On the coast of a scenic and populated region, one village is tapping a ready resource.

By Peter Hildebrandt

Hull, MA, is a New England town whose population fluctuates with the seasons: 6,500 in the winter and roughly 8,000 people in the summer. Hull uses about 53,000 MWh of electricity yearly. Now close to 7,000 MWh of that annual energy use—or over 11% of the town’s energy load—comes from a pair of wind-powered turbines.

Hull’s commercial-scale wind turbines are among the first of their kind to be installed and online anywhere on the entire East Coast. The project includes the first commercial-scale turbine in a large residential area and the first within a short walk of a ferry line to downtown Boston.

Much of the push in the direction of self-sustainability from wind came from a small advocacy group started up in 1997. That activity and drive is still there. Hull plans eventually to have enough clean energy to power all of its homes. The group, Citizen Advocates for Renewable Energy (CARE), was simply a grassroots, not-for-profit group, according to Andrew Stern, one of its early members.

Hull is located on the Nantasket Peninsula, among nearly 20 harbor islands along the southeastern edge of Boston Harbor. Boston is the one of windier major metropolitan areas in the US, with the Great Blue Hill, just south of Boston, being listed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration among the US locations with most-sustained winds (including Mount Washington, NH, and two places in Alaska).

A History of Wind Energy
Wind power is nothing new to this area of coastal New England. There are records of windmills in the area as far back as the 1820s, with the tip of the Nantasket Peninsula being referred to as “Windmill Point” in manuscripts from that time. But much of this project’s history is based on the work of townspeople in the early 1980s, when the town installed a 40-kW EnerTech turbine on an 80-foot tower running energy directly into the adjacent Hull High School. The turbine ran for some 12 years.

By spring 1985 this wind turbine was producing energy. In March 1997, a windstorm damaged the turbine beyond repair. The failure was due to a malfunction of its blade-tip brakes, and the 70-mile-per-hour winds did critical damage (this is a speed no longer threatening to today’s windmills).

A 1996 report showed this first turbine to have reduced the school’s electric bills by over 28%, a savings of $21,200 to the town. Also, a report by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) had indicated that over its lifetime the windmill had saved the town nearly $70,000.

Residents have been impressed by the fact that the turbines can barely be heard when operating.

By the fall of 1997, a citizens group led by Malcolm Brown, who is a retired philosophy professor and member of the Hull Municipal Light Board, along with a group of teachers at Hull High School led by Anne Marcks, held meetings to plan the repowering of the site. This planning was incorporated into the curriculum of Marcks’s senior physics class and had good support from both the school and John MacLeod, operations manager for the Hull Municipal Light Plant.

The school staff was not able, however, to take on the extra work involved in researching the project. This was in part because of the rapidly evolving development of wind-power technology at the end of the 1990s. In late 1998 the new CARE group of citizens eager to see the project go forward urged Hull Light to take the project on. The plan was to work in collaboration with University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Renewable Energy Research Laboratory and its director, James Manwell. Manwell, along with his colleagues, consults regularly for the DOER on wind power and other
renewables.

By fall 1999 Manwell’s team, with substantial assistance from the DOER, finished a full engineering report. This report integrated wind-resource assessments, discussions of regulatory issues, noise-level tabulations, projected economic viability under various brands, and presentation of computer-generated photo simulations of various possible sites. It also evaluated the economics of assorted models of hardware. In the case of the noise levels, field studies were carried out to make sure the tract of town-owned land adjacent to the school’s athletic field was not too close to inhabited structures to meet appropriate standards.

Geotechnical studies were carried out to give fuller detail to any future request for proposals (RFP) for a turbine. Much care and attention went into these engineering studies because of their potential for guiding future projects in Massachusetts, especially in coastal communities. Care was taken to make the Hull project function as a template for other towns or agencies that might plan similar undertakings. The report was to be “transportable,” or applicable elsewhere. Some further time was also invested to add a sensitivity analysis, highlighting which of the factors within the analysis—if they turned out not to be as predicted—would have the most affect on the conclusions.

At a public meeting on June 16, 2000, MacLeod—along with members of the Light Board, experts from Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Companies, the Renewable Energy Lab at the University of Massachusetts, the town manager, the town historian, and a representative from CARE—led the presentation for the public. They fielded questions and responded to fellow panelists. The meeting’s overall response being strongly positive, it was announced that the light department would go ahead and put out an RFP.

