Wind Power News: New Hampshire
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.
Politics preventing real energy solutions
When I was first elected to the Legislature in 2010, the biggest concern of the business community was high energy costs. Companies could relocate to Pennsylvania where, due to abundant supplies of natural gas, electric costs were substantially lower, about 12.5 cents per kWh. Right now NH electricity costs about 20 cents/kWh. Pretty much the same in the rest of New England. The problem has not been solved, but has been made worse. The reason the problem has not been . . . Complete story »
Stories of 2019: Decade-long Antrim Wind project
After months of setbacks, Antrim Selectman John Robertson said the wind turbine project a decade in the making is almost complete. “Tomorrow’s the day,” that the Antrim Wind project is set to officially finish, he said on Dec. 23. Antrim Wind is owned by a subsidiary of TransAlta, which operates more than 20 wind farms and 900 turbines across Canada, the United States and Australia. When complete, the Antrim Wind project is expected to produce 28.8 megawatts of energy from . . . Complete story »
Offshore wind task force meets today at UNH
New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts are set to begin planning how they might develop offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine. The first meeting of the tri-state task force takes place all day today at the University of New Hampshire and is open to the public. The group is led by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, where Jim Bennett is head of renewable energy. He tells NHPR that offshore wind could transform the region’s grid. “A wind . . . Complete story »
Sununu moves state closer to advocating for wind projects
CONCORD – Gov. Chris Sununu signed an executive order Tuesday taking the state closer to advocating for offshore wind energy projects. The document creates four advisory boards to advise the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Offshore Renewable Energy Task Force as state agencies report on key studies. “New Hampshire recognizes the tremendous potential that offshore wind power has to offer,” Sununu said in a statement. “With today’s executive order, New Hampshire will ensure that this is an open and transparent process . . . Complete story »
‘A whole new industry’: N.H. to work with neighboring states on offshore wind in Gulf of Maine
New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts will work together on large-scale offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine. Stakeholders from the three states met today in Manchester talk about the possibilities and obstacles for that new industry. The event was hosted by the Environmental Business Council of New England at the state headquarters of Eversource, which is developing several large offshore wind projects elsewhere in the Northeast. Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the state’s Department of Business and Economic Affairs, said . . . Complete story »
Antrim Wind project fined for delay
The Antrim Wind project is slated for completion by the end of November, despite setbacks caused by a supplier’s bankruptcy and a recent malfunction of the temporary safety lights atop the turbines. Selectman John Robertson said on Tuesday that representatives for the project confirmed that the temporary lights weren’t working after a resident reported an outage at the Sept 9 Select Board meeting. The Federal Aviation Administration requires lights on any structure taller than 200 feet to have lights, in . . . Complete story »
Antrim Wind project underway, with turbines visible from Gregg Lake
This summer, Antrim Town Beach visitors had a prime view of the first three Antrim Wind turbines going up. The project, which has a total of nine turbines across Tuttle Hill and Willard Mountain, is on track to be completed and online by the end of August, Select Board Chairman John Robertson said. “Everything seems to be right on schedule,” Robertson said. The Select Board expects to schedule a meeting to get a more specific review of the construction schedule . . . Complete story »
ISO-NE will require wind, intermittent hydro to bid into day-ahead energy markets
Dive Brief: ISO New England now requires wind- and intermittent hydro resources with a capacity supply obligation to offer into the grid operator’s day-ahead energy market, the grid operator announced Tuesday. The grid operator called it “another milestone” in its efforts to incorporate renewables into the regional marketplace. The requirement, effective June 1, comes three years after the ISO launched the Do Not Exceed (DNE) dispatch project, enabling those resources to take electronic dispatch instructions from the grid operator. Requiring DNE resources to participate . . . Complete story »
Intentionally causing traffic during rush hour is unacceptable
Last month, a ship arrived in Portsmouth that contained giant components for a new wind farm being built in Antrim. The pieces of the wind farm were removed from the ship and trucked one by one from Portsmouth to Antrim. These components aren’t an ordinary load you’d see being hauled by a truck. They were gigantic tubes, and I couldn’t even begin to guess their actual size. They were so large, they required a special set of wheels to be . . . Complete story »
Renewables aren’t reliable enough to generate that much power
Global warming and 100 percent renewable energy have been inextricably linked by the media, with the latter proposed as a solution for the former. Here’s why 100 percent green cannot be a solution for Keene. First, even if nuclear energy is considered green, and a second reactor is installed at Seabrook, Keene could only achieve about 50 percent renewable energy. Without “green” nuclear, Keene would be hard pressed to achieve 10 to 20 percent green energy, and that only with . . . Complete story »
