A close-up of a GE 1.6 XLE wind turbine, from http://www.ge-renewable-energy.com/uploads/tx_spdownloads/GE_1.6-100_wtg_02.jpg used by permission for us non-profits. This 1.6 MW wind turbine features a 100 meter rotor diameter, and it is an example of a new trend in wind turbines that are very appropriate for NY State's wind resource. These are the so called Low Wind Speed Turbines (LWST), which can squeeze an average of 19% extra energy from the wind versus the "standard" GE 1.6 MW unit which features an 82.5 meter rotor diameter - see http://www.ge-renewable-energy.com/en/wind/products/product-range/15-16/ on an 80 meter tall tower. Invenergy will be installing 59 of this in the town of Orangeville, a ~ 6 mile x 6 mile sized municipal entity, which is located about 5 miles east of Warsaw, in Wyoming County this summer and fall, as otherwise they can't collect their Federal incentives that can allow wind energy to be sold at 3 c/kw-hr and perhaps break even...(well, maybe 4 c/kw-hr..)... Invenergy and its lenders will be spending around $240 million on this project, with roughly 20% of that spent on installation and engineering/design and permitting.
Invenery has been exploring a site in Orangeville (and yes, it has its own Wikipedia entry - how cool is that...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangeville,_New_York) for many years. It's got some great aspects going for it.... the area is reasonably windy (on a top of a hill/plateau), located close to a 230 kv transmission line rated for at least 430 MW, and this is in the heart of dairy land, with pretty sad rural economics. The chance to earn somewhere between $10,000 to $15,000/yr for leasing some land (probably more profit than from a big herd of dairy cows, or from selling hay or corn to dairy farmers) proved quite attractive to a number of landholders. And the town residents can forget about having to pay much in the way of property taxes if this works out like it did in Sheldon and Bliss (Payments in Lieu of Taxes - alias PILOT fees) would be similar to or larger than lease payments. For 59 units plus a substation the PILOT fees could well be around $1 million a year. After all, there were only 1301 residents listed in the 2000 Census....
Invenergy initially proposed using the "standard" GE turbines (1.5 MW x 77 meter rotor x 80 meter towers), and then upscaled to the 1.6 MW x 82.5 m rotor units. Invenergy normally buys GE wind turbines in roughly billion dollar or more chunks once a year, and then uses these in their various windfarms. They probably are not too happy with the so-so performance of the Sheldon High Winds project, which is around 24% net output (GE 1.5 MW x 77 m), so the 19% increase (to 28.6%) with the GE 1.6 MW xle (100 m rotor) sounded like a good deal.
There has been some spirited NIMBYism by a few Orangeville residents with some help from anti-turbine friends, but so far this has not delayed things too much. But they have resulted in a huge EIS document, and lots of money has been spent on providing answers to subjects like avian interactions, shadow flicker, noise and related efforts. In this 486 page document (available via http://documents.dps.ny.gov/
Of course, if maximum electricity output was being pursued from this farm, one possibility is to use taller towers than 80 meter. Both RE Power and Nordex have recently announced 143 m and 141 meter towers respectively for some of their units (a 3.2 MW MM114 unit by RE Power - see http://www.repower.de/en/press/press-releases/detail-press/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=8091&cHash=967ae35eb6668e666a998ae21f22015c ) and a 2.4 MW LWST (Nordex - see http://www.nordex-online.com/fileadmin/MEDIA/Kundenzeitschrift/EN/Nordex_WPU_34_en.pdf). Nordex claims a 47% net output from a windy site for the N117 x 91 meter unit (hub height wind speed of 7.4 m/s), and says that for light wind areas, a 21% average energy increase is possible just going from a 91 meter tower to a 141 meter tower, as the winds are about 7% faster at the taller height versus the lower one.
Somewhere in the forest regions of southern (and not too windy) Germany - from http://www.nordex-online.com/fileadmin/MEDIA/Kundenzeitschrift/EN/Nordex_WPU_34_en.pdf.
So, using the tall tower approach and the LWST, the Stony Creek site might crank up output from around 236 GW-hr/yr (28.6% net output) to 286 GW-hr/yr (around 34.6% net output), or roughly an extra 5.7 MW. Oh well, every little bit helps, and maybe some time in the future, if and when the wind industry recovers from the Republican (though also due to Democratic Party incompetence) initiated legislative hostage taking that they seem to be so good at and that sets in at the end of 2012.