Windmills coming.... just south of Wilkes-Barre City..the more I learn about these Windfarms, the less I like them and feel they need to be very carefully permitted in very specific locales only......
Wind power project gets off the ground
By RON BARTIZEK
rbartizek@leader.net
BEAR CREEK TWP. – Last week a continuous stream of concrete mixer trucks wound their way up Bald Mountain Road, turned right onto a new gravel road, then lumbered 2 ½ miles before dropping their loads. Their cargo was used to build the last of 12 mammoth pads for wind generators at the Bear Creek wind farm being constructed by Community Energy, Inc.
Nearly 30 truckloads of concrete has been poured over tons of reinforcing steel to form each pedestal that will support a 267-foot-tall tower. Shortly after Thanksgiving, the developers hope three-bladed propellers will slowly spin atop the towers, marking a new day for the company and its partners.
“This is just an ideal site for a wind farm,” said Eric Blank, Community Energy vice president and co-owner.
Wayne, Pa.-based Community Energy took over the project in 2004 from Global Winds Harvest, a Massachusetts-based firm. Community Energy had planned to be up and running by now, but the December 2003 expiration of a tax credit that benefits investors in wind energy projects delayed the financing arrangements. The credit was restored a year ago, and the company announced Tuesday that it had lined up $50 million in financing.
Community Energy President Brent Alderfer described the package as “market-grade investments ranging from secure debt to long-term equity.”
Financing came from Central Hudson Energy Group Inc. and Babcock & Brown, an investment firm. The private investments are backed by other public and private funding, including a $1 loan from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority. Community Energy retains an ownership interest in the project.
Executive Vice President Eric Blank said the tax credit - 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour as long as electricity generation continues – would amount to $1.6 million next year and will escalate with inflation during its 10 year life.
Until now, for-profit Community Energy has been acting as broker for wind power generated by other companies. This will be its first generating facility. A smaller project near Atlantic City, which is described as “the first coastal wind farm in the U.S.,” is being built on a similar schedule.
When completed, the Bear Creek wind park is expected to generate 24 megawatts of electricity per hour, enough to power approximately 8,700 homes. Community Energy has a 20-year agreement with PPL EnergyPlus to buy the power, which is then made available through a power grid that serves seven states and the District of Columbia.
“As long as we produce it, they’ll buy it,” Alderfer said.
Blank sees little risk in the wind energy industry. “It’s a very predictable, increasingly mature business,” he said. There is no volatility in the cost of the power source – wind – and an analysis of four years’ data shows a consistent level of breezes.
Community Energy is so encouraged by the economic potential of wind generation that it is considering more farms in Pennsylvania. But they must be producing before Dec. 31, 2007, when the tax credit is scheduled to expire. Projects completed by that date qualify for 10 years of credits starting on the date they are put into commercial service.
More than windmills
The electricity will be carried from the turbines along underground cables to a new power substation that is being built under existing high-tension wires about two miles from the generation site. There it will be measured and uploaded into the lines, then distributed through the power grid.
The original plan for the project called for 14 turbines generating 20 megawatts hourly. But using new turbines manufactured by Gamesa Eolica of Spain, more power can be produced by fewer turbines.
“These are a little bit larger turbines, so it takes fewer of them,” Alderfer said.
The 2-megawatt turbines turn more slowly and power generation starts at lower wind speeds, he said. “That’s the technology edge on this project.”
While new to the United States, similar turbines have been used extensively in Europe, Blank said. “This is certainly the first installation on the East Coast.” Gamesa sees more of a market in the years ahead; the company is building a plant to manufacture wind turbines in Ebensburg, outside Johnstown. (See separate story.)
The Bear Creek turbines and the substation occupy about 15 acres within a 700-acre tract that sits roughly 2,000 feet above sea level. “It covers a lot of ground, but doesn’t take up that much,” Blank said.
He projected the total investment at $30 million to $40 million. If the ridge was longer, the project would be even larger, he said, which would allow the “mobilization cost” to be spread out over more turbines.
Aside from generating clean energy, the project has created a number of construction jobs and will employ up to three full-time maintenance workers, Alderfer said.
About 50 construction workers were on the site last week as the pads were being finished. The number varies depending on the work being done, said Joe Lillion, Senior Project Manager for M.A. Mortenson Co., the Minneapolis-based general contractor that is a specialist in wind farm construction. Overall, 100 different tradespeople will work on the project, Lillion said.
Mortenson has been working at the site since April, and also is building the Atlantic City facility.
Another project lags
A separate wind farm, proposed by Energy Unlimited, will not break ground this year.
“If we’re lucky, next spring. It’s not going to be this fall,” said John Connelly, a company representative. “We’re still doing all the due diligence that we have to do for all the permits.”
That project, on former watershed land near Crystal Lake, has drawn complaints that it will harm a precious natural resource.
“We’re complying with anything we can think of,” Connelly said. He planned this week to accompany a researcher looking for rattlesnake habitat.
Concerns were raised about the Bald Mountain farm’s effect on wildlife, particularly birds that might be killed flying into turbine blades. “We finished a bunch of avian work,” Blank said, and more is ongoing. “No one anticipates a significant adverse impact.”
Energy Unlimited has submitted an erosion and sedimentation plan to county, but still must get final planning approval from the Bear Creek Planning Commission.
Connelly said the company was hoping to complete the permitting within the next month. “But not construction. This other project is going to be finished before we start.”
The actual construction won’t take very long, Connelly said.
“You don’t do anything other than a concrete pad for the turbines. It’s a pretty easy situation,” he said, since it doesn’t require amenities like water and sewer that a housing development would entail.
Once they begin commercial operation, the wind farms will provide a substantial revenue boost to Bear Creek Township, said supervisors chairman Ed Benkoski. The companies will pay the township $3,000 each year per turbine, plus a cost-of-living increase.
That works out to $2.7 million over 20 years, Benkoski said. “As long as those wind turbines are running, Bear Creek Township realizes the money.”
Benkoski says critics do not understand the wind farms. “When they’re done, the roadways and sites must be reseeded,” he said. Roads that are now big enough to allow access by huge cranes and other construction equipment will be reduced to 15 feet wide.
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Community Energy, Inc., headquartered in Wayne, Pa., was founded in 1999 as a marketer of wind-generated energy. It now has more than three billion kilowatt-hours of wind energy sales and 40,000 residential customers. The Bear Creek and Atlantic City wind farms will be the company’s first generation projects. Bear Creek was acquired from Global Winds Harvest.
CH Energy Group, Inc. has two primary subsidiaries. Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. is a regulated transmission and distribution facility serving approximately 358,000 customers in eight counties of New York’s Hudson Valley region and delivering natural gas and electricity in a 2,600-square-mile service territory. Central Hudson Enterprises Corp. includes business units delivering energy and related services to nearly 85,000 customers in eight states and the District of Columbia.
Babcock & Brown is a global investment and advisory firm dealing with real estate, infrastructure and project financing, operating leasing, structured finance and corporate finance.
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The base for the last of 12 Gamesa turbines at the Bald Mountain wind farm was poured Thursday. The 267-foot tall tower is tied to a 14-foot diameter pedestal on the base by 144 bolts, each 1.5 inches in diameter. The pedestal is melded into a gargantuan below-ground anchor that is more than 30 feet across, and is made with nearly 300 yards of heavily reinforced concrete. “It’s not going to break,” said Joe Lillion, senior project manager.
Sitting atop the tower will be a three-bladed propeller with a radius of 135 feet. The tip of the blades will not get closer than 130 feet to the ground.
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