Chris Oaks spoke with Jereme Kent, general manager of One Energy.
Q: You stole the show at the Halloween parade by driving a huge flatbed truck, with one of the blades from the wind turbine project under construction on the north side of the city, through downtown. What are the specs on that thing?
A: Each blade weighs about 17,000 pounds and is 140 feet long. When completed, each of the turbines will have more swept area than a football field.
But it’s hard to imagine that kind of scale until you see one up close, which is why we wanted to put it in the parade, to give people the chance to see one up close. We lifted it onto the truck with a 12,000-pound forklift and a large excavator, actually two rigs on both ends.
Q: This project for Whirlpool and Ball Corp. is easily the largest in Hancock County, and one of the largest in Ohio, correct?
A: Outside of Paulding and Van Wert, I believe it’s the biggest in Ohio, consisting of five turbines. Two for Whirlpool and three for Ball.
And it’s really starting to take shape with the cranes going up. Components will start being set in place over the next couple of weeks and all of them will be up and online by the end of the year.
Q: My understanding is that these turbines will be capable of producing around 20 percent of the electricity needed to power each plant. Is that typical of a commercial wind turbine project?
A: Well, nothing about this project is typical. But to put it simply, the amount of power we can generate is largely determined by the amount of land we have to work with.
In this case, this was the largest reasonable output that we could do given the footprint of the area we had to work with, and it was enough to make the project a worthwhile investment for both companies.
Q: In the case of this particular project, you purchased the land the turbines will sit on, and you have plans for further development?
A: That’s right. Given all the factors that were taken into consideration, the best option was to purchase the land in order to have full control of the layout, where the turbines and necessary buildings would be, to control setbacks and so on.
That also gives us the opportunity to do fun things like opening the land up to create parks and picnic areas that would be accessible during the right times of year. And that idea of opening the area to the public is something that’s not been done in any other project anywhere in the country that I’m aware of. I believe it would be a first.
Q: There are those who are still not convinced of the long-term, wide-ranging viability of these alternative energy systems. What is it that convinces you that others just aren’t seeing?
A: I think the biggest problem is that our industry has done a poor job of communicating its benefits and its opportunities. It’s true that, by its very nature, wind is a hit-and-miss type of energy production. You have windy days and you have calm days, so any given site on any given day may seem somewhat inconsistent in its ability to generate clean power.
But, over the broad scale, in terms of a larger region such as the entire Midwest, or over a long span of time, the generation becomes much more stable. But, the biggest challenge to incorporating all forms of next-generation power remains the electric grid system.
In some areas, there’s still equipment from the 1930s that is being used to move power from generation points to the consumer and it’s like trying to plug a modern computer into an old knob-and-tube wiring system. It’s just not something the grid was ever designed to handle.
And so that becomes the most significant limitation to wider deployment of these technologies. But it’s something that will gradually be updated as the technology advances even further.
“Good Mornings!” with Chris Oaks airs from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. weekdays on WFIN, 1330 kHz. He can be reached by email at chrisoaks@wfin.com, or at 419-422-4545.
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Parade features wind turbine blade
