Staff Writer 

On Earth Day, Captain Jim McPherson, Commander of the Coast Guard Sector Northern New England announced a new “green” initiative the Coast Guard is hoping will attract business owners to help develop a tidal generator for its Eastport station. The South Portland Coast Guard station is currently home to an electricity-generating wind turbine and to crews currently working to convert thousands of lighted navigational buoys to solar power, but McPherson said he hoped offering $100,000 in federal funding for the new tidal generator could bring the Coast Guard to a whole new level of “green.”

“As protectors of the environment, we feel a special responsibility to pursue renewable energy sources to help decrease our dependency on fossil fuels, seeking to keep the coast clean and beautiful,” McPherson said. 

While the Coast Guard may harness the power of the sea, Cape Elizabeth resident Steve Bothel has been subsidizing his power bill with the breeze that passes over Bothel’s Mechanical Repair shop since 1984.

“My goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible,” Bothel said. “I did it to be independent.”

So far, Bothel said the $20,000, 100-foot tall, 10 kilowatt wind turbine has contributed more to his piece of mind than his electric bill. Bothel estimated the turbine, with a 22-foot blade diameter, saved him approximately $20 a month on his electric bills and has yet to generate enough power to sell back to Central Maine Power. Unlike the wind turbine at Kettle Cove, he said his turbine was not in an ideal spot to harness a strong wind.

“It’s all about location, location,” he said. “I’m certainly not going to make a lot of money.”

Earlier this month, Bothel submitted his windmill’s statistics to the town council so it could better understand benefits of harnessing the wind as it prepares to receive a report from the town’s alternative energy committee. Committee Chairman Bill Slack said the group received an energy audit of all municipal buildings and is planning to present the council with a proposal next month to erect an anemometer in order to study the feasibility of installing a wind turbine either at the transfer station or the high school.

“We’re going to be taking some wind measurements by putting [the anemometer] on a cell phone tower,” Slack said. “We have to put it up pretty high.”

In October, the town council amended the town’s zoning ordinance to include language that establishes setbacks and lot size requirements for “wind energy systems” and limits the total height of wind turbines to 100 feet, the same size as Bothel’s turbine. 

Ultimately, Slack said the council might have to amend the height limit for any proposed turbine to effectively subsidize the town’s power bill.

“Obviously it would have to be in accordance with an ordinance,” Slack said. “We will probably lobby to have that modified.”

Based on his experience, Bothel said if Cape Elizabeth is serious about harnessing the power of the wind, the council should consider constructing a wind turbine similar to the one at the Portsmouth Abbey School, a coeducational boarding school for grades nine through 12 in Rhode Island.    

“The town shot themselves in the foot,” he said of the current limitations on wind turbines. “This is what Cape needs.”

Portsmouth Abbey School spokesman Brother Joseph Byron said the 164-foot tall turbine, with a blade diameter of 78 feet, provides nearly 40 percent of the school’s total electricity in a given year – a savings of $200,000.

“We’re a big school too, we use about 2.6 million kilowatt hours a year. Most high schools use between 900,000 and 1 million [kilowatts],” Byron said. “We’re a boarding school, so we have people living here around the clock.”

Since construction of the $1 million turbine three years ago, Byron said there had been no complaints from residents, even though some say the turning blades can create a “light flicker” in their homes that lasts for about half an hour during a two-week period.

“It does drive you nuts,” Byron said of the light-flicker. “For about half an hour there’s a light turning on and off in the classroom.”

Other issues associated with the turbine include the “visual dominance” of such a large structure and the amount of noise generated by the swinging blades, Byron said. 

“It’s kind of a white noise, like having a dishwasher running in another room,” he said. “Of course if Cape Elizabeth was to put a large turbine up it would be a whole lot less noise than a small turbine. The blades are larger so they turn slowly and are really quiet.” 

Largely, Byron said he believed complaints about Portsmouth Abbey School’s turbine were mitigated by the school’s awareness efforts prior to construction. 

“We went door-to-door around the neighborhood and told people we wanted to do this, and all we knew was that it was going to be really big,” he said. “What people in Cape Elizabeth really need to know is that a big turbine is going to save the town and everyone in the town a lot of money if it works right.”

Staff Writer Nate Jones may be reached at 282-4337 ext. 233.