Power Alternatives by Steve Prestegard, MarketPlace Magazine

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Innovation in energy has been part of Manitowoc’s history, dating back to when the city purchased its electric utility. Manitowoc — both the city and its businesses and institutions — is generating its own reputation today for innovation in alternative forms of energy.

"We’re sitting here in Manitowoc where we have a pretty interesting energy cluster," says Manitowoc Mayor Kevin Crawford, who points out that the city purchased Manitowoc Public Utilities ("Power for their people," Marketplace, Feb. 27, 2001) in 1914 "so poor people could have electricity."

Today, Manitowoc is "the only city in Wisconsin that exports 25 megawatts of electricity" per day. MPU’s value has increased from an estimated $50.7 million in 1989 to an estimated $242.9 million in 2008.

The city’s role in renewable energy begins at MPU, where its coal-burning power plant also burns charcoal and paper pellets. MPU and other utilities are required to generate 10 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2015.

Several wind projects are in the works outside Manitowoc ("Wind power’s windfall," Marketplace, Dec. 2, 2008). But Manitowoc is the only city in Wisconsin that now allows wind generation projects up to 400 feet high to be built within the city limits.

"Many local governments busy themselves with political pandering rather than the facts regarding wind power," says Crawford. "This small city’s advocacy that will result in the installation of wind structures on the shore of Lake Michigan will hopefully not only expand our local and state ‘green’ economy, but also change the focus of wind generation discussions by ‘electeds’ from politics to renewable energy policy."

The impact of the wind energy industry extends not just to generating electricity in the Manitowoc area.
"We are home to a major cluster of impressive green manufacturing businesses: Tower Tech, a builder of wind towers; Orion Energy, in the business of energy efficiency and renewables; Manitowoc Cranes, building wind generation erection equipment; and the long list of organizations that support them," says Crawford. "Our location on the Niagara Escarpment coupled with the incredible wind plume generated by Lake Michigan make us not only a great place to build the key components of the wind industry, but also a great place to generate electricity using the wind as well."

The first company to take advantage of the new ordinance will be Orion Energy Systems ("Clean light," Marketplace, March 20, 2007), which will be installing a microturbine at its new corporate headquarters, expected to open in February.

Orion vice president Steve Heins says the company expects to be able to sell electricity back to Manitowoc Public Utilities. Orion’s manufacturing plant uses several of the company’s products and systems. Orion’s corporate headquarters, now under construction next to Orion’s Manitowoc plant, will include a technology management, demonstration and training center.

Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland has begun a Wind Energy Technology associate-degree program, designed to train installers and repairers of wind turbines. The first class, held last fall, attracted 25 students, 21 of whom are taking the second course this spring.

Lakeshore Tech has had a wind turbine on its campus since 2004. The technical college installed a photovoltaic solar project in 2007, with 70 kilowatt-hours of electricity — or the equivalent of the energy use of seven Northeast Wisconsin homes — generated between the wind turbine and the solar project, according to LTC officials.

The wind project, intended only as a demonstration, sparked the interest of an LTC student who wanted to work with its maintenance crew. Doug Lindsey, LTC’s dean of agriculture, apprenticeships, trade and industry, says the technical college created a one-credit course for the student.

Since a photo was taken of the student on Lakeshore Tech’s tower and the photo was transmitted to newspapers and Web sites via The Associated Press, "the phone still hasn’t stopped ringing," says Lindsey.
Twenty-five students took the first Wind Energy Technology course this past fall. Twenty-one of those students are moving on to the program’s second course this spring, in which students climb up a wind turbine for the first time. Another 10 to 12 students will be taking the introductory class of the 2½-year program this spring, Lindsey says.

LTC also is working with wind turbine manufacturers on training for the manufacturers’ employees. Lakeshore Tech first worked with Gamesa, a Spanish manufacturer with facilities near Milwaukee, on Occupational Safety and Health Administration training. The technical college now is working with Vestas, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, to get two wind turbine sections for safety instruction and training, Lindsey says.

A study of wind power’s economic effects from the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the creation of 12 construction jobs and 34 operations jobs for every 100 megawatts of new wind energy construction. The same study estimates $296,000 of wages of construction workers and $1.23 million of operations wages for every 100 megawatts of new construction.

"The calculations would have us with well over 100,000 jobs in wind energy by 2030," says Lindsey.
Lakeshore Tech also is working with Northeast Wisconsin Technical College on a new nuclear technology program, funded by a $1 million three-year U.S. Department of Labor grant. The grant makes tuition free to students.

Lindsey says LTC is moving ahead on creating a photovoltaic-energy certification program. The college’s campus will have an interactive kiosk, duplicated on its Web site, www.gotoltc.edu, to show the amount of energy the college’s wind and photovoltaic plants are generating.

Both the wind energy and the nuclear programs include classes taught in LTC’s Electro-Mechanical Technology associate-degree program.

"It makes a bold statement about our community — I think Manitowoc is well planned to be the epicenter of renewable energies," says Crawford, who is leaving office in April after 20 years as Manitowoc’s mayor. "We’ve got amazingly skilled people, the shops that are necessary — it’s the right place. If you want to hang around inventive people who are working in this area already, they’re already here in Manitowoc."

Writer Lee Marie Reinsch contributed to this story.