December 13, 2023
Vermont

Wind power developers abandon proposed Stamford project

By Kevin McCallum| Published December 12, 2023 | sevendaysvt.com

A developer has withdrawn plans to build the first utility-scale wind project in Vermont since 2017.

Norwich Solar announced last week that its plan for a single 500-foot-high wind turbine in Stamford will not move forward.

The renewable energy company was preparing to ask the Public Utility Commission for permission to build the 2.2-megawatt turbine on a hillside along Route 8. The turbine would have generated enough power for about 925 homes and would have been the tallest structure of any kind in Vermont.

The company had alerted Stamford of its plans over the summer and faced significant pushback from the town and neighbors. Norwich had until Friday, December 15, to finalize its application.

But without a key study about how much it would cost to connect to the power grid in Massachusetts, the project’s viability was in doubt, said Martha Staskus, the chief development officer for Norwich Solar, which was managing the project.

Stamford is a small town on Vermont’s border with Massachusetts, and a number of large wind projects have been developed in the area.

Because of the project’s location near the border, the electricity from the turbine had to be routed through a substation owned by regional utility National Grid. Norwich was waiting for National Grid to complete the connection study, but it wasn’t going to be done by the Public Utility Commission’s upcoming deadline, Staskus said.

“We still don’t know with certainty what the interconnection costs will be,” Staskus said.

Opponents cheered the project’s demise.

“This project is right up there at the top of the worst proposals we’ve seen,” said Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment.

The project violated town rules against large turbines within a kilometer of structures and would have required a mile-long access road to be cut through a forest, Smith said. In addition, the Public Utility Commission process was about to get ugly, Smith said.

Someone had already cleared trees from the top of the hill where the turbine was to be located, and the Agency of Natural Resources had begun asking tough questions, Smith said. Concerned locals flew a drone over the location and took video that showed the clearing was three times larger than what was needed for the small wind-monitoring device on the site, she said.

This suggested the developer had jumped the gun on the site work, which is a big no-no, Smith said.

“Let’s just say that we were ready to nail them,” she said.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2023/12/13/wind-power-developers-abandon-proposed-stamford-project/