Southwest Windpower - Renewable Energy Made Simple

Villagers bone up on backyard wind turbines

The Tundra Drums
December 14, 2009
By ALEX DEMARBAN
www.thetundradrums.com

A group of Western Alaskans on an empty Anchorage lot clapped as a truck winch slowly pulled a small wind turbine upright.

The Skystream turbine and the guy-wired 42-foot steel tower would fit in many backyards and could fully power a single home or part of a building.

But the only thing this turbine fueled was village hopes.

Fifteen villagers -- ranging from a teenager in sunglasses to an elder in a beaver-fur hat -- helped install the test-turbine during a three-day class designed to show that renewable power is within reach, even in the Bush.

Toward the end of the class, many of the starry-eyed students said they'd like to see several turbines in each village to reduce energy costs and provide maintenance jobs.
"We really need the work," said Stan Jimmy, 61, from Emmonak. "And this work we can do it on our own, the people from the villages."

"These small-scales are the way to go," said Clifford Fitka, an electrician from Marshall.
Last winter, Emmonak, Marshall and other lower Yukon River villages dealt with brutal heating costs and a salmon shortage that left freezers bare. Fitka couldn't pay electric bills that averaged $250 monthly, so he racked up a huge debt, he said.

"My kids' bellies come first," he said.

If tribes could get some of these turbines into villages, he said, they'd free up cash so people can spend more money subsistence hunting and fishing.

The turbines run about $11,000 installed and produce 2 kilowatts of power, said Kirk Garoutte, owner of Susitna Energy Systems, the Anchorage business where the classes were held.

Shipping them to villages would boost the cost, but the package is small enough to fit on a pallet, except for sections of steel pipe.

Still, with rural residents sometimes paying several times what Anchorage residents pay for power, it could soon pay for itself, he said.

The Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Council organized the classes with help from a Department of Labor grant that paid for everything including travel, said Martin Leonard, a Bethel resident who leads the tribal council's energy department.

This summer, the council began showing tribal groups how to benefit from small-scale renewable energy. With help from Garoutte, they took the effort to Allakaket recently teaching locals to install solar panels in 60 below weather.

"This isn't rocket science," Garoutte said.

At the Anchorage classes, topics included using solar energy to heat and power homes and battery banks for storing energy. The students swung by Anchorage's Legislative Information Office to attend a hearing of the House Special Committee on Energy.
The message? Rural Alaska needs cheaper energy.

The trip ended Friday with the turbine-raising.

Outside on the snowy lot students bolted sections of the steel tower together, then guy-wired it to concrete anchors and tied it all to a gin pole that would act as a lever, lying down as the tower rose.

With the tower leaning sideways against an upended pallet, they pulled electrical wiring through the tower and bolted the beehive-shaped turbine into place.

Shawna Noratak, 19 and one of two women, said last year she saw heavy equipment operators raise huge turbines near Chevak on the Bering Sea coast where she lives.
Those turbines, designed to help power entire villages, have sprung up in some villages as utilities look for ways to cut costs.

They're three times taller and far more powerful than these backyard turbines.
Recently graduated from high school, Noratak said she'll share what she learned back home.

"I don't think people realize there are other solutions," she said.

Finally, it was time for the propeller, the final piece.

Three villagers carried it from a flatbed and slipped it onto the turbine's bolt. With each man standing between a 6-foot-long blade, they walked in circles to lock it on.

"Like the oxen in the old days!" someone shouted.

Garoutte ordered everyone to step back.

A winch on a truck's tow bar started whirring and pulled the tower and turbine into the windless sky.

It took less than four hours to build and seemed easier than most do-it-yourself projects.
"We used a 10,000 pound winch hooked to a truck, some pulleys and some climbing rope," Garoutte said. "We didn't need a crane or a fork lift or a boom truck."

Soon after, everyone headed inside for more class time.

Fitka stayed in the cold, going through the electrical work needed to connect the pole to a power grid.

Gunner Gregory, a 17-year-old student from Emmonak, stood over him, watching.
Gesturing like a rapper, he said he's all about renewable energy. He'd love to see wind lots of turbines like these in rural villages.

Maybe he'd get to maintain them.

"I'd love that," he said.