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Wind Power News: December 2012
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch in its noncommercial educational effort to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of National Wind Watch. They are the products of and owned by the organizations or individuals noted and are shared here according to “fair use” and “fair dealing” provisions of copyright law.
Wind plan bypasses towns
Jurisdiction over a proposed five-turbine wind project that would straddle the towns of New Ipswich and Temple may bypass the towns’ review process and come under the state’s purview. Timbertop Wind, a subsidiary of Austin, Texas-based Pioneer Green, submitted its plans to the N.H. Site Evaluation Committee on Dec. 21, asking the state’s review board for large-scale energy projects to take the case. The proposed $25 million project would erect five Siemens SWT turbines, with two turbines planned to be . . . Complete story »
Woman: ‘We were handcuffed’
WEST BROOKLYN – Margina Schwartzbach says there was a reason she never objected beforehand to a planned wind turbine next to her home: No one told her about it. The West Brooklyn woman says she found out about it when the project started – more than a year after the county approved it. Schwartzbach said she issued a public records request for proof that the county had sent her notice of the turbine planned for the farm next to her . . . Complete story »
SEC decides fate of Antrim Wind project in February
ANTRIM – After several delays, the N.H. Site Evaluation Committee is scheduled to enter deliberations next month to decide the fate of a proposed wind energy facility for the ridge line of Tuttle Hill and Willard Mountain. The SEC took over the deliberative process for the proposed 10-turbine project in August 2011. The SEC was required to take over the process after Antrim Wind Energy, a subsidiary of Eolian Renewable Energy, increased the amount of proposed energy output of the wind . . . Complete story »
Parkman calls for special town meeting on First Wind proposal
PARKMAN, Maine – Residents will get a six-week head start on the town meeting season. Parkman’s annual town meeting is only about two months away, but the selectmen unanimously voted on Dec. 11 to hold a special town meeting in February to hear a wind power company’s request to establish a transmission line corridor near the Abbot town line. The selectmen agreed to hold the special town meeting on Saturday, Feb. 2, in the Parkman Grange Hall. The article will ask . . . Complete story »
Wind tax credit could affect local turbine project
URBANA – Many residents throughout the country are waiting to see whether the U.S. economy reaches the “fiscal cliff” at the start of the New Year, but in Champaign County, some residents have another concern. The federal wind Production Tax Credit, or PTC, is scheduled to expire today, and could have a significant impact on two phases of the Buckeye Wind Project in Champaign County. If the PTC is allowed to expire, as many as 37,000 jobs in the wind industry . . . Complete story »
Lobbying blitz to save tax credits for wind energy
An all-star lineup of lobbyists, featuring former congressmen and many of Obama’s closest allies, is fighting to save a tax credit for wind energy that expires at midnight Monday. Congress created the Production Tax Credit in 1992 as a way of supporting the wind power industry until it could be self-sufficient. Twenty years later, the PTC is still subsidizing the likes of General Electric and Siemens and has been expanded to include solar and biomass. Companies get a tax credit . . . Complete story »
Freeze North Carolina green-energy law, a GOP leader says
The N.C. House’s new Republican majority whip believes he has the votes to stop North Carolina’s green-energy mandate – the first in the Southeast when it was enacted in 2007 – in its tracks. The law says electric utilities have to derive rising amounts of their retail sales from solar, wind or biomass sources, beginning at 3 percent this year and ending at 12.5 percent by 2021. Separate, smaller targets for solar energy took effect in 2010. Senate Bill 3, . . . Complete story »
Wind turbines ‘only lasting for half as long as previously thought’ as study shows they show signs of wearing out after just 12 years
Wind farms have just half the useful lifespan which has been claimed, according to new research which found they start to wear out after just 12 years. A study of almost 3,000 turbines in Britain – the largest of its kind – sheds doubt on manufacturers claims that they generate clean energy for up to 25 years, which is used by the Government to calculate subsidies. Professor Gordon Hughes, an economist at Edinburgh University and former energy advisor to the . . . Complete story »
Council sends a festive letter to Holyrood backing local projects
Among the main concerns was the cumulative impact of wind farms, with SBC’s planners calling for the national policy to be redefined to consider the number of turbines already in the Borders and the growing scale of the machines, with the majority now being in excess of 120 metres. SNP councillor Stuart Bell, who was previously part of a successful campaign to stop a wind development being build at Broadmeadows in the Yarrow Valley before his election, supported the statement. He said: “It was very clear that the reporter who rejected the Broadmeadows application based his decision on the Scottish Planning Policy. By tightening up the SPP we get more leverage on the decisions the reporter makes.” Complete story »
Wind industry: Tax breaks key
Wind-power opponents say the benefits are outweighed by the sight of massive turbine towers and spinning blades on Maine's mountains, and by the sounds endured by people living next to the projects. They say taxpayers shouldn't continue to subsidize the technology, through tax credits and government policies that give wind an above-market rate for generating renewable power. "These things don't perform," said Brad Blake, a spokesman for the Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power. "The question is, why do we have such a poor public policy that panders to a special-interest group that can't make it on its own and can't compete economically?" Blake has been calling attention to Maine's performance data, which comes from reports that operators file with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The 12-month figures were compiled for the Portland Press Herald by a financial analyst. The accuracy was confirmed by Boston-based First Wind, which owns four of the projects, and a former owner of the Record Hill wind farm, near Rumford. TransCanada Corp. didn't reply to questions about its Kibby Mountain project in western Maine. Complete story »
