EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third and final installment of The Daily’s three-part series on wind energy in Oklahoma.

It’s an election year, and nearly every politician and government official has been touting wind energy, or at least the expansion of the nation’s — and Oklahoma’s — energy portfolio.

Both presidential candidates say they want more development of wind energy. Both Oklahoma U.S. Senate candidates, Republican Jim Inhofe and Democrat Andrew Rice, support the expansion of the wind industry and the infrastructure to support it. The candidates for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the energy industry, do as well.

Others within the government and those in charge of existing infrastructure, however, would like to see more thought go into the turbines before they stand up.

Radar interference

Because of the height of wind turbines and their moving blades, Doppler radars can receive interference from turbines if they are too close to radars, causing radar screens to show corrupted data, said Maj. John Sandifer at the Radar Operations Center at the National Weather Center.

At the center, a team of researchers and government officials is trying to work with utility companies across the country on the placement of turbines while developing ways for the radar to filter out the clutter to ensure they can still protect people from dangerous weather.

“A lot of the developers aren’t even aware that there are impacts to the radars,” Sandifer said.

Weather researchers’ concern with radar clarity, however, should not be seen as an anti-wind energy stance. Sandifer said they support wind energy, but would like to be considered in the development phase of new wind farms.

“We’re trying just to reach out to those developers and to the public in general,” Sandifer said.

The U.S. government operates a network of 159 radars installed across the country to track weather for the National Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense. The radars were installed in the 1990s at a cost of $1.4 billion to the taxpayers.

Radars have filters that remove stationary targets in the radar’s line of sight, like trees and buildings. The source of the turbines’ interference with the radars is in the movement of the blades.

“Radar sees that as a moving target and clutter filters are typically not designed to remove those types of returns,” Sandifer said. “What we’re seeing, basically, is moving clutter.”

The clutter on the screen created by the wind turbines can affect the judgment and response time of meteorologists monitoring weather events, said Commander Scott Saul of the Radar Operations Center.

“The fear is you can get overwhelmed with too many of these,” Saul said.

Wading through the clutter

Saul said as more turbines are installed across the country, the impact they will have on forecasters and how forecasters will respond to the clutter is a mystery.

An accumulation of different wind speeds, turbines, locations and directions affect how returns appear on forecasters’ screen.

“We see different signatures, which makes it more difficult to detect,” said Sebastian Torres, a research scientist with the radar research division of the National Severe Storms Laboratory.

Officials encourage developers to come to them early in the process so they can analyze the potential impacts, at no cost to the developer, and tell the developers what those impacts would be and how they can be avoided.

But many developers don’t go through the radar operations center because they don’t know about impacts to the radar, Sandifer said.

“Unfortunately, a lot of developers don’t find out that we’re here until they’re ready to pour concrete,” he said.

Researchers at OU are trying to determine what the signature from the turbines looks like and how it can be filtered out to lessen the turbines’ effects on the radar.

“Right now, we’re working on the detection problem, just being able to automatically detect where the wind farms are,” said Robert Palmer, the director of the Atmospheric Radar Research Center at OU and a professor of meteorology.

The future of the industry

Many elected officials are pushing for development of the wind industry, especially in Oklahoma. It has become a talking point on the campaign trail for many politicians seeking roles in state and national government.

The race for Oklahoma corporation commissioner is associated with wind energy. The three-person commission regulates the energy industry in the state.

Incumbent Jim Roth, a Democrat, believes the wind industry will be the source of Oklahoma’s next boom.

“Oklahoma and its wind present an enormous opportunity for America’s energy future,” Roth said. “It will be what oil and gas was in the last century.”

Roth said tens of thousands of jobs could come to Oklahoma as it ascends to the top of the wind industry world. The first wind farm began operation in 2003, and Oklahoma is already producing the sixth most wind energy in the country.

Roth’s challenger, Rep. Dana Murphy, is also a supporter of wind energy but wants to consider a broader scope of energy sources, including oil and natural gas, said her political adviser Steven Rhymer.

“Wind is just one of many alternative sources we need to explore,” Rhymer said.

Government incentives for wind farm developers could help the industry expand even more, bringing more jobs to the state, including construction work and infrastructure maintenance, and money from other states wanting to purchase Oklahoma’s clean energy, said Britton Rife, a spokesperson with the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative, a joint push by OU and Oklahoma State University to expand wind power in the state.

“Renewable portfolio standards and production tax credits for wind energy are two policies that could help advance the wind industry by providing financial incentives for investing in renewable energy technologies,” Rife said. “How the industry will change and develop in the next five, 10 and 20 years will depend upon the policies implemented by our elected officials.”