wind, energy, cleantech
Maine Wind Farm Gets Green Light, But Project Leader Says Cleantech Efforts Face Too Many Snarls
Wade Roush 1/10/08
The wind in New England blows mainly against big green-energy projects. At least that’s the assessment of Matt Kearns, an audibly frazzled project manager for Newton, MA-based UPC Wind.
Despite winning final approval last week for the creation of New England’s largest wind-energy installation, now under construction on a ridge in northern Maine, Kearns says the regulatory and political barriers to placing major cleantech facilities in the region are high enough to scare off all but the most persistent and well-funded entrepreneurs.
“The uncertainty and the costs associated with that uncertainty are pretty overwhelming, frankly, in many cases,” says Kearns, who has spent the last several years shepherding UPC’s Stetson Mountain wind farm project past the cautious scrutiny of state, county, and federal agencies, not to mention local residents and environmental groups.
“Regardless of the fact that we have had a success here, we find that the hurdles are so high, and New England is such a complicated place to do business, that it takes a full-time, highly skilled and coordinated group to make it to the finish line,” Kearns says.
UPC Wind first eyed Stetson Mountain as a potentially viable wind-farm site almost five years ago, according to Kearns. As the proposed 38-turbine project drew closer to final approval, it faced growing questions from environmental groups such as Maine Audubon, which worried that the 392-feet-tall turbines would harm birds and bats migrating over the ridge (which is about seven miles southwest of Danforth, ME). Audubon threatened to testify against the project before Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission, which is in charge of zoning for unincorporated wilderness areas in the state.
But after UPC agreed to make design changes and conduct post-construction studies of bird and bat mortality, the group withdrew its objections, and in fact recommended approval. “It took a constant conversation between all the parties, including key groups like the Natural Resources Council of Maine and Maine Audubon, to help us figure out where to be and why,” says Kearns. “I don’t think anybody would describe the process as easy.” The land use commission approved the company’s petition to rezone the land for industrial use in November and voted unanimously to give the project the final go-ahead on January 2.
When completed later this year, the facility is expected to produce 57 megawatts of peak electricity, eclipsing UPC’s 28-turbine, 42-megawatt wind farm in Mars Hill, ME, as New England’s largest. But if every wind project required five years between conception and permitting, few wind developers would bother, Kearns suggests. “We’re really pleased that we’ve gotten this far, and we think it’s in large part due to the support we saw from the commissioners,” he says. “But in comparison to the …Next Page »
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1/10/08 1:35 pm
Seems a bit like Cape Wind North. This is a clear case of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and similar to numerous other stories I have heard about clean energy when it comes to deployment and commercialization. This illustrates a key point related to energy innovation — specifically that technology innovation is an important but also potentially only a small part of what is needed to create market value. Business model innovation and process innovation (in this case the streamlining of the approval process) is equaly important and if not present will severly hamper the potential postive impact of such an advancement.
The question really is “Is NIMBY related to clean energy worse in New England than other regions of the country?”
1/11/08 7:36 am
I don’t see anything wrong with protecting what God made. He did a great job making Stetson Mountain, it’s too bad a few flatlander’s had to find it and ruin it for EVERYONE. And guess what? I haven’t heard of any coal fired plant’s shutting down because of INDUSTRIAL WIND. If you call wind site’s clean energy, I guess you close your eye’s to the destruction and ruin that is caused by them. I am PROUD to be a “NIMBY” I just wish these guy’s would all go home, and do it in their own backyard’s!! Your only REALLY interested in lining your pocket’s….
1/11/08 8:25 am
Looks like what wind projects in New England need is top cover. That is, enough backing from local and regional gov’t that local non-profits, including very well intentioned ones like regional Audubon chapters, have less ability to slow down or stop these implementations. To Bill’s comment above about other US regions, look at TX and look at CA if you want to see behavior that’s 180 degrees opposite of what UPC has faced in Maine as well as the epic battle called Cape Wind - a project that should already have been built and delivering cleaner power to that region for several years now.
1/23/08 3:09 pm
When a criminal can’t get credit…Most people say”Well that is just business.” Evergreen a subsidiary of UPC has been sued for non payment of equipment used in Mars Hill,ME. As far as I know, they never paid for it. Instead they said it was not merchantable and used it anyway. Just because criminals dress up and have a degree is no reason to stop using good judgment. Quite a few in this company should be in jail.
7/8/08 12:57 pm
I do not understand how people can attack clean energy entrepreneurs, endorse obstructionists policies and still claim to support the push to clean up our global environment. We are all energy pigs in the US and we have to take real, painful and meaningful steps to support renewable energy projects whether offshore wind, land-based wind, ocean tidal, current or wave, biomass, hydrokenetic and solar power. Personally, I will take the visual pollution of a wind turbine tower over the continuing climate-changing pollution of fossil fuels.