November 11, 2016
CapitalPress.com
9
Oregon
Firm developing airborne wind energy system
Kite attached to
generator marketed
to farmers
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Courtesy of the America Tree Farm System
From left to right are Dean Defrees, Sharon Defrees, Dallas Hall
and Lyle Defrees. The Baker County, Ore., family has been hon-
ored as the National Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year by the
American Tree Farm System.
E. Oregon family wins
national tree farmer award
By MITCH LIES
For the Capital Press
For the first time in the 75-
year history of the American
Tree Farm System, an Eastern
Oregon tree farmer has been
named the National Outstand-
ing Tree Farmer of the Year.
And it comes from the un-
likely site of a valley more fa-
mous for gold dredges than tree
farming.
The Defrees family is from
Baker County’s Sumpter Val-
ley, site of three historic gold
dredges. They will receive the
award at a Dec. 6 reception on
Capitol Hill in Washington,
D.C.
The American Tree Farm
System announced the winner
Nov. 1, the culmination of a
16-month process for the fami-
ly that started with being named
Baker County Tree Farmer of
the Year in June 2015.
“It was a long process and
it kept us on pins and nee-
dles,” said Dean Defrees, who
co-manages the farm with other
family members.
Defrees said the family
was “extremely humbled and
thrilled” to hear they won the
award. “Especially because we
knew what kind of competition
we were up against,” he said.
The award annually honors
exceptional sustainable forest
management and leadership
qualities.
Oregon State University
Baker County Extension For-
ester Bob Parker, who nomi-
nated the Defrees family, said
Dean and his father, Lyle, and
the rest of the family exemplify
the award’s qualifications.
“Lyle was really active in
running the small woodland
chapter here and provided a lot
of assistance for me in develop-
ing programming,” Parker said.
“I’ve spent a lot of time on his
property. They do a superb job
of managing their lands.”
The Defrees family has also
been active on Oregon De-
partment of Forestry regional
committees, said Jamie Knight,
a department spokeswoman
based in La Grande. Between
them, Lyle and Dean have
served on the Northeast Oregon
District Budget Committee,
on the Eastern Oregon Forest
Protection Association, on the
Baker County Forestland Clas-
sification Committee, among
other boards and committees.
“They are a big part of our
success in the Northeast Ore-
gon District, with their volun-
teer efforts,” Knight said.
Asked why the participa-
tion, Dean Defrees said, “We
like to put some of our personal
input into those committees,
and we feel like we really need
to give back to the communi-
ty.”
He added: “It has been a real
partnership for us, because we
don’t have all the answers, and
the Oregon Department of For-
estry, OSU Extension and Ore-
gon Small Woodlands Associa-
tion have been really helpful, as
far as technical advice.”
The Defrees family’s legacy
of sustainable land manage-
ment dates back to Dean’s
great grandparents, who set-
tled on the land in 1904. In the
1930s, when other ranchers in
the Sumpter Valley sold land
to gold mining companies to
be dredged, Albert and Ellen
Defrees, Dean’s grandparents,
refused.
A Beaverton, Ore., compa-
ny received a $600,000 USDA
grant to continue research and
development of a wind energy
system they will first market
to farmers.
The company, eWind
Solutions Inc., is developing
a tethered, rigid-wing kite
that spins an electrical gen-
erator as it deploys in a cork-
screw pattern 300 to 500 feet
in the air. The system can be
programmed to continuously
deploy and retract the kite,
generating electricity the
landowner can sell back to
the utility grid or use on-farm.
Company partners say a sys-
tem will provide enough ener-
gy to power five homes or one
small to mid-size farm.
Once the kite reaches its
maximum altitude — no more
than 500 feet to conform with
federal regulations — it brings
itself down, said Katie Schae-
fer, eWind’s director of strate-
gic partnerships. The device
uses 4 percent of the power
it created on launch to retract
itself to a lower altitude, then
rises again to continue energy
production.
If the wind isn’t right, the
kite comes all the way down
and docks itself. The station
required is about the size of a
small shipping container or a
large pickup truck, Schaefer
said.
The concept has previous-
ly won funding from Oregon
BEST, a spinoff of the state
business department that con-
nects clean-tech entrepreneurs
with money and with univer-
sity researchers who can help
with technical aspects. In
Courtesy of eWind Solutions
Sean Mish, director of systems integration, works on a prototype
of a kite-like device that spins an electrical generator as it is
deployed. The Beaverton, Ore., company, eWind Solutions, won a
$600,000 USDA development grant.
2015, eWind was granted a
$100,000 startup grant from
the USDA’s National Institute
of Food and Agriculture. The
new grant also is from NIFA.
Schaefer said the compa-
ny is pursuing development
grants from the U.S. Depart-
12-month waiver
ment of Energy. The compa-
ny is about nine months away
from being ready to approach
private investors; she estimat-
ed the company will need $3
million to $5 million to gear
up for commercial produc-
tion, possibly in 2018. Schae-
3 Years @ 0%
fer’s husband, David, is the
company founder and CEO.
The company chose agri-
culture as its first niche for the
technology because farmers
generally have uncluttered air
space above their farm, Katie
Schaefer said.
“We don’t need their land,
we just need the space above
it,” she said.
She said dairies or other
operations with high power
requirements might be a good
market. Wineries have shown
early interest, she said, in part
for branding purposes and the
“wow” factor, and also for
potential side benefits such as
bird deterrence.
Schaefer estimated a sys-
tem would cost $45,000 to
$50,000. She said an airborne
system provides more elec-
tricity than solar panels and
takes less room. Wind tur-
bines are larger, more pon-
derous and aren’t built high
enough to catch wind all the
time, she said, while eWind’s
device would operate at high-
er altitudes where wind is
more consistent. Unlike solar,
they also can operate at night.
The company’s long range
vision is to take the technol-
ogy worldwide after getting
established with farmers,
Schaefer said,
The system could be used
to provide emergency elec-
trical power in disaster relief
cases, or where the pow-
er grid has been compro-
mised or doesn’t exist, she
said.
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