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Power - Wind turbine - 9,900 kW / Canada
Case study assignment
You are a canola and wheat farmer living in southwestern Manitoba. Recently a windfarm developer has approached you. The developer is interested in building a major wind project in your area, and putting several large wind turbines on your property. They are offering to pay a certain royalty for the energy produced by each turbine on your property, plus reimburse you for crops damaged during construction. They have provided you with some estimates of the electricity production, but you would like to double-check them.
In addition, given that this seems to be a money-making venture, you would like to investigate whether it would be possible for you and some of your neighbors to bypass the developer and build a windfarm on your own lands with your own resources; you have heard that this has been done by farmers in Europe.
Site information
The nearest town is Morden, about 30 km to the southeast. The land in your area is relatively flat prairie. A railway line and a 230 kV transmission line are within a few kilometers. You and a half-dozen neighbors, who may be interested in joining a windfarm project, each own about 200 ha of land.
You have heard that the developer who has approached you plans to employ around 70 Vestas V82 1.65 MW wind turbines spread over 10,000 ha. The turbines have the hub at a height of 80 m above the ground. You figure that, if you and your neighbors were to build a windfarm, this turbine would be a reasonable choice, at least for a first analysis.
You searched the Internet and found a Vestas website with information about this turbine. The turbine starts producing power when wind speeds exceed 3.5 m/s, and stops producing power when the average wind speed over a ten-minute period exceeds 20 m/s. The website included the power curve for the turbine, reprinted below. The line in bold is the power curve for the 1.65 MW generator.
Financial information
The developer who has approached you wants to pay you a small lump sum for an option on your land. This option stipulates that if they build their windfarm, you will enter a contract with them that will restrict, for the next 40 years, what you can build on your land: basically, you cannot build anything that significantly impedes the free flow of wind. For every turbine they put on your land, they will pay you an annual rent of around $0.60 per MWh of electricity it produces, with a minimum payment of $2,200 per turbine. The company estimates that an average 1.65 MW turbine in their development will generate around 5,600 MWh per year. To farmers with no turbines on their land, the developer will pay a rent of $12.36 per hectare, with the same restrictions on land use. The developer says that their turbines and access roads will take up only 2 to 3% of the land, and the remainder will be available for farming.
Case study assignment
You are a canola and wheat farmer living in southwestern Manitoba. Recently a windfarm developer has approached you. The developer is interested in building a major wind project in your area, and putting several large wind turbines on your property. They are offering to pay a certain royalty for the energy produced by each turbine on your property, plus reimburse you for crops damaged during construction. They have provided you with some estimates of the electricity production, but you would like to double-check them.
In addition, given that this seems to be a money-making venture, you would like to investigate whether it would be possible for you and some of your neighbors to bypass the developer and build a windfarm on your own lands with your own resources; you have heard that this has been done by farmers in Europe.
Site information
The nearest town is Morden, about 30 km to the southeast. The land in your area is relatively flat prairie. A railway line and a 230 kV transmission line are within a few kilometers. You and a half-dozen neighbors, who may be interested in joining a windfarm project, each own about 200 ha of land.
You have heard that the developer who has approached you plans to employ around 70 Vestas V82 1.65 MW wind turbines spread over 10,000 ha. The turbines have the hub at a height of 80 m above the ground. You figure that, if you and your neighbors were to build a windfarm, this turbine would be a reasonable choice, at least for a first analysis.
You searched the Internet and found a Vestas website with information about this turbine. The turbine starts producing power when wind speeds exceed 3.5 m/s, and stops producing power when the average wind speed over a ten-minute period exceeds 20 m/s. The website included the power curve for the turbine, reprinted below. The line in bold is the power curve for the 1.65 MW generator.
Financial information
The developer who has approached you wants to pay you a small lump sum for an option on your land. This option stipulates that if they build their windfarm, you will enter a contract with them that will restrict, for the next 40 years, what you can build on your land: basically, you cannot build anything that significantly impedes the free flow of wind. For every turbine they put on your land, they will pay you an annual rent of around $0.60 per MWh of electricity it produces, with a minimum payment of $2,200 per turbine. The company estimates that an average 1.65 MW turbine in their development will generate around 5,600 MWh per year. To farmers with no turbines on their land, the developer will pay a rent of $12.36 per hectare, with the same restrictions on land use. The developer says that their turbines and access roads will take up only 2 to 3% of the land, and the remainder will be available for farming.