MacLeod then applied for the various required permits and approvals for the parcel of land where the tower was to be sited. By January 2001, the RFP was formally put out, and in March 2001 several bids had arrived. One wind turbine manufacturer from Denmark and another from Germany sent representatives to Windmill Point for site visits.

In April 2001, the bid of the American subsidiary of Vestas, the Danish company, was accepted. It had bid its most popular model, the V47, with a rotor diameter of 47 meters, a hub height of 50 meters, and rated power of 660 kW. The life expectancy of this equipment is 20 years. “We later found out that more than 1,100 of this same model of Vestas turbine were sold in the USA during calendar 2001, up from a total of four sold here in calendar 1997,” says MacLeod.

Contract negotiations followed. These went on for several months, during which time it became clear that here, too, Hull was taking on a task that had repercussions well beyond its borders. As in the state-sponsored engineering study, Hull’s case was being looked at as a “first” in the commonwealth, and its contract should double as a template for other similar projects still in the planning stages or not yet even on the horizon.

Hull is different than the majority of other towns in Massachusetts in that it maintains its own electrical infrastructure as a municipality, maintaining the lights, distribution, transformers, and the traffic lights. It was only logical that it would find an underwriter to back the project. The Town of Hull had a vote on the issue, and the first machine cost approximately $780,000 to install as a turnkey project.

Except for the actual interconnection, which the light department did, there was one corporation that came in and oversaw the construction, foundation, installation, and erection of the wind turbine. With the V47 Vestas, there was a constant revolution of the equipment at a relatively steady 28.5 rpm in wind speeds of roughly 4 meters per second (just over 7 miles per hour). The turbine automatically shuts down at winds of 50 miles per hour or greater in order to protect the equipment.

The turbine also turns itself toward the wind with active automatic yaw as well as active pitching blades. They turn or pitch on the nose cone to absorb more or less wind, as the case may demand. All of this, combined with controlled electronics, keeps the revolutions constant.

The turbine officially went online December 27, 2001. Annually what Hull Wind 1 produces is about 1.5 million kWh, or 1,500 MWh of energy. This means for this 660-kW machine that the capacity factor is approximately 27%.

A Push for Further Wind Use
“Within a month of the first machine going up, there was tremendous support in the town, and the second machine was initiated and sited within the town borders,” says Stern. “There were several initial sites chosen for this second machine, including the possibility of being just opposite the first, which was on one end of Hull High’s football field. But in the end the decision was made to place the second turbine at a landfill at the other end of town. This poses no problems aesthetics-wise; they’re like bookends, some 5 miles apart.”

The second turbine was installed in May 2007 and is a V80 Vestas with a blade diameter of 240 feet. It’s a 1.8-MW turbine, offering nearly three-times the output of the first machine.

Based on the average energy one household will use per year, the first turbine produces the equivalent of the average annual energy of 200 houses, while the second machine produces the equivalent of more than 600 houses.

With the second turbine installed, work has started on the installation of four more turbines offshore on the ocean side of Hull. These machines vary between 3 MW and 3.6 MW, totaling 12 MW in all. Along with the two from the first part of the project, the town generally will be able to produce 100% of its annual energy through wind power.

During different seasons, the strongest being winter, the excess will be sold to the big grid, according to Stern. In the summer, due to calmer weather, Hull will have to purchase energy. On average, over the course of the year, it will even off.

There are 40 towns in Massachusetts with municipally held electric utilities, a situation that is perfect for public wind power. Towns like Hull are able to generate a kilowatt of electricity for 3.4 cents, but because of production tax credits and tradable renewable energy certificates, it takes in 6.3 cents. MacLeod says the electricity generated goes straight into the town’s own grid, replacing power that would cost 8 cents per kilowatt-hour if it were purchased on the energy market.

Hull receives the financial benefit. Due to it being a green energy source, the turbine turns into a symbol of goodwill for the town, not one of aesthetic contention, according to Hull Selectwoman Joan Meschino. Meschino points out, too, that local science students have regularly studied the surroundings for evidence of damage to the local bird population, finding none.

Area residents are impressed by the fact that the turbines can barely be heard when standing directly beneath them.

This all comes as something of a surprise for some, in light of the fact that some powerful individuals, usually activists when it comes to environmental issues, are fighting such wind developments in their
“backyards.”

