Residents harnessing wind power
Wayne Independent
May 27, 2008
www.wayneindependent.com
By Tammy Compton
County -
Helen and Tom Rigler want to harness the wind and eliminate their electric bill.
The Texas Township residents are considering a 50-foot high, $15 thousand personal windmill from Sky Stream. Tom says it would generate enough power for their home, with leftover energy going back into PPL’s power grid, resulting in a check to them at the end of the year.
The Riglers say their electric bill has climbed out of control. “Our whole house is electric (heat included). In the wintertime, it really goes up high. We’re on the budget plan. Right now, we’re paying about $350 a month ... We’re in arrears with the budget plan of over $700,” Helen says.
Tom says they’ve done their homework and for them, the environmentally friendly, renewable wind power is a perfect fit. “When that house was built 40 years ago ...electric was the way to go,” Tom says of their home on Golf Hill Road. In his opinion, it’s still the way to go. “It is if you have a windmill,” he says.
Helen says. “I really think electric is cheaper than any of them out there right now, between gas and oil.”
Her goal is to have their windmill installed by September.
Ed Lagarenne, Zoning/Building Officer for Damascus and Lebanon townships, says he issued a zoning permit in April for a personal-size windmill to be put up in the Beach Lake area, Damascus Township. “These are not considered wind farms — a big, generating plant that provides energy for the grid,” he said, like the windmills lining the Moosic Mountain Ridge. Lagarenne says the residential windmills create the same amount of energy as, “putting up solar panels in (your) roof.”
He said they’re, “similar in size to the old-style water pump windmills used on farms...at the turn of the century ...to pump water for cattle.” Lagarenne says a Lebanon Township resident has also expressed interest in a personal-sized windmill. That holds true for a homeowner in Waymart Borough, as well, who’s considering a 50-foot high windmill, says Waymart Borough Zoning Officer Richard Gillette.
“They’re certainly safe,” says Lyndon Wormuth, Zoning Officer for Buckingham Township and a 27-year electrician. Wormuth was the electrician who hooked up a 100-foot high windmill on the Louis Welch farm in Scott Township three years ago, which helps supplement the farm’s energy use. “Most of the ones (windmills) I’ve seen don’t produce enough energy to feed back into the power grid. Most of them produce enough to run part of your home,” Wormuth said.
Wormuth said there’s also a personal windmill in Preston Township that was put in place some 20 to 25 years ago. A call placed to the windmill’s owner was not returned by press time. |
