bureaucracy and small wind

[freebee]

Does anyone know of legal obstacles to setting up small wind turbines on private property in the DR, especially North Coast? For example, municipal bylaw restrictions, or restrictions imposed by gated communities?
Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Keith R]

I would suggest PMing georgios. He has a business setting up wind energy projects on the North Coast, so he may know. In fact, I'm trying to get him to do an guest article about this subject for the Green Team blog.

[Keith R]

freebee, I'll take a stab at this, and georgios and anyone else that has looked into wind energy in the DR can correct or supplement my remarks. I would also suggest that you pose this question in the Legal Forum. Not sure what kind of answer you'll get out of our resident lawyer, Fabio Guzman, but I suspect that he knows local law better than anyone on this message board, even on arcane issues such as this one.

My own (admitedly limited) understanding of the issue is that, at the national level currently there are no separate regulations for wind power projects, so for now any projects of any significant size have to follow the existing general rules applying to the electricity sector. If you're supplying your own household or a small cluster of houses, you probably would not have a problem with national authorities. If you were supplying a large gated community, however, I would not be surprised to find the local power supplier calling the authorities on you unless you've had the project approved through national authorities, because of their loss of (real or potential) revenue.

Municipal bylaws may not be much of an issue outside of Santo Domingo, Sanitago and perhaps Puerto Plata. Most Dominican municipalities have skeletal municipal codes at best.

BTW, if you're interested in seeing areas for greatest wind power potential in the DR on a series of maps of the country, check out this entry in the Green Team blog.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Keith

[georgios]

The DR by-law does not allow any man made towers & buildings past 11 meters along the North Coast. Is it enforced? It all depends where & how
high is the tower. There are numerous cellphone relay towers at 30 meters
height erected by Edenorte. Some municipalities will allow towers higher than 11 meters under certain conditions. Caution must be taken when applying for
tower erection around the Gregorio Luperon airport. These towers can not be
in the fly path of airplanes.
I will be installing wind turbines in the Cabrera area mid February. Many
people send emails asking for wind turbines. Unfortunately, only 20% of
them have a "good wind site". To determine if your property is suitable for
wind energy equipment please visit www.windpower.org . This is the
official website of the DANISH WIND INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION. If you think
you qualify then proceed with wind turbine selection. Talk to the people
next door to make sure they don't mind the tower & turbine visual aspect.
Wind & solar energy combined together is the best way to put nature
to work for you. In addition, energy conservation must be practiced to
get the best out of your investment.
For equipment sizing, both wind resources & KW demand must be
measured accurately. Over 75% of home/business owners are not sure
what is their electricity requirements resulting in undersizing inverter and
battery bank which eventually leads to problems & high cost to replace
the equipment.
Renewable energy is a hugh topic. Getting the right education & answers
is the only way to proceed with aquiring the equipment.
I'll be more than happy to address your questions. I thank Keith R for
the invitation to participate in the Green Team.

Warm regards,
Georgios.

[Keith R]

Originally Posted by georgios

I'll be more than happy to address your questions. I thank Keith R for
the invitation to participate in the Green Team.

As always, thanks for the help, Georgios. Does this mean you'll accept the invitation to do a piece for the Green Team blog? (I hope I hope!)

[georgios]

Originally Posted by Keith R

As always, thanks for the help, Georgios. Does this mean you'll accept the invitation to do a piece for the Green Team blog? (I hope I hope!)

I am working on it
Georgios.

[Keith R]

Great! Thanks so much!

[Andy B]

The owner of Luz y Fuerza in Las Galeras (and Las Terrenas) has told me they are seriously considering installing wind turbines atop Cape Samana to help reduce the generating costs. As it is now, we are paying $11.25 pesos per kilo -over $10,000rd per month for our small hotel- and when we asked him about skyrocketing costs of oil he replied that he thought the turbines would help lower our costs.

[freebee]

Thanks Keith R for your good insight into the "official" and "unofficial" rules and restrictions.

Also thanks Georgios for your pointers -- you obviously have in depth knowledge of the business. Another excellent reference is the new small wind energy website by the Canadian Wind Energy Association.