Last year, Don Smart put up a windmill in the side yard of his 250-year-old home overlooking Hillside Cemetery.
Now, with a year of use, he knows it was a good deal, for the environment and his pocket book.
Actually, Smart’s windmill is a wind power generator, a propeller whirling in the breeze linked to a generator and a series of controls that generates electricity for his home.
Smart, and his partner, Betsy Ferguson, say it is sort of like a piece of movable sculpture, and it cuts their electric bill by about $40 a month. He compares it to saving about $500 in yearly electricity costs. This translates to about $700 to $800 in heating oil expense.
The wind power device is perched on a bluff overlooking a meadow sloping down to the Damariscotta River. It is perched on top of a 100- foot tall poll held in place with 16 guy wires.
As the global movement towards alternative energy production moves from the back pages of the scientific journals to the front page of the nation’s newspapers, wind power is getting more than a small notice.
In Lincoln County, Smart is not alone. The Damariscotta River Association is building a wind power system, as is Al Monaco, the owner of Solar Systems on Bristol Road. Monaco installed both the Smart and the DRA. system. The South Bristol School is doing research on a similar system.
Smart and Monaco say they want to cut their electricity costs. Mark DesMeules, the DRA executive director, does too, but he wants to demonstrate the system to the public.
They have scheduled a wind power celebration on July 27, to show the system to the public.
“We want to answer some questions. This system is not just in the design stage. We want people to come and look at it. It is affordable and produces returns. We think we will be able to provide power for our needs,” DesMeules said.
“Here on the Midcoast, wind is available and we have a good location. We want people to buy one and put it up,” he said.
Both Smart and DesMeules say their systems will make a dent, a small dent, in the global climate situation. But they say it is a start.
Smart, a fiscal analyst and retired business owner who ran a firm that managed pension systems for large clients, has run the numbers and he says the wind power system makes financial sense for a homeowner.
“The system costs about $10,000. You get a tax credit for putting up the system. In my case, that was $1000 bringing the cost to $9000. If we save a thousand dollars a year in electricity and oil, that means in 10 years a home owner will recover his costs,” Smart said.
“The systems for home use cost about the same as a cheap car,” said Monaco.
In his case, Monaco is building a home in Alna that he hopes will provide most of his power needs with solar panels and wind power.
“The wind will be a big help in the winter when it is cloudy,” he said.
All three of the county wind power installations are designed to provide one kilowatt of power to a system linked to a generator.
When the wind howls, like it does in a coastal storm, the windmills have an automatic mechanical system that turns the blades away from the wind to slow the blades. There is little sound.
“I doubt you would hear it over the sound of the storm,” Monaco said.
Smart said it took him about two years to convince town officials to change the regulations to permit him to install the windmill.
“It took longer to change the regulations than it took to put it up. Now you can just go to the town office and get a permit,” he said. “It is a great deal. I can do something for the environment and it saves money.
“We like it and it makes virtually no noise, but, our neighbors don’t complain,” he laughed pointing to the rows of headstones that populate his neighborhood, he said.
