Lake Champlain Wind Power Study
The General Services Administration (GSA) border hired ANTARES to conduct a wind feasibility assessment for the U.S. Border Station in Champlain, NY. Like all other federal agencies, the GSA is required by federal mandate to reduce the energy use in its buildings.
ANTARES explored the feasibility of installing a single wind turbine generator in one of four sizes ranging from 10 kW to 600 kW and feeding the power into one of the buildings at the border station. Efforts included:
- Calculating each turbine’s energy production over time using power curves and wind data.
- Assessing facility demand to determine overall cost savings estimates.
- Comparing wind energy project costs to the status quo costs of the facility to determine economic feasibility
- Evaluating the impact of incentives and mandates.
Wind Feasibility Study
ANTARES completes a wind feasibility study that included installation of a 50-meter met tower
After the first phase of the project, ANTARES was brought on for an additional study that included the installation of a 50-meter meteorological tower to obtain actual wind data for the location for 12 months. ANTARES worked with a partner to collect, quality control, validate, summarize, and transmit data for the meteorological tower.
ANTARES also calculated the net project installed costs which included incentives through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Other project costs included avoided costs from mandated Renewable Energy Certificate purchases and maintenance costs. The wind energy project costs were evaluated against the status quo costs to determine which cases could be economically justifiable over a 20-year life-cycle. The feasibility study found reasonable payback periods for a 600 kW wind turbine project.
