Many communities on PEI are planning to be self-sufficient

I live just outside Stratford where the Mayor, Diane Griffin and the Council have been working for nearly two years on how to become more self sufficient. I plan to drop by soon and interview them. Here is a recent report on their plans:

Town council in Stratford, P.E.I., hopes to save thousands of dollars a year in energy costs by installing two wind turbines, but isn’t quite ready to put up the towers.

A study by the Wind Energy Institute of Canada, commissioned by the town, shows the turbines could pay for themselves in about seven years.

“These turbines would eventually end up … saving us over $11,000 at each site, so in total it would be over $22,000 per year that the town would save by having two wind turbines,” Diane Griffin, the chair of Stratford’s environment committee, told CBC News on Friday.

The turbines would cost about $500,000, but the town expects that cost to be offset by contributions from other levels of government.

Griffin said wind turbines would also send a strong message that Stratford is an environmentally friendly community, but despite her perceptions of the public relations and financial advantages, Griffin said the town still wants to consult residents about the idea.

“It may be that not everybody likes having wind turbines in the town,” she said.

“I think it is the thing of the future but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so people would have questions that they would want answered, most certainly.”

Summerside is also keen:

SUMMERSIDE — City officials are moving ever closer to a Summerside wind farm that will involve four wind turbines in the North St. Eleanors area

The new landing system will be part of the overall cost of the $14-million project, which is cost-shared with the federal and provincial governments. The city is putting its fuel tax revenues towards the project, reducing its share of the overall cost reducing it to just under $2 million.

The site will contain four wind turbines of three megawatts each and they would be located in the general area of the former landfill site.

And today – Kinkora announced that it too wanted to have its own power:

Kinkora, near the town of Kensington in Prince County, wants to buy two wind turbines to power the community.

Jody Hartley said the wind turbines will cost about $200,000 each, which the community should recover in a few years.

“We’re hoping to save about $25,000 a year … We’ll put it back into the Kanata Club for upgrades and [ we’re ] hoping to start up some [ new ] programs,” she said.

The Kanata Club houses the community’s library and fire hall. It uses geothermal technology to run the facility, which saves money by using energy present in the earth to heat and cool the building.

Hartley said residents will discuss buying the turbines, and where they would go, at an upcoming community meeting.

Feels like a powerful trend is underway – as is also a pattern. A shift from centralization to local distribution. Here is how a German community, Freimant, is doing this – they are far ahead of us and this article shows us where we could go.

Today, the Freiamters are proudly self-sufficient. What’s more, in 2007 they generated an extra 2.3 million kilowatt-hours beyond the 12 million they consumed. They sold the surplus, enough for an additional 200 homes, back to the national grid.