By: Bruce Woods; Bruce_woods@fws.gov

Gale Verticle Access Wind Turbines will generate energy while reducing the hazard presented to birds. Photo supplied by Marsh Creek LLC.

The Alaska Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is installing heat and electricity-generating wind turbines on Izembek and Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuges. The $3.4 million project funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will create several jobs. It is the largest Recovery Act investment in Alaska.

The project will consist of eleven innovative vertical wind turbines, seven of which will provide power to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service facilities in Cold Bay and four of which will be installed in King Salmon - perched atop monopole towers of 20-feet and 60 feet respectively.

Configured to minimize bird-strike hazards (the vertical turbines appear as solid objects to birds, which are better able to see and avoid them, and the towers do not require guy wires), the power generators will be designed and installed by Marsh Creek LLC, of Anchorage, Alaska. The Gale Vertical Access Wind Turbines were built by the Tangere, a company of Flagtown, New Jersey.

The wind hybrid systems will integrate the energy produced by the wind turbine(s) with conventional sources to fulfill the facilities’ electrical usage and thermal needs while obtaining a maximum contribution from the intermittent local wind resources. When fully operational, the wind turbines are expected to generate 35 Kw. of wind capacity at Cold Bay and 20 Kw. at King Salmon.

Bruce Woods is Chief of Media Relations in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Alaska Region.

Originally posted 05/04/2010