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May/June 2001 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Editor’s Notebook Inside Story Feature: Solar power À la carte Reverberations

Power Switch | À la carte: Mapping the Wind | Home Costs | Windiest City | Facts and Figures

This fall, the toronto renewable energy co-op plans to erect a $1.4-million wind turbine on the city’s eastern shore — the first of three such power generators. Bryan Young, the Co-op’s general manager, calls the 95-metre-tall structure "a beacon of hope and a very visible icon in the city."

for the venture is much like the grassroots effort that launched the Danish wind industry 20 years ago. Some 650 individuals and organizations will each buy $500 units in the project, and the green power produced will be sold at a premium — likely to Toronto Hydro and the city itself.

Funding Many Canadian families off the regular power grid use wind energy to supplement their solar systems, especially during the grey days in winter that would otherwise result in depleted battery banks. But wind power’s major drawbacks — too noisy, too ugly for some — have limited its residential use. Instead, it is large-scale, discreetly located wind farms that have some people chomping at the bit.

From his office in Calgary, Alta., Jason Edworthy looks at a map of Canada and can almost hear the wind blowing. He’s executive director of marketing for Vision Quest Windelectric Inc., which operates 16 large turbines near Pincher Creek and four southeast of there at Hill Spring. Edworthy sees wind-power potential in many parts of Canada, from the West Coast to the High Arctic, from the Prairies to the Maritimes. Quebec, meanwhile, already operates 133 wind turbines in Canada’s largest wind-driven electrical power project at Cap-Chat and nearby Matane on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

Edworthy is, naturally, bullish on wind, the fastest-growing energy source in the world. Ask him what’s new in wind, and he praises computers. "There have been small, incremental changes in wind power," he says, "some highly technical. All renewable energies have benefited from changes in the world of computers. Design, for example. The siting calculation to optimize where the turbines should go takes two linked computers five hours. They check every metre of ground. The turbines themselves are also controlled by computers, which regulate and adjust about 300 parameters, from blade pitch to yaw, 1,900 times a second."

Vision Quest sells its power now to Enmax, a Calgary utility that charges the 2,000 customers who have bought in up to 25 percent above regular rates. The lucrative southern Ontario market also beckons, and Vision Quest has leased land on the shores of lakes Ontario, Huron and Erie while waiting to see how deregulation unfolds.

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