You and your neighbors have substantial assets in your farms, and think that you could finance 70% of your own wind project with debt at an interest rate of 6% over a term of 20 years. You would be interested in a project that had a return on your equity investment of at least 10% over a 25-year period.
The output of your windfarm would be sold to the provincial utility. Electricity is relatively inexpensive in Manitoba, but there is a strong export market for wind-generated electricity. Furthermore, the provincial government is considering programs to encourage smaller windfarm developments. As a result, you suspect that the utility would buy the electricity from your project at a rate substantially higher than what you pay for electricity, perhaps as high as $0.65/kWh, and then sell it at a profit to utilities in the United States. You also found a federal government wind power production incentive that pays an additional $0.01/kWh of wind energy produced over a 10 year period.
You would like to determine three things:
Prepare a RETScreen study, documenting any assumptions that you are required to make, and report on the significant conclusions from this analysis.
Solution
The worked-out solution is the data file selected from within the RETScreen Project Database. The user automatically downloads the Project Database file while downloading the RETScreen software.
Teacher's notes
Results
St. Leon Wind Energy is a 99 MW windfarm located approximately 150 km southwest of Winnipeg, in the town of St. Leon. It was the first windfarm in the Province of Manitoba and remains one of the largest wind energy developments in Canada. The 63 turbine installation is capable of powering approximately 35,000 homes. It is owned by Algonquin Power Income Fund.
Wind resource assessments and environmental assessments for the project were carried out between 2002 and 2004. In the first phase of construction, 12 turbines were erected, access roads built, interconnection transmission lines put in place, and a remote monitoring system (equipped with fibre-optic communication cables to each turbine) was installed. The turbines started producing electricity in the second quarter of 2005.
The turbines of the first phase of construction qualified as Canadian Renewable Energy and Conservation Expenses, and thus were fully deductible under federal tax law. Of the $51.8 million cost of this phase, $46.1 million was "flowed through" to shareholders, who were entitled to claim deductions from income in the 2004 taxation year equal to approximately 78% of the subscription price of the shares.
Having established the financial viability of the project with the test turbines of the first phase, a second phase, consisting of a further 51 turbines, was built. Estimated to require an additional investment of $134 million, this phase started producing electricity in the first quarter of 2006.
The 63 turbines of the project are expected to have an annual average output of 370.4 GWh. All output will be sold to Manitoba Hydro according to a power purchase agreement valid for 25 years from the date on which commercial operation began. The majority of the electricity will be sold at $0.51 per kWh, rising at 1.25% per year in real terms. The project also qualifies for a federal wind power production incentive of $0.01 per kWh, paid for a ten-year period.
The project is located on 9,300 ha of privately owned wheat and canola farmland. The developers entered into right-of-way agreements with approximately 50 local landowners using a single agreement template, providing for a minimum term of 40 years. Annual rent payable to the landowners is $0.62 per MWh from each turbine, subject to a minimum payment of $2,250 per wind turbine, with both amounts indexed to changes in the Canadian Consumer Price Index (using 2003 as the base year). Land without wind turbines is leased at a cost of $12.36 per acre, similarly indexed to changes in the Canadian Consumer Price Index [Airsource Power Fund, 2005].
In addition, the developer agreed to reimburse landowners for crops damaged during the construction or operation of the wind turbines at the rate of 1.3 times the market value of the yield losses per hectare of crops damaged (excluding permanent roads), calculated by multiplying the market price times the area average yield per hectare, both as determined by Manitoba Crop Insurance Corporation, and taking into account the time of year in which the crop damage occurred [Airsource Power Fund, 2005].
Over the 25 year life of the project, the landowners will receive $9.1 million in annual payments from the project. The municipality will collect $15 million in property taxes, the provincial government will be paid $25 million in income and sales tax, the federal government will collect a similar amount, and another $5 million will be paid in capital taxes. About 280 person-years of employment were created during the construction phase, and the project resulted in about 30 ongoing jobs related to operation and maintenance.
