Breeze power | Think wind energy is only for the mighty? Check out these small-scale wind projects.
While large wind farm projects with turbines by the dozens are being built or have been proposed for mountain ridges around the state, the adoption of wind energy is also happening on a smaller scale. Communities around Maine are passing new ordinances to allow residents and small businesses to erect wind turbines. Saco, Ellsworth and Damariscotta all have such ordinances, and now Cape Elizabeth is the most recent convert after recently allowing small wind energy systems on privately owned land, the Portland Press Herald reported. “We need to do everything we can, within reason, to wean ourselves off our dependence on oil and fossil fuels,” Cape Elizabeth Councilor Paul McKenney told the Press Herald. “This is just one small measure that could have a large payback.”
Augusta, too, is eyeing a windy future and is considering applying for grants to put up two windmills at Cony High School to lower the school’s electrical costs and educate students on renewable energy, the Kennebec Journal reported. The grant would also pay for a classroom computer to monitor the windmills, allowing students to record the amount of electricity generated.
The increasing popularity of wind turbines is not, however, coming without controversy. A group of Freedom residents, mostly abutters to three new Central Maine Power Co. windmills on a local ridge, are suing CMP to shut down that wind farm, VillageSoup recently reported. And a nearby bird rehabilitation facility called Avian Haven, located one mile away from the turbines, is threatening to relocate to protect its wounded birds from the turbine noise and to reduce the risk of healed birds flying into the turbines as they leave the facility, the news site said.
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