In Hyannis, MA, a vocal faction of challengers called Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound is fighting a 130-turbine wind development in its area on the other side of Cape Cod. This coalition has influential allies in Sen. Ted Kennedy and other top politicians. Citing factors related to economics, risk, and the regulatory process, the alliance believes it would be better to instigate an aggressive, energy-efficient conservation program, urging the exploration of land-based wind options prior to going offshore.

Some Concern With Financing
“In addition to our push for wind energy for a green source for power, we also had a pretty strong argument for its use based on economics,” adds Brown. “We didn’t hesitate to remind people that they’d be
better off.”

Brown explains, however, that there were a few complaints before the second turbine was installed. The first turbine is out at the tip of the peninsula, but the second is nearer to the mainland, and a handful of residents from an adjacent town complained at first.

Brown is a bit skeptical of the offshore development of wind turbines still in the works, as he worries about the fiscal arrangements to pay for it. “Although I strongly advocate Hull’s going forward with an offshore project, we’ve signed an agreement with more pitfalls than advantages to Hull, in my opinion,” says Brown.

“This development is large-scale in relation to the town’s finances. The earlier developments had the huge advantage of being something the town afforded without becoming dependent on outside sources of financing. It’s an old story, one a family might face when it wonders if it can afford the mansion they’re about to buy based on the income of the family. I wasn’t silent with the objections I did have on the risk involved with this. I laid them out at Light Board meetings and discussed them at length with top town officials over a 10-month period before deciding to resign from the board over this issue. I sure hope it all works out, but I continue to have serious doubts.

“There was a foreclosure-type clause written into the agreement; Hull will forfeit its development rights in the project, and there will be no project of our ownership if we decide we can’t afford it. This is an anxiety I have at a personal level, the idea of making an extremely fast start and then getting in over our heads in some significant way.”

There are records of windmills in the Hull vicinity going all the way back to the 1820s.

From a Resident’s Perspective
Peter Lewenberg spent five years working with the secretary of environmental affairs in Massachusetts, acting as the state’s point person for the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area during the cleanup of Boston Harbor. One of the projects Lewenberg worked on was the planning process to bring wind turbines to the park as an alternative and renewable energy project, an income generator, and an educational demonstration project. He currently works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in resource development.

“Though I’m now simply a private citizen, I remain very interested in the issue of wind power and am linked to Hull through a home I use there in the summer,” says Lewenberg. “I receive benefits not only from the two windmills there but am reminded of them as I commute to Boston by ferry every day.

“Personally I view them more as art objects than as blights on the landscape. [They are] actually a handsome addition to the view. Hull has done a terrific job of bringing along the citizens of Hull at the right pace to accept them and see the benefit of them. They even seem ready to allow more of them and even some offshore, which I think will add even more to the story.

“When Malcolm [Brown], Andrew [Stern], and John [MacLeod] assembled all the information and the proposal for the original Hull 1 wind turbine, they did an excellent job of preparing the community’s citizens quite effectively as far as what it was going to do and what it would look like,” Lewenberg continues. “They did have the benefit of a windmill having been at that point for quite a long time, and this was the next generation of windmill. But the positive impact of Hull 1 really was the precursor of the ability to build Hull 2 with so little resistance from anyone.”

In the winter, Lewenberg lives in suburban Boston, where his energy bill can be as high as $200 monthly. In Hull the energy bill for his home ranges from $35 to $55 for the same span of time. This difference is dramatic enough to be a constant reminder of the wind turbines’ benefit for the community.

“Even if the turbines generate more power in the winter, the Hull residents are still getting credit for that energy in the summer,” adds Lewenberg. “I’ve also always felt that Boston should take a look at what’s been done in the Netherlands and how they’ve used wind turbines virtually as channel markers and entry posts into the main channels and main ports into the country.

“The reality of what people are going to see compares to specks on the horizon. It’s not like it’s in your front yard. I find the turbines in Hull as graceful flourishes to the panorama of the area. Also, knowing what they’re doing to our power bills makes them even more striking.”

The fact that the community pulled together to create renewable energy is remarkable. The Hull project shows that dedicated volunteers such as Stern and Brown can do the work with others in the area to make such an idea a reality.

“I think the Hull experience shows it is easier to win approval for wind projects,” adds Brown. “This is especially true if the benefits are enjoyed close to home, flowing to the local inhabitants obviously and openly. This way the project is ours, not theirs. We’re the investors, and we’re the beneficiaries.”

Peter Hildebrandt is a writer specializing in science and engineering topics.

DE - September/October 2007