SITING MATTERS

The wind industry and the renewable energy industries in general were born and have come of age in an era governed by environmental sensitivity. They have almost always sought to do the right thing (generate clean energy) in the right way (with minimal or no environmental unintended consequences).

Projects do not go forward until the potential to do harm has been eliminated, thanks to an inclination to do so and legal dictates requiring it.

The main remaining objections to wind projects, therefore, are aesthetic and largely subjective. Such objections can be eliminated if projects are sensibly sited. This thoughtful Wisconsin report on the subject of siting, as a contemporaty summary of best standards and practices, is therefore worth noting.

Wind Siting Rulemaking; Pursuant to 2009 Wisconsin Act 40
August 9, 2010 (Wisconsin Wind Siting Council)

Executive Summary

The Wind Siting Council offers this report and the attached straw proposal to the Public Service Commission for its consideration.

Since the siting of the very first modern wind turbines in Wisconsin in 1998, the issue of how and where to site wind generation has prompted considerable debate and discussion throughout the state. From Ashland to Kenosha and Land O’ Lakes to Prairie du Chien, local governments have struggled with how to balance the many competing priorities and interests involved in the siting of wind turbines. The outcome of this struggle through 2009 was a patchwork of local ordinances and zoning and permitting processes that threatened to grind wind development in Wisconsin to a halt and send wind developers and significant economic development opportunities to neighboring states.

On October 1, 2009, Governor Doyle signed into law 2009 Wisconsin Act 40 (Act 40), which creates a policy framework to allow uniform local regulation of wind energy systems in Wisconsin. Act 40 directs the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (Commission or PSC) to promulgate rules to specify maximum restrictions that a municipality can impose on installation and use of wind energy projects throughout the state of Wisconsin and further directs the Commission to appoint a Wind Siting Council to provide advice and counsel during the rulemaking process.

The 15 members of the Wind Siting Council began their work in March of 2010 and have spent hundreds of hours preparing for and attending the 20 official meetings. They have heard from a variety of outside experts and reviewed thousands of pages of reports, studies, and other analysis on the wide range of issues that impact the siting of wind turbines.

While the Council membership includes the stakeholders required by the Legislature – property owners, wind developers, realtors, environmental organizations, public citizens, utilities and local government experts – we have also sought to represent the wide variety of other groups and interests that united to support Act 40. This includes:

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 Utility customer groups concerned about the rising costs of energy;

 Farmers and farm organizations fighting to protect family farms and rural economies in Wisconsin;

 The hundreds of small, medium and large companies in Wisconsin that are already employing hundreds of workers around the state supporting the wind industry;

 The tens of thousands of unemployed manufacturing workers around the state that stand to gain from increased employment in the manufacturing of wind turbines and towers.

The Council understood that the diversity of its membership and the significant volume of research, reports and expert opinion on the subject of siting wind turbines on all sides of the debate would present challenges. Accordingly, the Council agreed at the outset to base its investigation and review on facts and science, supported by detailed analysis (with a preference for peer-reviewed analysis, where available).

And, while the legislature intended the Council membership to reflect the diversity of opinions surrounding wind siting, the Council organized itself and worked hard to reach consensus. The Council believed it could best help and influence the Commission if it could work through its diversity and develop consensus recommendations. And in large measure we have succeeded. Seventy-five percent of the recommendations described in this report reflect true consensus. While the Council has not ultimately reached consensus on every single item, a significant majority (11-4) supports this report in its totality and the policy framework recommended here. This includes a non-participating landowner, a local government expert, a University of Wisconsin faculty member, as well as the public, energy, wind developer and environmental sector representatives. The recommendations presented here reflect significant accommodations from each of the individual Council members’ personal opinions and should be viewed by the Commission as a strong compromise.

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Two key considerations guided the work of the Council.

First, wind energy is now and will be for the foreseeable future an essential element of Wisconsin’s energy and economic policy.

Wisconsin has joined a growing number of states throughout the country in requiring utilities to generate a portion (10% by 2015) of its energy needs from renewable resources. By 2015, our state utilities may need to add an additional 1000 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy to our energy portfolio. Biomass, landfill gas, manure digesters, solar and other renewable energy sources will help utilities meet this requirement. But the economics of renewable energy today are very clear; wind is by far the most cost effective way to meet our state requirements. In fact, technological advances in wind turbine and blade design over the last ten years allow wind generation to compete favorably with other traditional generation sources. This is usually not true for other renewable generation technologies.

Wind energy also provides considerable value as a preferred emission-free source of generation under another Wisconsin law affecting our state’s utilities, the energy priorities law (Wis. Stat. § 1.12(3)(b)). Under the energy priorities law, it is the official goal of the state that, to the extent that it is cost-effective and technically feasible, all new electric generating capacity installed in the state be based on renewable energy resources, with non-combustion options such as wind power taking precedence over combustion options such as biomass. Furthermore, as many observers note, it is likely only a matter of time before national policy – either through an act of Congress or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – requires utilities to control carbon emissions in one form or another. Utilities across the country will increasingly turn to renewable energy solutions to help mitigate adverse impacts of carbon regulation.