System description
All 63 turbines in the project are 1.65 MW Vestas V82 machines. The 82 m rotor of this turbine is significantly larger than is normal for a 1.65 MW generator; this improves its performance in areas with low or moderate winds. The "arctic" version of the turbine is used, in light of Manitoba's cold winters. The turbines stand 80 m tall, and each turbine assembly weighs approximately 220 tonnes. Power control is achieved by actively adjusting the pitch of the blades to stall (rather than feather), a relatively uncommon approach that benefits from passive stall regulation should incorrect pitch adjustment occur. The rotor turns at a constant 14.4 RPM.
The windfarm is, at its nearest point, only 3 km from a Manitoba Hydro 230 kV transmission line and substation. It is also very near a railway line, facilitating transport. Access roads were easily built over the open agricultural land of the area.
Lessons learned
The province of Manitoba plans to develop up to 1,000 MW of wind over the next decade. Of this, the province will set aside approximately 50 MW to support the development of smaller wind projects, which could include projects having farmers, cooperatives, or other community-based groups taking the lead and having an equity stake.
Developers have built almost all Canadian windfarms: there are relatively few "community-based" initiatives that have been successful. The scale of these projects (in the range of tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars) as well as the necessary technical expertise, financial resources, and business acumen, are significant hurdles for any community group. Before a project is built, the group must make major commitments to wind resource assessment, environmental assessments, negotiations, development, engineering, etc. Thus, upfront costs are in the $500,000 to $2,000,000 range, even for a "small" utility-scale project.
Furthermore, economies of scale work in favour of large projects: for example, the 450 tonne cranes used for erecting large turbines are among the largest in North America, and may cost up to $500,000 to rent. This cost is more easily borne when spread over a large development than a farm containing a handful of turbines. It would be difficult for a small development to operate profitably if it had to sell its output at $0.51 per kWh, the price for the St. Leon project.
The hurdles of community-based windfarm development are especially acute in agricultural areas. Population densities are low, so there is not a large pool of potential investors to draw on. Typical of an aging demographic, farmers may be unwilling to take risks on unfamiliar projects having very long time horizons. Furthermore, many farmers are already highly indebted.
Sometimes the Canadian wind development model is compared with the community-based model more prevalent in Europe. The large number of turbines owned by individuals and co-operatives in Europe is misleading in today's context. Many of these turbines date to an era of small, less costly wind turbines, where the scale of the project was much more manageable for community-based groups. It is relatively rare for new European developments to be entirely owned by, and at the initiative of, a community-based group.
On the other hand, in Canada and elsewhere, wind developers are increasingly faced with opposition, typically related to visual impacts. Interestingly, this opposition tends to come not from permanent local residents (e.g., farmers), but people who spend only a part of the year in the vicinity of the turbines (e.g., cottagers).
Recently, community groups and developers have begun teaming up on individual projects. In so doing, they benefit from each other's strengths: the developer brings financial muscle, know-how, and technical expertise, while the community group provides a counterweight to opposition that may arise. The community group ensures that benefits flow to the community and that the community has a say in how the project evolves. This model also gives interested community members an opportunity to take an equity investment in the project.
Regardless of who is developing the wind project, farmers who are approached by someone seeking "options" or "right-of-way" for their land should consider the contract very carefully, given that it may lead to restrictions on the use of their land over a very long period of time [McConnell, 2006]. Documents guiding the farmer or other landowner in these negotiations are now available (e.g., [Gipe and Murphy, 2006]).
Photos
Wind farm, Manitoba, Canada - Photo 1
Wind farm, Manitoba, Canada - Photo 2
References
The output of your windfarm would be sold to the provincial utility. Electricity is relatively inexpensive in Manitoba, but there is a strong export market for wind-generated electricity. Furthermore, the provincial government is considering programs to encourage smaller windfarm developments. As a result, you suspect that the utility would buy the electricity from your project at a rate substantially higher than what you pay for electricity, perhaps as high as $0.65/kWh, and then sell it at a profit to utilities in the United States. You also found a federal government wind power production incentive that pays an additional $0.01/kWh of wind energy produced over a 10 year period.
You would like to determine three things:
- Whether the project developer's claim that an average turbine in their project will produce 5,600 MWh per year;
- Whether it would be feasible and financially attractive for you and your neighbors to develop your own windfarm of approximately 10 MW; and
- How the developer's offer compares, in terms of financial benefits, to developing your own project.
Prepare a RETScreen study, documenting any assumptions that you are required to make, and report on the significant conclusions from this analysis.
