POSTED: Thursday, Jan. 07, 2010

Bellingham waterfront wind gear is first step to wind power

BELLINGHAM - Wind instruments were installed Thursday, Jan. 7, on the Bellingham waterfront to gauge the feasibility of installing power-generating turbines on the site.

The $8,000 project is a partnership of the Port of Bellingham, Bellingham Technical College and Western Washington University. The 160-foot tower that holds the instruments was installed by a crew from Wear Construction of Snohomish. It's in an area off Laurel Street that was formerly home to the Georgia-Pacific Corp. pulp and paper mill.

Adam Fulton, a port project engineer, said the tower holds six wind-speed gauges, or anemometers, at varying heights. For the next 18 months, the gauges will gather data that will help determine if some kind of wind-power generating equipment would be economically feasible.

"The technologies are changing in that industry," Fulton said. "The minimum amount of wind for power generation to be feasible is getting lower all the time."

But with the data-gathering process just beginning, Fulton said it's too soon to say if waterfront wind generation will happen, or what it would look like if it did.

The waterfront nearby already is home to a Puget Sound Energy gas-fired power plant, originally built there so that its waste heat could be used in G-P's pulp and paper process.

The gauges installed Thursday will have another use: The wind data they gather will be used to help estimate wave force along the nearby shoreline. Fulton said engineers need that information as they draw up plans for a major shoreline makeover as the waterfront redevelops in the years and decades ahead.

The port plans to restore much of the industrial shoreline to a more natural appearance that will be more environmentally and people-friendly.