Wind generation is also a leading component of our nation’s clean energy economy, one of the only sectors that has continued to grow during the recent economic downturn. Individual states and countries around the world are competing vigorously to gain a share of the economic growth associated with wind generation. With its wide-ranging patchwork of local government wind ordinances, Wisconsin had developed a reputation as an anti-wind state, leading turbine and component manufacturers to think twice before locating jobs in Wisconsin. Reversing this trend was a leading factor in the legislative debate that culminated in Act 40.

In addition, the technical benefits of locating wind generation in proximity to where it is consumed – reduced electrical losses and reduced uncertainties of transmission availability – coupled with the direct economic benefits to manufacturers, farm family revenue, labor, contractors, and local job creation demonstrate why Wisconsin must address this critical public policy question.

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Second, the issues surrounding wind siting are complex and involve many competing policy priorities – promoting health and safety, complying with regulatory mandates, protecting our environment, preserving local government control, considering impacts to private property, providing a reliable and affordable supply of energy, etc. Each individual member and the seven stakeholder groups represented on the council have their own unique view about how to balance these priorities. Throughout our four month review, Council members have listened to each other, challenged each other and sought to identify a reasonable balance among these priorities.

After four months of intensive debate and discussion among council members, the Council would make the following observation for the Commission’s consideration.

At the heart of the controversy surrounding wind siting lies the tension between wind developers, utilities and participating landowners seeking to meet state regulatory mandates and cost-effectively develop wind projects, and non-participating landowners seeking to protect their property from one or more of a range of potential impacts – views, value, sound, shadow flicker, or safety. In these circumstances, local governments are put squarely in the middle of the controversy. Each and every issue identified in this report can trace its origin to this tension.

The single most important thing the Commission can do with this rule is to begin to address this underlying tension between parties. The creation of uniform and transparent rules will, in and of itself, address many of the root causes of the most serious siting controversies that arose during early projects. But the rules should also give non-participating landowners a greater sense of control and opportunity to participate in siting decisions while promoting cost effective wind development and supporting developers of all sizes.

The Council recognizes that a number of factors have created an extraordinarily hostile environment in Wisconsin, where each side in the debate seizes upon the slightest misstep or mistake of the other as ammunition in their regulatory, legislative, legal and public relations battles. If we are to move beyond this divide and work together to truly balance competing policy priorities while supporting a reasonable expansion of wind energy in this state, we must move beyond this hand-to-hand combat posture.

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And that is what the Council has attempted to do with its recommendations. After four months of intensive review and debate, the Council concludes there is very little policy basis – i.e. health impacts of wind turbine sound and shadow flicker or property value protection – to support some of the more restrictive controls advanced by some for the siting of wind turbines. But the Council does recognize that the state’s goal of promoting responsible wind development could best be strengthened if we could address some of the underlying tensions between parties.

The Council recommends that the Commission consider a combination of performance-based standards and financial compensation for non-participating landowners adjacent to turbine host landowners as the means to address this tension.

The performance-based standards would address the two most significant complaints made against wind turbines – sound and shadow flicker. The Council has concluded that the scientific evidence does not support a conclusion that wind turbines cause adverse health outcomes. But the Council does agree that the establishment of minimum standards covering sound and shadow flicker would address the two most significant complaints raised by impacted property owners.

Additionally, although the Council concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant requiring a property value protection plan for properties neighboring wind turbines, the Council acknowledges this is still an area of fairly significant concern. In lieu of establishing any kind of property value protection requirement and in recognition of a variety of other concerns, the Council concludes that developers should, as a standard practice, offer non-participating landowners a financial stake – a wind easement – in a project. Such offers give traditional ―nonparticipating‖ landowners an opportunity to ―participate‖ in a project and gain some control over developer’s siting decisions.

The Council’s complete list of recommendations is detailed below.

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Summary of Key Recommendations

The Council worked diligently for more than four months to bring together various interests and strive toward consensus recommendations to the Commission. The Council unanimously agreed that wind development in Wisconsin needs to be conducted responsibly. The Council found many areas on which members did reach consensus.
There are other areas on which the Council did not reach consensus, but for which Council members shared their diverse experiences and expertise with Commission staff and the Commission for consideration during the final stages of the rulemaking process.1

While unable to reach consensus on all points, all of the Council’s final recommendations reflect the input of all Council members. As the Council’s work progressed, it became apparent that Council members were divided on several key issues – notably the setback distances, sound and shadow flicker performance standards, and property value protection plans. However, these differences of opinion should not overshadow the fact that the Council succeeded in reaching general agreement on most of its other recommendations, and was unanimous or nearly unanimous in support for its recommendations with respect to the following:

 Signal interference

 Complaint resolution

 Decommissioning

 Construction and operation standards

 Emergency procedures

 Notification requirements

 Application process

 Political subdivision process2

 Stray voltage

 Pre- and post-construction noise testing

 Use of shadow flicker computer modeling
The following are some of the key recommendations of the Council. A more detailed summary of the Council’s recommendations is attached to this report as Appendix B.

