Wind tower installed on Buffalo Mountain

Story Published on Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Integration Technology team John Crawford and Dustin Latham are installing
a boom to mount the calibrated anemometer to the city's tower on Buffalo
Mountain. (Lee Talbert / Johnson City Press)

By Brad Hicks
Press Staff Writer
bhicks@johnsoncitypress.com

From the cooling breezes of summer to the biting gusts of winter, information will be collected on
every type of wind that blows high atop Buffalo Mountain for at least the next year as part of an
agreement between Johnson City and an organization promoting clean, renewable energy.

Tuesday, the first step in determining the feasibility of wind energy in the Johnson City area was taken
as an anemometer, a device used to measure wind speeds, was installed near the top of a city-owned
tower on the mountain.

"We want to be on the cutting edge, which is what this city is known for," said Johnson City Public
Works Director Phil Pindzola, "and that's what we're going to continue to do."

Brandon Blevins, wind program coordinator for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said Tuesday's installation of the device was more than year in the making.

The ball got rolling on the project on Earth Day 2008, Blevins said, when he paid a visit to East Tennessee State University and discussed the possibility of installing a wind turbine on ETSU's campus with Director of Maintenance of Grounds Kathleen Moore.

Blevins said tests are necessary before a turbine can be installed, and Moore pointed out the top of Buffalo Mountain as a possible test location. At Moore's suggestion, Blevins said he went to the city, particularly the Public Works Department, and was granted the use of one of its towers.

"Wind has the real potential to play a significant role in the coming decades," Blevins said.

Two employees of Integration Technology, LLC, a Knoxville-based firm that Blevins said acts primarily as commercial electricians but does work on communication towers, had the unenviable task of ascended the tower more than 150 feet, inching closer to the blazing sun along the way, to install the anemometer.

"They really made this happen, to be honest, because we needed a certified climber," Blevins said.

The device, developed by NRG Systems, is a sensor with three cups mounted on a boom out from the tower. As wind blows and turns the cups, information is stored in a data logger at the base of the tower. Measurements are taken 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Blevins said.

Per SACE's agreement with the city, the anemometer will remain on the tower for a maximum of 18 months. Blevins said data collection would likely be conducted for at least 12 months.

"One year's worth of wind data is what you really need to understand what your wind regime is and looks like," he said, "and 18 months is the maximum window of time."

Another aspect of the agreement between SACE and the city is that data collected from the anemometer be shared with city officials. Blevins said he intends to check on the information collected on a monthly basis and provide data to officials on a quarterly basis.

"What they do with the data is completely at their discretion," Blevins said. "We're just going to collect it and share it with them and answer any questions they have along the way."

And the city is anxious to see the data, Pindzola said. He also said with so many research-based occupations in Johnson City, letting other officials see the benefits of the data collection was an easy sale.

Pindzola said officials want to assess the feasibility of wind energy here and place it with other options either already in place, such as the landfill gas to energy program, or others the city is interested in, such as water turbines, to develop a full energy policy for the community.

"It's just one of those blocks to look at," he said. "And is it 'do we go down this path or that path?' What's in the best interest of the community?"

Wind energy, Pindzola said, also falls in line with the city's "green" initiatives.

"The city's on two initiatives and they run concurrently," he said. "One is the green initiative that we've all heard about. The second is a local demonstration of what local communities can do in the energy policy. If you don't look at each and every type of energy source, then you're not in the game and that's what we want to do."