Solution
The worked-out solution is the data file selected from within the RETScreen Project Database. The user automatically downloads the Project Database file while downloading the RETScreen software.
Teacher's notes
- The site is located near Pilot Mound, a ground station in the RETScreen climate database. The average annual air temperature and atmospheric pressure from this ground station were used. For the estimate of the wind speed, however, data for an 80 m height were taken from the Canadian Wind Energy Atlas. This source indicated an average wind speed of 7.5 m/s. This is probably a more accurate estimate of the wind speed than could be derived through adjusting the 10 m ground measurement for Pilot Mound.
- The site does not have an extraordinary wind resource, and the choice of wind turbine should reflect that. The Vestas V82 turbine has a very large rotor for a 1.65 MW machine, and is, therefore, well suited to wind regimes characterized by low and moderate wind speeds. With this choice of turbine, a relatively high capacity factor can be achieved. Turbines without an oversized rotor will not produce as much energy over the year. For example, choosing a Vestas V65 turbine, also a 1.65 MW machine, but with a 65 m rotor diameter instead of an 82 m rotor diameter, would cause the capacity factor to decline from around 37% to 27%. One consequence of the use of a larger rotor is that it makes the specific yield seem low.
- The analysis suggests that the net output per 1.65 MW turbine will be around 5,300 MWh per year. This is comparable to the wind developer's estimate of 5,600 MWh per year. Based on the RETScreen estimate, the farmer will receive $3,180 per turbine in an average year.
- Performing a RETScreen analysis reveals the scale of even a "small" 10 MW project. The financial commitment, technical expertise, and business acumen required for a successful outcome are significant barriers to all but experienced developers, including individual farmers and co-operatives. For this project, just the feasibility study would involve a financial commitment of at least $300,000. Although individuals or members of a cooperative could perform some of the tasks in such a study (thus contributing "sweat equity"), they would have to be able to defend their technical capacities under scrutiny by bankers deliberating whether to loan over $15 million for the project. Any individual or community-based group contemplating such a project should be very committed, with substantial financial resources, strong technical background, or (preferably) both.
- A 10% return on equity of $6,860,000 is equivalent to an annual payment of $68,600. If this were split between seven farmers, each farmer would receive just under $10,000 annually. On the other hand, on average one would expect the developer to put one turbine on every 140 ha of land. A farmer with 200 ha would expect to have 1.4 turbines. With each turbine generating about $3,180, the average payment to a farmer would be $4,500 per year. In reality, there would be farmers unlucky enough to have no turbines on their land, and therefore receive just under $2,500 per year, others with one turbine who receive $3,180 in an average year, and farmers with two turbines who would be paid $6,360 in an average year. Thus, the payments made by the developer are significantly less valuable than a 10% return on $6.9 million. On the other hand, given that the developer assumes the risk, secures the financing, and does years of work prior to building the project, the payments the developer offers do not seem unreasonable.
- No monetary value has been assigned to the greenhouse gas emission reductions associated with this project. Currently, there are limited opportunities in Canada for selling these emission reductions. Even if such opportunities did exist, the emission reductions for this particular project, installed on a predominantly hydroelectric grid with low emissions levels, could be minimal. On the other hand, if the electricity were exported to the United States, especially to areas generating electricity with coal, the GHG emissions reductions could represent a significant additional revenue stream.
- The RETScreen analysis has not included any consideration of income tax. The way that income tax would be administered would depend on the type and structure of the organization owning the windfarm. This is outside of the scope of this case study.
Results
St. Leon Wind Energy is a 99 MW windfarm located approximately 150 km southwest of Winnipeg, in the town of St. Leon. It was the first windfarm in the Province of Manitoba and remains one of the largest wind energy developments in Canada. The 63 turbine installation is capable of powering approximately 35,000 homes. It is owned by Algonquin Power Income Fund.
Wind resource assessments and environmental assessments for the project were carried out between 2002 and 2004. In the first phase of construction, 12 turbines were erected, access roads built, interconnection transmission lines put in place, and a remote monitoring system (equipped with fibre-optic communication cables to each turbine) was installed. The turbines started producing electricity in the second quarter of 2005.
The turbines of the first phase of construction qualified as Canadian Renewable Energy and Conservation Expenses, and thus were fully deductible under federal tax law. Of the $51.8 million cost of this phase, $46.1 million was "flowed through" to shareholders, who were entitled to claim deductions from income in the 2004 taxation year equal to approximately 78% of the subscription price of the shares.
