Wellfleet to vote on wind plan funding
WELLFLEET — The high winds atop the Atlantic Ocean bluff at White Crest Beach have attracted the attention of town officials, who want to build a municipal, land-based wind turbine there.
They will seek the initial $290,000 for the project at a special town meeting Oct. 26.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m. at the Wellfleet Elementary School.
Town officials will ask voters to borrow the money as a debt exclusion from Proposition 2½, which limits the amount towns can raise taxes, said Town Administrator Paul Sieloff.
But town officials are seeking low-interest bonds and expect the new revenue from the turbine could help pay the debt.
That $290,000 would cover the initial paperwork for the turbine to connect to an NStar electric company substation nearby, said James Sexton of the Wellfleet Energy Committee. It also would pay for a land survey, a bird and wildlife assessment and other construction documents.
The construction of the 400-foot, 1.5-megawatt turbine on town land is expected to cost about $4.7 million, which could go before voters at the spring town meeting. On the flip side, the turbine could generate more than $200,000 annually for the town either from reduced government electric bills or proceeds from selling electricity to other entities, Sexton and Sieloff said.
Statewide, there are “dozens” of land-based wind turbine projects similar to the Wellfleet plan, said Emily Dahl, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust. The trust promotes clean-energy technologies and provides financial assistance to individuals, businesses and communities.
In NStar’s eastern and southeastern service areas, about 84 land-based wind turbine projects connect to substations, said company spokesman Michael Durand. About 56 of those are on line, Durand said. The projects are both public and private, and produce from a few kilowatts to as much as 4 megawatts, he said.
Among those in the NStar region is a 660-kilowatt turbine at Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, raised in 2006. On Friday, the town of Falmouth will begin erecting a 1.65-megawatt turbine, said Falmouth Assistant Town Manager Heather Harper. The turbine will reduce the town’s use of conventional energy by 30 percent, particularly at its water and wastewater facilities, Harper said.
In the coming weeks, voters in Brewster and Harwich will be asked to approve land-based wind turbine projects through the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative, launched in 2007 by the Cape Light Compact, said compact administrator Maggie Downey. The cooperative is working with a private entity in Orleans as well, Downey said.
The compact is a regional energy group that purchases electricity through New York-based ConEdison Solutions on behalf of its 170,000 customers on Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod.
The turbine in Wellfleet would tower about 400 feet over a town beach parking lot off Ocean View Drive, within the boundaries of the Cape Cod National Seashore. That area, while near the ocean and beaches, is not considered a high-priority scenic landscape as identified through the latest scenic view study in the Seashore, said Seashore Superintendent George Price.
By Mary Ann Bragg
6 October 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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