Time to take another look at small wind

I've been in the clean energy field for close to ten years, and I've had a pretty bearish view on small wind's potential in the Maryland area. The problem was that there was a huge gap in the available technology in this area. There were tiny 2.4 kilowatt (KW) turbines, good only really for a home, and then nothing of significance until you hit the big 1.5 megawatt (MW) utility scale turbines. Now, the situation has changed.

I was at a wind energy conference in Baltimore this week, and heard about companies installing all kinds of different sized turbines. There are 10 KW, 20 KW, and even 100 KW machines that are being used commercially. This means that you can now install turbines to power farms, schools, small businesses, and large businesses. That opens up a whole new market for wind in Maryland and elsewhere. If we do things right, we could see these mid sized turbines springing up all over the state, but especially on the Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland. We can see small "Community" scale wind farms made up of these medium turbines feeding clean energy into our grid.

This is a very positive development. Not only does small wind produce clean energy, it is much easier to get built than large utility scale wind. There is much less opposition and the permitting process appears to be easier. Also, small wind provides distributed power, in parts of the region closer to our large population centers. Don't get me wrong. I am all for large wind projects in western Maryland or offshore. But I'm also for speed, for a quick conversion to clean energy. Small, community sized projects may provide us facts on the ground immediately. We don't have to wait.

Small wind needs help, however. The Maryland Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) provides incentives for energy companies to buy wind and other clean, renewable energy sources. But the incentive is not enough to bring on the level of small wind projects we need. The incentive in the RPS needs to be more like the incentive in the Solar "carve out" in the RPS. I don't have space to explain what a Renewable Energy Credit (REC) is, (check out www.cleancurrents.com), but it's the primary tool that acts as the incentive to build clean energy to meet an RPS. The REC price for wind is currently around $1 or $2, while the REC price for solar is $300. If we allowed small wind systems (say, projects under 10 MW) to be part of the solar carve-out, and hence to raise the value of the small wind REC to that of the solar REC, we'd see an explosion of new wind development in Maryland. We'd see community wind energy developers bring new jobs to the state. The current explosion in solar that's bringing new solar jobs and new solar companies to the state would happen in the small wind area. I think our elected leaders should consider adding small wind to the solar carve out. Small wind is ready for the prime time, and Maryland should welcome it with open arms.