Bowling Green is using the resource Mother Nature gave it – wind.

Two wind turbines standing about 400 feet high were installed in the Fall of 2003 overlooking US-6 just west of town, with two more installed the following year; making it the first and only utility-scale wind farm in the state.

Each turbine can generate 180 kilowatts of electricity each for a total generating capacity of 720 kilowatts, utilities director Kevin Maynard said.

Last year, the wind turbines produced 14.7 million kilowatt hours and the average residential consumption was 650 kilowatt hours per month, Maynard said.

‘It is about enough power to supply 1,900 average homes over the course of a year,’ he said.

The way the wind turbines generate electricity is not unlike how nuclear or coal-fired power plants create electricity. A prime mover is needed to get the generator running, Maynard said.

‘In the case of wind turbines, wind provides that prime mover,’ Maynard said. ‘It hits the blades and causes them to turn, which turns a generator inside what we call a nacelle, which is a rectangular box up there on the top of the tower that the blades are connected to and that’s what generates the electricity here.’

Since wind speeds are not constant, the productivity of the turbines varies from day to day, he said.

‘There are days when the units are producing much more and there are hours when they aren’t producing anything at all,’ Maynard said.

The fall and winter months are more productive because the wind speeds are generally higher then, Maynard said.

‘Unfortunately the production is the lowest during the summer season when we need more power and when it’s more expensive to acquire or generate due to the air conditioning load in the summertime,’ he said. ‘But they still produce probably between 300,000 and 600,000 kilowatt hours during the summer months. But there are times in the winter when we produce over 2 million [kilowatt hours] in a month.’

Capacity factor is a way of measuring the output of a turbine. The capacity factor is how many kilowatt hours in a given time are produced compared to what would’ve been generated at full output in that given time period.

‘These units are measuring about 23 percent capacity factor, that means they are only producing their full output about 23 percent of the time,’ Maynard said. ‘The rest of the time we have to supplement the power from other resources.’

Wind turbines are labeled a ‘green technology’ because it is a sustainable energy and lessens negative environmental impacts, Maynard said.

A coal-fired power plant involves burning a natural resource in finite, which gives off emissions that can harm the environment. Wind turbines don’t use up any fossil fuels or give off any emissions, Maynard said.

‘It doesn’t burn any fossil fuels,’ Maynard said. ‘It has no emissions at all. So from that viewpoint it is a renewable resource because it operates off the power of wind, just like solar panels do with the sun and hydroelectric does with water.’

Donald Scherer, president of Green Energy Ohio and professor emeritus of philosophy, had a wind turbine installed on his property by North Coast Wind and Power, based in Port Clinton, for about $13,400.

He said about 40 percent of his electricity comes from the turbine resulting in 40 percent savings on his electric bill.

Investing in renewable energy is important because America needs to develop energy independence and because renewable energy is always available, Scherer said.

‘Renewable energy is going to be there every year,’ Scherer said. ‘You don’t have to worry about the supply of any fuel.’