BRINSTON — Luke Geleynse is offering eastern Ontario farms a new cash crop: energy from wind turbines. He’s already signed up seven farms, including two in the Brinston area, two in the North Gower area, and one at Carleton Place, White Lake in Renfrew County and Lansdowne in Leeds County.

He’s looking for more farms, but the land must be flat with a relatively unobstructed view covering about 400 acres. "A corn field is ideal," he says. There’ll be two cash crops in the same field: corn and wind power.

A wind turbine requires between four to eight acres of land.

His company, Terravis Wind Energy Inc., has partnered with Prowind Canada, a German Company that will provide most of the capital and expertise. It has already constructed 14,000 wind turbines in Europe.

The turbines are 100 metres high, with blades 50 metres long and capable of producing enough energy to power 900 homes. Each turbine will cost between $20 million and $22 million and be connected to the power grid. Geleynse says the energy generated will be sold to Hydro for 11 cents per kilowatt hour.

But don’t expect things to happen over night. Geleynse has been working on the project for four years and it will at least be another two years before you’ll see the first wind turbine operating on a farm in eastern Ontario. For the next year, his company will be measuring the wind on Arnold and Adrian Schouten’s farm near North Gower to determine if the wind is powerful enough and frequent enough to be profitable. In addition, there is the problem of putting together all the approvals ranging from environmental and municipal to engineering.

"We won’t go ahead with construction unless it can be profitable," he said, adding that the company will sign leases with farmers and local businesses and people can invest in the project. The wind turbine won’t be used to provide the electricity for individual farms. "It’s not economically feasible to go off the grid," he said.

Geleynse is owner of Dundas Agri Systems of Brinston and operates a Boumatic dealership.