what is it like to live near a wind farm in illinois

Speeding upwards I-65 just due north of Lafayette, Ind., you can't miss the tall, white windmills in the distance. For drivers, they signal the last leg on a trip to Chicago. For others, though, the windmills mean a new source of income and energy.

Less than 10 years ago, this surface area was just another stretch of flat farmland used to grow corn and soybeans. But since 2008, additional by federal and local tax incentives, wind turbines similar these have become an increasingly prominent office of the northern Indiana landscape. Half dozen wind farms were completed in Indiana in 2008 and 2009 alone.

Jon Thompson, vice president of Prairie View Farms Inc. in Brookston, Ind., has had 28 current of air turbines on his holding since he and several other farmers signed a contract with Horizon Wind Energy that yr.

"If we had to do it over once again, we'd do information technology again," Thompson said.

But the coming of the wind farms has not been without business. Opposition has cropped up around Indiana, with residents voicing fears of decreased belongings values, increased noise levels, and potential damage to wild fauna such equally bats and birds.

Opponents of a wind farm planned in Delaware County, for instance, are pushing for ii-mile buffers between whatsoever wind turbines and residences. That'due south far greater than the 1,000-foot setback in counties like Benton.

Officials in Tipton County, meanwhile, are pressing a company planning a 79-turbine farm for assurances that surface area property values won't go down because of the development. And in Marshall County, commissioners recently voted unanimously to ban the building of commercial wind turbines there.

Surprising results

Benton was the get-go county in Indiana to have commercial current of air turbines. The county's economic development director, Kelly Kepner, said farmers were initially asked if meter towers could be erected to evaluate wind power in the area. What the meters showed was shocking, she said.

"There was a two-year report and after they idea the machine was broke," Kepner said.

Wind levels measured at 100 meters in the air were much college than expected for the apartment

U.South. Section of Energy

Map of 100-meters-per-second speeds across IndianaS. Department of Energy

Indiana farmland. The area surrounding Thompson's farm in Brookston has current of air speeds upward to 8.v meters per second, which is similar to the area around Chicago and Lake Michigan.

Horizon approached Thompson and several other farmers in White Canton about leasing office of their farmland to set up turbines. White County has the second highest number of commercial current of air turbines in Indiana. The grouping of farmers hired Bose McKinney & Evans of Indianapolis to help negotiate a contract they could all agree on.

"On a subcontract, the only way to make more money is by working harder or by making an investment that will eventually pay out," Thompson said. Merely by bringing turbines onto their state, the farmers have been able to make more than money without doing either of these things.

Landowners receive an almanac flat fee based on a formula for assuasive wind farms to install turbines, run cables or fifty-fifty build access roads. Because of a confidentiality agreement with Horizon, Thompson won't discuss the rate he is paid for letting the visitor charter his land. But he said overall, he and the other farmers have been very pleased.

Many of the turbines were congenital right on Thompson's belongings lines, which meant that he but had to give up a small portion of tillable land.

"In that location have been so many positive things for the states financially," he said. "Some people just aren't looking at the big motion-picture show. Information technology's called progress."

Thompson, 43, has worked on Prairie View Farms growing corn and soybeans with his parents, wife and children since they moved to the area 12 years ago.

Property values take gone upwards and property taxes accept gone downward as a result of the turbines, Kepner said. And while Thompson said he wasn't certain how his property values had been affected by the new turbines, he did say he would "absolutely pay more for land with a wind turbine on it."

Tax Incentives

The economical recession in 2008 meant stagnant growth for many industries, but the wind free energy sector saw benefits from federal stimulus program that year. Not just did companies that industry turbine parts outset receiving sizable benefits, the incentives went and so far as to grant immunity from holding taxes for owners with turbines on their land.

"These helped to create an surroundings in Indiana that generated a buzz about a state starting from scratch," said Tristan Vance of the Indiana Part of Energy Development. "In 2008, these steps began to pay off (and) Indiana had the largest wind growth in the nation. In 2009, they were second."

Incentives aimed specifically at air current energy include the Business Energy Investment Credit, which allows wind energy participants to write off xxx percent of their expenditures. And under the Renewable Electricity Product Revenue enhancement Credit, the federal government tin can pay energy producers using current of air turbines 2.2 cents for every kilowatt of free energy produced in the start yr.

At the state level, the Indiana Renewable Energy Property Taxation Exemption provided that "systems that generate free energy using solar, wind, hydropower or geothermal resources… are exempt from holding tax." In 2011, the state legislature reduced that property taxation incentive for large free energy producers.

"Around 2008, Indiana started getting involved in pushing grants and taxation credits to current of air turbine manufacturers," Vance said. "It's non just the companies who own the energy receiving benefits. The companies who craft components used in making the turbines take moved to Indiana as wind energy has grown in the Midwest."

Kepner said wind farms volition continue to receive taxation abatements for the side by side 10 years to assist defray costs and encourage business growth.

In Benton Canton, one of the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm locations in Middle Township received an abatement of $358,140 for 2012 making the farm responsible for merely $150,360 that yr.

Fowler Ridge and the Benton Canton Wind Farm received an boilerplate of well-nigh $lxx,000 in abatements per farm location last year.

Indiana'due south fiscal incentives are drawing attention from some of the globe's largest energy producers. The Meadow Lake Air current Farm, visible from I-65 near Brookston, is i of the largest in the state, comprising more than 600 turbines.