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 The rules should establish three system size categories, with some of the procedural, notification, and application requirements varying among these categories (as specified in the Council’s detailed recommendations). Small wind energy systems should not exceed 300 kilowatts (kW) in total and should consist of individual turbines not exceeding 100 kW. Community wind energy systems should not exceed 15 MW in total and should either be locally owned or designed to meet local needs for electricity. All other systems should be considered large.

 For all system size categories, the minimum setback from the center of any turbine to any nonparticipating property line, participating or nonparticipating residence, or occupied community building should be 1.1 times the maximum blade tip height of the turbine.

 For all system size categories, the noise attributable to the system should never be allowed to exceed 45 dBA at night or 50 dBA during the day, as measured at the outside wall of any nonparticipating residence or occupied community building.

 For large systems and community systems, the shadow flicker that would fall on any pre-existing or planned nonparticipating residence should not exceed 40 hours per year under any circumstances. Developers of these systems should be required to offer mitigation of shadow flicker if unmitigated flicker would exceed 20 hours per year for a nonparticipating residence. Small systems should not be subject to shadow flicker limitations or mitigation requirements.

 Property owners at their own choosing should be allowed to waive the noise and/or shadow flicker performance standards. Property owners should also be allowed to waive the minimum setback distance from property lines. Property owners should not be allowed to waive the minimum setback distance from a residence or occupied community building, except in the case of small systems.

 Developers of large systems should be required to notify the PSC, all affected political subdivisions, and all landowners adjacent to host properties or within one mile of any planned turbine at least 90 days before filing a construction application. Developers of community systems should be required to notify the PSC, all affected political subdivisions, and all landowners adjacent to host properties at least 90 days before filing a construction application. Developers of small systems should be required to notify all affected political subdivisions and all landowners adjacent to host properties at least 60 days before filing a construction application.

 Developers/owners of wind energy systems should be required to establish a complaint resolution process, provide general notice of avenues for making complaints, and initially respond to any received complaint within 30 days. Political subdivisions should also be responsible for implementing a complaint resolution process. Complainants should be allowed to take their complaints directly to the PSC, without using the developer’s or political subdivision’s process, if they choose.

 The rules should not specify mandatory content requirements that must be included in leases and easements. Additionally, developers should not be subject to any licensing requirements in order to negotiate with landowners regarding leases and easements.

 Developers should not be required to offer property value protection plans to any landowner.

In addition to the key recommendations summarized above, the Council reviewed the Commission’s entire draft rule and made recommendations regarding how to approach signal interference; decommissioning; construction and operation standards; emergency procedures; conflicts of interest; application process; political subdivision process; and stray voltage.

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Conclusion

In sum, the Council held 20 meetings over the course of more than four months to discuss and debate key wind siting elements. Within this report, the Council has fulfilled one of its key missions under Wisconsin Act 40: to provide recommendations to the Commission about a policy framework that would allow limited and generally uniform local regulation of wind energy systems in Wisconsin. The Council recognized Wisconsin’s Renewable Portfolio Standard and understood the importance of representing a variety of stakeholder opinion – including those not present at Council meetings – when conducting its business.

The Council stands unified in this key position: Wind energy in Wisconsin should be developed responsibly. While it is clear that ―responsible‖ wind development is defined differently at times among Council members, when smaller pieces of the larger wind siting whole are examined individually, numerous consensus opinions appear. This report -- in addition to the Council’s straw proposal for a draft rule and the inclusion of minority opinions to provide additional detail on issues where Council members did not agree -- will provide Commissioners and other readers of this report a complete overview of Council opinions on a variety of siting issues. The work product represents a clear record, and often strong Council recommendations, regarding how wind siting should proceed in Wisconsin at this important moment in time.

The Council plans to continue its effort, monitor evolving health and industry research and prioritize ongoing, open communication about Wisconsin wind siting in the future. With responsible oversight from the Wind Siting Council in future years, Wisconsin stands to benefit from an increased number of wind energy projects and a greater proportion of clean, renewable wind energy in its energy resource mix. Meanwhile, current and expected future wind siting recommendations and information from the Council serves to provide important siting clarity for stakeholders, and basic health and safety assurances for those surrounding any wind energy project that exists or is planned for Wisconsin.