Boone man honored

as advocate of

renewal energies

by U.S. DOE
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

A Boone man has been honored for his work promoting renewable energy.

Dennis Scanlin received the Small Wind Advocate of the Year Award for the Southeast region from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America program.

Scanlin, a professor and coordinator of the appropriate technology program in Appalachian State University’s Department of Technology, was honored for his leadership in small-scale wind energy activities and research in Western North Carolina.

“I think it reflects positively on the work that not only I, but all the students and my colleagues, have been putting into this,” he said. “It’s been exciting to work with this new technology and provide some feedback to the industry.”

A research station on Beech Mountain was organized by Scanlin and the technology department, with 15 different wind turbines tested and documented over the last four years. The research station has also hosted 20 educational workshops. “Thousands of people have come through there for one reason or another to see the site,” Scanlin said.

He said the research station was fulfilling a need not being met by the industry, with six small turbines operating currently, usually with each turbine tested for a year or two. “Small-scale wind” energy is usually determined by the diameters of the turbine rotor and designed for home or farm use and often produces 20 kilowatts of power or less. Definitions vary, but by all definitions “small-scale wind” would be 100 kilowatts or less.

Scanlin said the small-scale wind energy avoids some of the public resistance to large wind turbines. “In western North Carolina, there’s definitely opportunities for large-scale wind, but we have smaller parcels of land and higher land prices, so small wind has a lot of potential for powering homes in the region,” he said. “They are smaller and visually less intrusive. You’d need a lot more of them to get the same amount of power as one large turbine, but given landowner patterns and attitudes and tourism, small wind probably has the most potential.”

Scanlin has coordinated Appalachian’s appropriate technology program for 24 years. He also directs the small wind activities as part of Appalachian’s Energy Center, including the ongoing North Carolina Small Wind Initiative, a collaborative project supported by Appalachian and the N.C. State Energy Office, Tennessee Valley Authority and U.S. Department of Energy to raise awareness about the benefits and feasibility of wind power in the southern Appalachian region.

Last year, he testified at a hearing of the N.C. Utilities Commission about his research on wind resources in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The hearing was part of the planning process for a wind farm in Ashe County that is now on hold.

Scanlin testified about the region’s wind-energy history, including a NASA project in the late 1970s that placed a large wind turbine on top of Howard’s Knob in Boone. Though the project ended in 1983, Scanlin said the experiment’s results showed promise.

In 2001, Scanlin worked on a wind assessment study presented to the Department of Energy. Scanlin said the study confirmed the presence of outstanding wind resources throughout western North Carolina and also documented the feasibility of producing electricity with modern wind-energy technology.

His research showed there are 50,000 parcels of land that are suitable for small wind in western North Carolina, and as other energy prices soar, wind becomes more attractive as a power source. “We’re getting more calls than ever from people,” Scanlin said. “There’s definitely a lot of interest in renewable energy in North Carolina.

Scanlin and ASU’s Brent Summerville have been helping craft a model wind ordinance with the hope that local governments will use it as the basis for local regulation. He predicts both more interest in and more construction of wind turbines in the years ahead.

“The price of energy definitely fuels interest in wind energy," he said. “It can create electricity for a very reasonable price, as low as three cents per kilowatt hour. It’s really one of the least expensive way to generate renewable energy.”

He and others in the field estimate 10,000 megawatts worth of potential wind-energy production in the state, which he said was about the equivalent of 10 large nuclear or coal-fired power plants.

The national award was presented earlier this month at the annual Wind Powering America State Summit.

which followed the American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA) annual WINDPOWER Conference and Exhibition held in Houston. Scanlin also received Wind Powering America’s Regional Wind Advocacy Award for the Southeast Region in 2005.

His short-term goals are to see wide adoption of a model wind ordinance to help the permitting process for small-wind turbines, continue research, and further education in the field so more people will be aware of the potential for wind energy.