BQ Energy may have lead in race for wind farm; Conneaut City Council may invite firm to prepare formal proposal
In the three-way horse race to erect a wind turbine farm in the Conneaut area, BQ Energy may be leading at the turn.
City Council members who attended a Thursday afternoon presentation by the wind energy company were blown away by what they heard. There’s a good chance the firm will be invited to prepare a formal proposal, Council President James Jones said Friday.
“We may be talking to them about a proposal,” he said.
BQ’s management team has created wind farms in Montana, Texas and New York, a fact not lost on council.
“They seem very established,” Jones said. “What they brought forth was quite impressive. (BQ) was up-front and honest.”
Others at the meeting were similarly impressed. Ward 2 Councilman Charles Lewis thanked BQ representatives for their honesty, while Ward 1 Councilman Dave Campbell dubbed the company “the real McCoy.”
Jones wouldn’t say whether BQ was the front-runner in the wind-farm sweepstakes.
“We haven’t seen a proposal yet,” he said. “But out of the three that have shown interest, (BQ) was pretty pleasing.”
Council already has one proposal on the table, a proposed contract with SGR Site Associates of Willoughby for the sale of 159 acres of land in the city-owned East Conneaut Industrial Park. SGR wants the land to complete a 2,500-acre tract that would straddle the state line. SGR wants a two-year option on the land, during which time the company would conduct a battery of tests to gauge the land’s potential as a wind farm. If results are positive, the site would be marketed to utility companies, council has been told.
Some council members have resisted SGR’s contract, believing the city would make more money by leasing instead of selling the parkland. Enthusiasm waned further last month, when an SGR representative told members there was a chance no turbines would be built on the city land.
The third player in the mix, Property Investment Enterprises of Geneva, has talked informally to some local and county officials about the land. In a letter to Conneaut’s city manager, PIE indicated it wanted to buy the entire industrial park, along with the Pittsburgh and Conneaut Dock Co., for a turbine farm/ business development project.
Tim Ryan, BQ’s senior director, did not express interest in the city land directly, saying his company was looking “in and around” Conneaut. If publicly owned land was secured, any acreage not needed for turbines or access roads would be returned to the city, he said. Ryan was unsure how much land BQ would need for its project.
“We want as much land as possible,” he said. “Bigger is generally better. We haven’t quite figured that out.”
Machines erected locally would be in the 1 1/2- to 3-megawatt class, Ryan said.
By Mark Todd
Staff Writer
5 October 2008
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