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22 W i n e s & V i n e s n O V e M B e R 2 0 1 4 N O V E M B E R N E W S N O V E M B E R N E W S R ickreall, Ore.—Northwest vineyards may have brought in a record num- ber of wine grapes this fall, but an equally important harvest was helping power the crush at many of the region's wineries. Solar and wind energy are reg- ularly harvested across the re- gion, the fruit of a push during the past decade to reduce emis- sions of the gases associated with climate change and boost the generation of alternative power. Various government incentives encouraged wineries to commis- sion energy audits and embrace on-site generating systems. De- pending on the system wineries opted for, and the level of fund- ing received to install the sys- tems, the payback has been mixed. Among the initial attrac- tions of the systems was the po- tential to not only generate enough power to save on energy costs, but to even garner a small stream of additional revenue by returning power to the grid. While most wineries that in- vested in solar and wind solutions are happily saving on energy costs, they are not yet seeing extra revenue from the systems. "We are meeting all our ex- pectations as far as the genera- tion goes," Luke McCollom, vineyard manager with Left Coast Cellars in Rickreall, Ore., told Wines & Vines. Left Coast has two solar arrays operating at full capacity, and McCollom expects them to have saved enough energy to pay for themselves within nine years. "It's smoothed out our energy and our quality of energy," he said. "Since we're at the end of the line in the middle of nowhere, I believe we'd have more down- time, more brownouts without our panels." The cost savings appealed to Darcey Fugman-Small, co-owner and general manager of Wood- ward Canyon in Lowden, Wash. She and husband Rick Small in- stalled a small solar array atop their facility, but the system will take about twice as long to pay for itself as the one at Left Coast. "It's quite a payback period," she said. "Originally it was some- thing like 18 years, but…as en- ergy rates keep going up, it shortens that payback period." Pat Flannery, co-owner of Dana Campbell Vineyards in Ashland, Ore., told Wines & Vines that a 10kW system has paid for itself since Gold Coast Renewable Energy of Gold Beach, Ore., installed it four years ago. Government grants reduced the initial cost from $120,000 to $17,000. "If you said to me today, 'Would you do it again?' I'd say, 'Absolutely,'" Flannery said. —Peter Mitham Tallying the Benefits of Alternative Energy Government grants reduced the $120,000 price tag of Dana Campbell Vineyards' 10kW wind turbine system to $17,000.