Sep 17 - Concord Monitor

By CHELSEA CONABOY

Forested ridgelines in Coos County could soon sprout a new source of electricity for the state and the region: 33 wind turbines generating enough power for 33,000 homes.

Granite Reliable Power, a subsidiary of a Connecticut company that is developing wind farms in eight states, has asked the state to allow it to build turbines at high points in Dixville and Millsfield, both unincorporated areas.

The state committee responsible for siting new energy facilities is reviewing the proposal. A public hearing is scheduled for next month at Groveton High School.

The turbines would be 410 feet tall and produce 99 megawatts of power that would feed into a transmission line known as the Coos County loop. The wind farm would effectively absorb the remaining capacity in the loop.

Upgrades would have to be made before new electricity generators, including biomass plants, could come online. That's a significant issue for planners looking to take advantage of the North Country's wind and biomass resources to diversify the state's energy supply and boost the economy in a region hit hard by the failing paper industry.

The $247 million wind farm, scheduled to start operating in 2010, would move the state closer to its goals for producing more of its energy with renewable resources.

Spokeswoman Anna Giovinetto said in an e-mail that the construction would create up to 210 jobs in the area. She said she could not comment much on the project, because the company recently filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to become public and is required to go through a "quiet period."

Rep. Fred King, a Colebrook Republican and a member of the county planning board, which oversees land use in the unincorporated areas, said the county delegation and commissioners have endorsed the wind project. But, he said, he has made it his "mission in life" to see the transmission line upgraded so biomass plants, which would create more long-term jobs and sustain the region's history of logging, can be built, too.

"It's safe to say, if we did get to vote on it and we had the two to pick from (biomass and wind), my guess is we'd probably vote for the biomass plant," he said.

Windy days

A new wind farm is being erected now, piece by massive piece, in Lempster. Iberdrola Renewables, a subsidiary of a Spanish company, is in the process of putting up 12 turbines that will produce 24 megawatts. The turbines have started to pop up on Lempster Mountain, where winds consistently blow above 15 mph, according to spokesman Paul Copelman.

Copelman said Iberdrola Renewables has applied for permits for wind farms with 20 turbines in Massachusetts and 17 turbines in Vermont.

Granite Reliable Power's parent company, Nobel Environmental Power, which is majority-owned by JPMorgan Partners, has a total of 3,850 megawatts of wind power under development in eight states: Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming.

Such projects are becoming more viable in New England as states give incentives to renewable-energy developers.

In 2006, Gov. John Lynch set a goal for 25 percent of the state's total energy use, including the transportation sector, to come from renewable sources by 2025. In April of that year, the Legislature passed a bill requiring utilities to begin buying or producing renewable energy in small amounts at first and then make it nearly 25 percent of what they sell by Lynch's target year. The bill set what is called a "renewable portfolio standard."

Last year, lawmakers shortened the time that the state site evaluation committee, which is responsible for reviewing new generators, has to approve or deny a new renewable producer. Granite Reliable is the first to use the streamlined process.

Projects such as the proposed wind farm are a clean and ecological answer to the challenges of climate change, said Kristine Kraushaar, a staff attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation.

"We need some really big fundamental changes, but we also need some immediate action," she said. "You can call it a down payment almost. A project like this is exactly that."

The project would lease land from two large timber tracts, one owned by Bayroot timber company and another known as the Phillips Brook tract, which has long been timberlands and is popular for backcountry recreation.

"It's the breadbasket of the North Country, essentially where we used to get all of our pulp and paper over the years," King said.

Granite Reliable's lease payments to the landowners will help keep the property as timberlands, he said. The company also has agreed to pay $450,000 per year as a payment in lieu of taxes divided proportionally between Dixville and Millsfield, which don't collect property taxes. Unincorporated areas are not part of any municipality and are run by county government.

King said Lynch's goal to make the state's energy 25 percent renewable by 2020 is realistic.

"I think it's doable right in Coos County actually, but we have to solve the transmission line problem," he said.

Connecting the dots

According to a study released in December by the Public Utilities Commission, adding between 300 and 400 megawatts of capacity to the Coos loop could cost between $160 million and $210 million.

New Hampshire is part of a regional power grid run by ISO New England. The costs of making infrastructure improvements to that grid are shared proportionally across the region when they are deemed to be related to the grid's reliability - or to keeping the lights on, as two officials put it.

But all six New England states have recently entered into a 10- state program to curb carbon emissions that requires emitters to pay for what they put out. They also each have renewable portfolio standards. Some states have argued that siting new renewable energy sources should be a consideration in cost sharing. ISO New England convened a group to study transmission upgrades and how they are paid for.

Spokeswoman Erin O'Brien said the group will release economic studies of three hypothetical transmission capacity expansions before the end of the year.

One will look at the economic effect of adding 1,200 megawatts of wind or biomass power to Vermont and New Hampshire and another 1,200 megawatts of wind in Maine. The other two will look at offshore wind in Rhode Island and southeast Massachusetts and at expansions in Canada.

Connecting renewable energy projects to the grid is inherently difficult, said Tom Frantz, director of the state Public Utilities Commission's electric division.

Coal and natural gas plants had to be sited near railroads or ports, where they could receive fuel shipments. The energy infrastructure was developed around that need. But wind and biomass should be near timberlands and at high altitudes.

"By their very nature, many of these projects are far away from the existing infrastructure," Frantz said.

Nobel Environmental Power has proposed another wind farm in Coos County that would produce more than 140 megawatts, King said.

Laidlaw Energy Group has proposed a 65-megawatt biomass plant on the site of the former Fraser Paper Mill in downtown Berlin. CEO Michael Bartoszek said he thinks the plant could be connected to the loop even without major upgrades because of its location on the opposite side of the loop from the Granite Reliable project. He said the company plans to close on the purchase of the property within 30 days.

All told, plans for nearly 400 megawatts of wind and biomass power in Coos County have been presented by potential developers to ISO New England.

Meanwhile, Public Service of New Hampshire plans to spend $457 million to clean up emissions at its coal-fired plant in Bow. The upgrade was mandated by the Legislature in 2006, but the Public Utilities Commission may open a review on the project because the cost has jumped 83 percent since then.

King balks at the idea. He said that money could go toward upgrading the loop.

"I believe with the combination of biomass and wind, we could generate in Coos County enough power to offset what's generated at the Merrimack plant," he said.

A public hearing will be held at 9 a.m. Oct. 3 at Groveton High School.

Originally published by CHELSEA CONABOY Monitor staff.

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