Having established the financial viability of the project with the test turbines of the first phase, a second phase, consisting of a further 51 turbines, was built. Estimated to require an additional investment of $134 million, this phase started producing electricity in the first quarter of 2006.
The 63 turbines of the project are expected to have an annual average output of 370.4 GWh. All output will be sold to Manitoba Hydro according to a power purchase agreement valid for 25 years from the date on which commercial operation began. The majority of the electricity will be sold at $0.51 per kWh, rising at 1.25% per year in real terms. The project also qualifies for a federal wind power production incentive of $0.01 per kWh, paid for a ten-year period.
The project is located on 9,300 ha of privately owned wheat and canola farmland. The developers entered into right-of-way agreements with approximately 50 local landowners using a single agreement template, providing for a minimum term of 40 years. Annual rent payable to the landowners is $0.62 per MWh from each turbine, subject to a minimum payment of $2,250 per wind turbine, with both amounts indexed to changes in the Canadian Consumer Price Index (using 2003 as the base year). Land without wind turbines is leased at a cost of $12.36 per acre, similarly indexed to changes in the Canadian Consumer Price Index [Airsource Power Fund, 2005].
In addition, the developer agreed to reimburse landowners for crops damaged during the construction or operation of the wind turbines at the rate of 1.3 times the market value of the yield losses per hectare of crops damaged (excluding permanent roads), calculated by multiplying the market price times the area average yield per hectare, both as determined by Manitoba Crop Insurance Corporation, and taking into account the time of year in which the crop damage occurred [Airsource Power Fund, 2005].
Over the 25 year life of the project, the landowners will receive $9.1 million in annual payments from the project. The municipality will collect $15 million in property taxes, the provincial government will be paid $25 million in income and sales tax, the federal government will collect a similar amount, and another $5 million will be paid in capital taxes. About 280 person-years of employment were created during the construction phase, and the project resulted in about 30 ongoing jobs related to operation and maintenance.
System description
All 63 turbines in the project are 1.65 MW Vestas V82 machines. The 82 m rotor of this turbine is significantly larger than is normal for a 1.65 MW generator; this improves its performance in areas with low or moderate winds. The "arctic" version of the turbine is used, in light of Manitoba's cold winters. The turbines stand 80 m tall, and each turbine assembly weighs approximately 220 tonnes. Power control is achieved by actively adjusting the pitch of the blades to stall (rather than feather), a relatively uncommon approach that benefits from passive stall regulation should incorrect pitch adjustment occur. The rotor turns at a constant 14.4 RPM.
The windfarm is, at its nearest point, only 3 km from a Manitoba Hydro 230 kV transmission line and substation. It is also very near a railway line, facilitating transport. Access roads were easily built over the open agricultural land of the area.
Lessons learned
- Windfarms are entirely compatible with existing farm operations, and offer an additional revenue stream to the farmer. The turbines occupy only 1 to 5% of the land on which the windfarm is built, leaving the remainder available for crops or grazing.
- Manitoba Hydro's vast hydropower resources facilitate the integration of wind power. The intermittent nature of wind generation poses few problems when most of the remaining generation facilities are very responsive to changes in load and can store energy (i.e., in reservoirs behind dams).
- The wind resource assessment for this project involved monitoring wind speed and direction over a 17-month period at two locations. The data from the 50 and 60 m towers were then compared with simultaneous measurements at the nearby Environment Canada Pilot Mound ground station. All three measurements were strongly correlated. This permitted windfarm production estimates to be based on ten years of measurements from the Pilot Mound ground station, not just the 17-month data record. This was necessary since studies have shown that estimates of the long-term average wind speed based on one year's monitored data can only be considered accurate to within ±10% at a 90% confidence level, due to year-to-year variation in the wind speed. This corresponds to uncertainty of ±15% to ±25% in the estimate of the energy available from the wind, a level of uncertainty that would scare off most investors. Even with the use of the 10-year record from Pilot Mound, however, the long-term estimate of the available wind energy can only be considered accurate to within ±4% to ±6% at the 90% confidence level. This excludes any errors in instrument measurements, errors in the modeling of the windfarm, or long-term changes in climate.
