Giant wind turbines on the Epic campus would be OK with the FAA.
The Federal Aviation Administration is in charge of determining, among other things, where towers more than 200 feet tall can and cannot be placed if there are nearby airports (there are a couple of small airports in the Town of Verona). A wind turbine contractor applied last month for a "determination of hazard" for four 466-foot-tall wind towers with the FAA, one of the first steps in putting up such structures, and on Friday the agency gave its approval.
Representatives for Epic and the contractor, the Morse Company, both said last month that because the company is still gathering data, the locations and heights of turbines they build - if any - have not yet been determined. However, because of a new state law, the state, and not the City of Verona, will have the last word on where they can be built on the company's sprawling, 600-acre campus.
Already Morse has erected a 197-foot-tall meteorological tower to study wind speed and direction, as well as gather other data for possibly erecting photovoltaic cells. Epic facilities director Bruce Richards explained that the company is also considering biomass and solarthermal power to reduce the health care software company's dependence on conventional electricity. Wind power is just one of the possible components of such a move, he said, explaining that any power produced would be used on-site and not sold back to an electric company.
He also said he didn't expect the towers to be nearly that tall, that the application with the FAA was simply to see what the limit would be from that perspective before considering other important effects, such as noise, shadow flicker and even interference with birds and bats.
However, paperwork filed with the FAA proposes a "small wind energy project" with four machines that would have "328 ft hub-height with 269 ft rotor diameter," which would be among the larger commonly produced "utility-sized" turbines available. The largest wind turbine in the world, installed in Germany two years ago, has a 413-foot rotor and produces 7 megawatts of electricity.
Four typical turbines with the rotor diameter proposed could produce enough energy to power about 2,000 homes at peak efficiency, though because wind is not blowing at all times, the amount of power considered to be available is usually cut to about one-third of that rating.
Richards said last month that the company would spend about two or three months studying wind and other various energy possibilities before deciding how it might proceed. Epic representatives notified the city earlier this year that they were considering wind and other alternative energy forms.
The FAA's determination, essentially a form letter, says that any variation of locations would void its determination and that the structures cannot exceed the stated heights but could be shorter.
