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8 Wednesday December 16 2015 INDUSTRY WIND POWER We believe that being a good neighbour is all about showing respect. So no matter where we live and work you can expect respect in everything we do. Cenovus Energy. A Canadian oil company. New ideas. New approaches.cenovus.com Having your respect is something we work at every day. By DALI CARMICHAEL As Santa makes his descent from the North Pole this year he might notice a new red light hanging high in the sky just outside of Inuvik - and it isnt Ru- dolphs nose. Earlier this month a new 60-metre wind tower was installed near High Point hill 13 kilometres outside of the community to mea- sure wind power in the area and to test the feasibility of a wind farm. The tower is only the latest in a series of similar wind power experiments in the Beau- fort Delta conducted by Yukon engineer J.P. Pinard through the Arctic Research Insti- tute over the last several years. The project is funded by the Government of the North- west Territories. We did put a station and some moni- toring sensors on another tower up at Storm Hills and we found phenomenal winds there world-class winds. The issue there is to build a road and a powerline there and thats going to make it very ex- pensive Pinard said noting the site was about 60 km out of town. The folks at the Northwest Territories Power Corp. approached me at one time saying what about this hill thats just 13 km east of Inuvik And I said sure let me look at it a little more closely. Earlier this year a 30-metre tower was in- stalled at the same site but had to be taken down after only eight months. A data logger has already started sending out weekly updates from the tower which features both heated and unheated sen- sors - Pinard worried cold temperatures and ice build-up may have impacted the accuracy of past measurements if only by a few increments. A road away from fossil fuels Testing will likely continue for at least one year if not two or three before any moves are made to get wind turbines installed. However should the test results come out as Pinard expects them to it could mean large savings for the town of Inuvik which currently runs on natural gas with diesel generators as a fallback. We did the economics we converted those wind speeds into turbine energy production based on a particular model and then costed it out and what we found was it turns out that if we put a wind farm on High Point it would be about the same price as putting a wind farm at Storm Hills he said. We would be better off at having it at High Point because wed be able to build a road there and it would be very quick to access the site if there were problems. Pinard isnt the only one optimistic about the promise of wind power. Inuvik mayor Jim MacDonald said he was also eager to see the outcome of the testing. They are seriously looking at wind and I think its a good option for power for the community MacDonald said of NTPC. If they get some really good results in Im sure theyll start moving further into the planning and getting things off the ground. Well see hopefully. Pinard said the fossil fuel industry receives heavy subsidies from development to produc- tion giving it an unfair advantage. If we can show there is cheaper energy coming from that site than from natural gas then great Pinard said. Even if it was a little more expensive than natural gas electricity theres still a case for it. When you look at the big picture theres been way too many sub- sidies toward fossil fuel and there hasnt been a real level playing field for renewable energy. There should be an incentive to make wind a little bit cheaper. I think the opportunity for Inuvik is that you could be using wind energy not to just displace fossil fuel for electricity generation but also for space heating. Earlier this month a new 60-metre wind tower was installed near High Point hill 13 kilometres outside Inuvik to measure wind power in the area. Inuvik testing for wind power feasibility PhotoJ.P.Pinard