The province of Manitoba plans to develop up to 1,000 MW of wind over the next decade. Of this, the province will set aside approximately 50 MW to support the development of smaller wind projects, which could include projects having farmers, cooperatives, or other community-based groups taking the lead and having an equity stake.
Developers have built almost all Canadian windfarms: there are relatively few "community-based" initiatives that have been successful. The scale of these projects (in the range of tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars) as well as the necessary technical expertise, financial resources, and business acumen, are significant hurdles for any community group. Before a project is built, the group must make major commitments to wind resource assessment, environmental assessments, negotiations, development, engineering, etc. Thus, upfront costs are in the $500,000 to $2,000,000 range, even for a "small" utility-scale project.
Furthermore, economies of scale work in favour of large projects: for example, the 450 tonne cranes used for erecting large turbines are among the largest in North America, and may cost up to $500,000 to rent. This cost is more easily borne when spread over a large development than a farm containing a handful of turbines. It would be difficult for a small development to operate profitably if it had to sell its output at $0.51 per kWh, the price for the St. Leon project.
The hurdles of community-based windfarm development are especially acute in agricultural areas. Population densities are low, so there is not a large pool of potential investors to draw on. Typical of an aging demographic, farmers may be unwilling to take risks on unfamiliar projects having very long time horizons. Furthermore, many farmers are already highly indebted.
Sometimes the Canadian wind development model is compared with the community-based model more prevalent in Europe. The large number of turbines owned by individuals and co-operatives in Europe is misleading in today's context. Many of these turbines date to an era of small, less costly wind turbines, where the scale of the project was much more manageable for community-based groups. It is relatively rare for new European developments to be entirely owned by, and at the initiative of, a community-based group.
On the other hand, in Canada and elsewhere, wind developers are increasingly faced with opposition, typically related to visual impacts. Interestingly, this opposition tends to come not from permanent local residents (e.g., farmers), but people who spend only a part of the year in the vicinity of the turbines (e.g., cottagers).
Recently, community groups and developers have begun teaming up on individual projects. In so doing, they benefit from each other's strengths: the developer brings financial muscle, know-how, and technical expertise, while the community group provides a counterweight to opposition that may arise. The community group ensures that benefits flow to the community and that the community has a say in how the project evolves. This model also gives interested community members an opportunity to take an equity investment in the project.
Regardless of who is developing the wind project, farmers who are approached by someone seeking "options" or "right-of-way" for their land should consider the contract very carefully, given that it may lead to restrictions on the use of their land over a very long period of time [McConnell, 2006]. Documents guiding the farmer or other landowner in these negotiations are now available (e.g., [Gipe and Murphy, 2006]).
Photos
Wind farm, Manitoba, Canada - Photo 1
Wind farm, Manitoba, Canada - Photo 2
References
- Airsource Power Fund, Initial Public Offering Prospectus: Airsource Power Fund, Website: http://www.airsourcepower.com, 2004.
- Algonquin Power Income Fund, Website: http://www.algonquinpower.com/business/facility/alternative_StLeon.asp.
- Gipe, Paul, Various articles on Co-op and community wind, land lease arrangements, and opposition to wind, Website: http://www.wind-works.org.
- Gipe, Paul and James Murphy. Ontario Landowner's Guide to Wind Energy, Toronto, Ontario: Ontario Sustainable Energy Association, Website: http://www.ontario-sea.org, 2005.
- Great Plains Windustry Project, Website: http://www.windustry.org.
- Halas, Rick, Wind Power Takes Flight, Community Wind Workshop, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Website: http://www.gov.mb.ca/est/energy/wind/index.html, October 21, 2006.
- Halas, Rick, Business Development Project Manager, "Personal communication," Manitoba Science, Technology, Energy & Mines, 2007.
- McConnell, Jeff, Wind Energy Development Agreements, Community Wind Workshop, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Website: http://www.gov.mb.ca/est/energy/wind/index.html, October 21, 2006.
- Moore, Brian, Acting Manager, "Personal Communication," Sustainable Energy, SaskPower, 2007.
- Ontario Sustainable Energy Association, The Community Power Guidebook, Toronto, Ontario, 2006.
- Ross, Michael, "Personal Communication," RER Renewable Energy Research, 2007.
- Schur, T.J., "Personal Communication," Aeolis Wind, 2007.
