September 16, 2010
Rhode Island

Bankruptcy raises wind turbine issues

By Bruce Burdett, www.eastbayri.com 16 September 2010

PORTSMOUTH – With its wind turbine supplier bankrupt, Portsmouth is looking for a new company to provide the service it had believed was covered under the equipment’s original warranty.

Bankruptcy proceedings for Canadian firm AAER were completed in July. Pioneer Power Solutions bought some of AAER’s assets ”but appears unwilling to provide warranty coverage or operations and maintenance support,” Finance Director David Faucher wrote in a Sept. 8 memo to the town council.

Mr. Faucher and Assistant Town Planner Gary Crosby, who has overseen much of the town’s wind turbine effort, said they have met with representatives of Templeton Power and Light which has commissioned an AAER wind turbine generator similar to Portsmouth’s in hopes of partnering with the Massachusetts utility for a long term maintenance services contract.

But Mr. Faucher said Templeton is not yet at a point that it can enter into such a partnership.

So for now, Mr. Faucher recommended that the town council enter into an emergency one-year maintenance and service agreement with Solaya, a division of Lumus Constrictoon Inc. of Woburn, Mass. The council was scheduled to discuss and possibly vote on the agreement at its meeting on Wednesday this week (after the Times went to press).

The agreement would include two 6-month scheduled maintenance sessions (the first being this month), around-the-clock monitoring and unscheduled maintenance. At the end of the year, Mr. Faucher said he would ask the council to award a competitively bid contract for a three-year period.

The agreement with Solaya is “very detailed and describes the monitoring , warranty protction and maintenance services we have been seeking.”

Cost of the year’s basic service is $33,000, and the town would be charged additional fees for extra work.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/09/16/bankruptcy-raises-wind-turbine-issues/