Windmills may bring clean energy to Holland

According to The Grand Rapids Press, the Holland Board of Public Works board of directors Monday approved the spending of $200,000 for a study of feasibility to build 150-foot wind turbines, costing $1 million each, to generate energy at two industrial sites in Holland. These would be 150-foot wind turbines that generate electricity and cost about $1 million each.

The Holland Board of Public Works board of directors Monday approved $200,000 for a feasibility study of wind power generation at two industrial sites in the city. If the study proves wind power viable for the city-owned utility, the cost to install two generators would be about $2.4 million. BPW Electricity Director Dave Koster said the study funds would be used to install wind evaluation units on 150-foot-tall towers at the Herman Miller Inc. property near its South Washington Avenue substation and at the Haworth Inc. headquarters near the Tulip City Airport.

Koster said both companies expressed a desire to work with the BPW in developing "green," or pollution-free, energy. Koster said it will take at least a year to evaluate the viability of wind turbines for generating electric power. A preliminary study found that two 1,650-kilowatt wind turbines could generate about 1 megawatt of power each year, which is about 1 percent of the BPW's annual demand. Once power turbines are installed, the cost to generate electric power is a fraction of what would be spent using natural gas or coal. Koster said projections on electric energy costs from two turbines would be between 1 1/2 and 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, or about half the price of current production. Costs would drop as the initial investment in the wind power generators is paid off. Koster said the BPW is studying wind power because the cost of such fuels as natural gas has gone up 400 percent in six years. The same is happening with coal, he said.