Garrett Park Town Council approves switch to wind energy

‘‘We’re doing this just for us at the moment,” said Edwin ‘‘Ted” Pratt Jr., town administrator. ‘‘We’re hoping to have a number of households signed up when we’ll have a year under our belt of the town getting its juice from the wind.”

The town currently plans to spend about $23,500 on electricity for streetlights, the town offices at Penn Place and the town hall in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. Pratt said the town plans to spend roughly $25,000 with the switch to wind power.

Pratt said the town has enough money in the remaining fiscal 2008 budget for the increased cost of wind energy. The town budgeted for a 6 percent increase in the electricity bill in fiscal 2009, which begins on July 1.

Pepco’s NewWind Energy is produced by wind farms in the mid-Atlantic region, according to the company’s Web site. The windmills produce electricity without burning fossil fuels and do not release harmful or polluting emissions.

‘‘We view it as a long term potential savings if we can get a handle on our carbon consumption and help encourage others to do so, and over the period of decades reduce the impact of global warming,” he said.

Paying for renewable energy offsets the need for energy from a non-renewable source, and Pratt said the town wanted to take a proactive step to curb global warming.

Residents can opt to spend 16 cents per kilowatt hour for 100 percent wind energy. The cost of electricity varies between 9 cents and 13 cents per kilowatt hour depending on the time of day, but the cost is higher for wind because users fund the development of wind farms.