Previously owned by Horizon Air current Free energy LLC of Texas, the Meadow Lake farm was purchased by Spain-based EDP Renewables in 2007 for $2.xv billion.

The acquisition included all of Horizon'south holdings, which extend beyond the country to 15 states.

According to a Bloomberg News report from 2007, EDPR said it was focusing attention on the U.s. market place because of increased competition in Europe, every bit well equally an increasing trend in back up of wind power in America.

EDPR Chief Executive Officer Antonio Mexia said in an interview at the time of the Meadow Lake purchase: "The U.Southward. market place will be the fastest-growing in the world. If yous want to be a top player, yous demand to be in the U.S."

Mexia's prediction was non far off.

In the years since, EDPR has risen from the world'southward sixth largest producer of wind energy to the fourth largest.

According to 2012 financial statements, revenues generated from current of air production in the United states of america at present brand up more than half of total revenues from all of Europe, indicating a significant shift in EDPR'southward market abroad.

In May of 2013 the company posted a 45 percent increase in net income for the first quarter.

Brian Sullivan, an Indianapolis-based development representative for EDPR, said the company owes a great deal of its successful venture into the U.S. market to the acquisition of the Meadow Lake Current of air Subcontract.

"The power generated from this farm is tremendous," Sullivan said. "The high output, in combination with a college price being paid for electricity right now has lead to a bang-up few years for us."

In an interview with Reuters, EDPR officials said the average price of the energy it sold rose to 66.iii euros per megawatt-hr, which is 10 percent college than prices in 2012.

Sullivan says the Meadow Lake Current of air Farm has successfully applied for Product Tax Credits and uses a tax depreciation system called the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System to its advantage. MARCS use to many forms of large capital investments that include heavy equipment and machinery, including wind turbines.

"There's no incertitude that revenue enhancement incentives for green energy production from the federal to the local level have got the attention of global companies like ours," Sullivan said. "With so much contest abroad and such a friendly environment here, I think you're only going to come across more foreign players go into the U.Due south. market every bit we move forward."

Skeptics Push Back

Despite the tax incentives, in that location has been minimal talk of renewable energy at the country legislature. A bill passed in 2011 calls for 10 percent of Indiana's electricity to come from clean energy sources past 2025. However, Jesse Kharbanda, executive director at the Hoosier Ecology Council (HEC), contends that considering of the nature of the constabulary, the goal is not enforceable.

Kharbanda said ane problem is that there is a lot of skepticism among state legislatures about the potential benefits of wind farms.

"People can't become beyond the fact that coal and nuclear free energy are available all the time and current of air energy isn't," Kharbanda said. "Renewable energy works in a broader sense."

The demand for the electricity that wind produces and the times when wind is at its highest blowing charge per unit don't always friction match upward, according to Paul Preckel, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University. Wind blows the near at night when the need for electricity is the lowest and blows the least in the summer when the need for electricity is high. And considering electricity isn't directly storable, the energy being produced must be used immediately or information technology is lost.

"Wind is not dispatchable," Preckel said.

This means that when the wind isn't blowing, wind free energy isn't available. Information technology fluctuates over time and it's not possible to perfectly predict when and where wind will occur.

Other skeptics of wind energy are worried about an impact on local bird populations, which Kharbanda said is an oversized concern. However, other concerns regarding dissonance and frequency levels have some scientific grounding, besides every bit support among Hoosiers.

Tipton Canton Citizens for Responsible Development formed in response to the Wildcat Wind Farm that is currently under construction in Madison and Tipton counties. The group cited concerns with noise and frequency levels as well as a potential subtract in holding values. Opposition has also sprouted up throughout the state in Tippecanoe, Whitley, Howard, and DeKalb counties.

Tipton County zoning codes permit for wind turbines to exist placed 1,000 feet from homes. According to the citizens group, many houses will exist within one mile of up to 10 turbines, each with a blade diameter equal to that of a Boeing 747.

The zoning codes are similar in Benton and White counties. In White County, where Thompson and his family live, regulations also limit the racket level of a non-commercial wind farm to threescore decibels, measured from the nearest home.

"Nobody complained near where they were," Thompson said of his young man farmer neighbors. There are currently 120 current of air turbines in White County registered under 43 dissimilar owners, co-ordinate to the county surveyor'due south office.

Instruction and tourism

The hope of wind energy has also sparked some involvement among schoolhouse corporations, with six schools around the state now housing turbines.

"Get to whatever rural school and ask if they accept plenty funding and they'll say no," Thompson said.
Northwestern School Corporation in Kokomo installed a 322-foot turbine last twelvemonth. School officials acknowledge the initial costs are loftier but say in the long run, the district will realize significant savings.
A less expected benefit of wind farms to some Indiana counties has included an increase in tourism.

Last year about 1,000 people visited Benton Canton and participated in wind farm tours conceived and coordinated by Kepner.

A retired teacher leads the tours, which take allows groups to see turbines up close.

Groups of fewer than 20 people pay a flat fee of $75 and groups of more than 20 people must pay $v per person. Money from the tours pays for promotional materials and improvement of the bout areas.

Nearly travelers on I-65 likely won't stop for a tour. For them, the growing number of windmills merely provides relief from the monotonous scenery.

Just for some Hoosiers, they signal a change in their lifestyles, businesses and communities for years to come.

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Source: https://ijec.org/2013/07/24/tilting-at-windmills-a-closer-look-at-indianas-expanding-wind-power-industry/

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