That cold Yukon wind that makes you pull up your parka hood might also help brighten your home in future winters.

Wind-generated electricity is a real possibility in the Yukon, especially in winter, says JP Pinard of Boreal Alternate Energy Centre in Whitehorse. Boreal's founder, Dr. Doug Craig, sparked serious interest in wind energy for the Yukon through a report published almost a decade ago.

In the 1980s, both the Yukon government and the National Research Council conducted wind energy tests at Destruction Bay. The tests showed insufficient wind for the economical generation of electricity.

Craig was not convinced. Based on his experience in the mountains, he thought that stronger winds might be available at higher altitudes. Data from the weather balloons released daily by Environment Canada confirmed his suspicions.

In 1990, with help from government and industry, Boreal set up a wind monitoring station on top of Haeckel Hill, near Whitehorse.

Information gathered in the first year's monitoring showed that there was, indeed, the potential for economical wind generation of energy. It also showed that the wind is strongest in winter, when hydro generation is at a low ebb in the Yukon and the use of greenhouse-gas-producing diesel generators peaks. But there were problems.

"They found there was wind, but they had problems with icing on the instruments," Pinard says. "The icing was a problem because we couldn't get good winter data."

To get better winter data, Boreal installed heated instruments. But the researchers also wanted information about the conditions that lead to icing. That proved more difficult, because ready-made instruments were not available.

Not many people are working on the use of wind energy in northern conditions, says Pinard. Finland is the only other place doing research on icing problems related to wind energy, and Finnish researchers have a lot more money to work with, he says.

"Here we are, just a bunch of volunteers, trying to find an answer to the problem."

With a little ingenuity, the Yukoners found a way to record icing conditions. They rigged up a heated anemometer, a device that measures wind speed, together with an unheated anemometer. By comparing the performance of the two instruments, they were able to identify the weather conditions in which icing occurs.

"That was a real breakthrough in Canada," says Pinard.

Meanwhile, interest in wind energy had increased in the Yukon. The Yukon Energy Corporation helped Boreal set up monitoring stations on two more mountains, and it began its own monitoring program at several other sites. In 1993, the corporation also set up an experimental wind turbine on Haeckel Hill. The turbine is still working, generating both electricity and useful information for future wind energy development.

The Haeckel Hill generator is rated at 150 kW, compared to the 600-kW wind generators that are increasingly common. That makes it a tiny generator on a world scale, says Pinard.

Despite its modest size, the generator produces enough electricity to supply about 25 Yukon homes. Icing reduces its efficiency at times, but it still produces at about the same level as the generators at a large, commercially-viable wind farm near Pincher Creek in southern Alberta.

The results from Haeckel Hill have encouraged the Yukon Energy Corporation and Boreal Alternate Energy Centre. Both organizations continue to work on wind-related projects, sometimes separately and sometimes together.

JP Pinard hopes that wind energy will eventually reduce the Yukon's need for diesel-generated electricity.

"One of my main goals in life is to see that diesel generation is replaced by a more green source of power," he says.

For more information about wind energy, contact Yukon Economic Development at 667-5466. For information about greenhouse gases, contact Environment Canada in Whitehorse.