newsday.com
In Suffolk, homeowners try small-scale wind power
BY CAROLINE E. RUSE | caroline.ruse@newsday.com
August 6, 2007
Richard Jarzombek's monthly electric bill has been between $30 and $40 for the past 20 years. Soon, it could be zero.
Jarzombek, 59, has largely powered his Baiting Hollow home with wind power since installing a 100-foot wind turbine in the early 1980s.
It "seemed to be the right thing at the right time," he said of the era when the Shoreham nuclear power plant was due to open and residents worried about what would happen to the price of power.
"I'm a firm believer that, in the right situation, windmills are fine," he said. "I'd never put a mill in a residential area. You need the property to be able to do that."
Jarzombek has the property - between 5 and 6 acres - and enough wind so that, for the past 20 years, he has sold excess electricity back to the Long Island Power Authority for 6 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Even though he produced enough energy to sell some back, he had to pay LIPA, because the cost of buying energy is higher than the rate he received for the energy he sold.
Then, in December, LIPA installed a "net meter" that tracks the extra kilowatt-hours the windmill produces - for which LIPA gives him credit. So if, at the end of a year, the windmill has produced at least the same amount of energy his home has used, he'll owe only a meter charge of $3 per month.
Hoping meter reads zero
The windmill, he said, has averaged 10,000 kwh per year over the past 20 years, or nearly what his home uses in a year. The average Long Island home used between 9,000 and 10,000 kwh per year over the past five years, according to LIPA.
"Hopefully, when we get back to December, [the meter] will read zero, zero, zero," he said. "I will not owe for any electricity in the year."
Jarzombek is among just a handful of people on Long Island who own wind turbines that create clean, sustainable energy for their homes, according to Renewable Energy Long Island.
But executive director Gordian Raacke said the nonprofit organization receives three or four calls each month from residents requesting information about installing turbines.
Despite growing interest, Raacke said spread of the technology is slow - partly because of outdated or absent town codes regulating it and partly because generators don't work well for every site.
"It may not be windy enough, the lot might be too small, or it could be too close to the neighbors," he said. "The homeowner typically has no easy way of assessing wind resources."
Many sites on the North Fork, however, are capable of supporting generators, said James Minnick, and the average 14-16 mph wind speed is ideal. Minnick's company, Eastern Energy Systems Inc. of Mattituck, is one of the few companies on Long Island that sell and install wind and solar systems.
"There's people who want these things," said Minnick, 25. "I'd probably have 10 installed right now if it wasn't for the town's restrictions."
Codes lacking
Most Long Island towns have nothing on the books addressing wind energy, and those that do have codes that were written up to 20 years ago when the technology was different, Raacke said.
At least two towns, Southold and East Hampton, are working to change that.
The Southold Town Board adopted a new code July 17 aimed at the owners of farms and wineries. It establishes guidelines for installing generators for properties larger than seven acres.
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