - and long-term debt - and competent management...

Next time - come and talk to us. We can not only tell a good story, we have the records to back up our words.

Garoutte just succeeded in obtaining something he couldn't afford - free advertising. He's interested in one thing and one thing only - selling his stuff. He's pretty good at it, but putting little 400kW units up in a small village that actually puts out about 140kW on average is not cost effective either. The $/kw equation is really upside down on small installations, and without government subsidies, they seldom pencil out from a ROI perspective (that's the case even on the large installations!). On a per unit basis, the numbers stated in the article of $5.75/watt for the 3.7kW unit is well over $2,300,000 ($5.75 x 400,000 watts). I certainly hope they're not paying that much, and I suspect it's on a kilowatt basis, making the cost about $23,000 per unit - much more in the realm of reality.

Also Craig, with a little digging I think you'll find that the Denali Commission is MUCH larger than $15-20MM per year - maybe as much as four times that size. Their annual budget exceeds $75MM per year (http://www.allgov.com/Agency/Denali_Commission).

Craig, well articualted on the political end. The Iditarod benifitted from the Internet to find its fan base around the nay sayers, I now the internet was used get around the information mungers on alternate energy.