February 16, 2004
Mighty wind | Could Mars Hill become the prototype for New England wind power development?
By Sean Donahue
Though most people cite Cadillac Mountain as the first spot in the country to see the sunrise each day, for nearly six months of the year it's 1,748-foot Mars Hill in Aroostook County that actually receives the nation's first light.
And if Ray Mersereau, town manager of the municipality of Mars Hill, gets his wish, Mars Hill soon will be just as well known for hosting the state's first electricity-generating wind farm.
Last month, Mars Hill and Bangor-based Evergreen Wind Power, a subsidiary of worldwide wind farm developer UPC Group, filed its formal application with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to install 33 of the 389-foot-tall wind turbines along the Mars Hill ridge, which together could generate a maximum 50 megawatts of electricity capable of powering 50,000 houses. If DEP approves the application this spring -- and Congress reinstates a federal wind energy tax credit that's currently tied up in a stalled national energy bill -- Evergreen hopes to break ground before summer and have the windmills turning by November, making Mars Hill the first utility-scale wind development in Maine.
With that schedule, Mars Hill could also be the first new wind farm anywhere in New England since an 11 turbine, six megawatt installation was erected at Searsburg, Vt. in 1997, even though more than a dozen wind farms have been proposed in the region since the mid-1990s. That's because, since it was first proposed three years ago, Evergreen's Mars Hill project has avoided the controversy and organized opposition that has entangled many of those other proposals -- thanks to the basic characteristics of the Mars Hill site, and the town itself. "We are actively looking for development in our area," says Mersereau. "And Mars Hill is already developed -- there's a ski area on it, a golf course in front of it, radio and cell phone towers up there taller than these structures will be."
Those factors are crucial, because for wind farms to be economically feasible they must be located in areas with average annual wind speeds of at least 11 m.p.h. And in New England that typically means mountain tops, coastal areas and islands -- precisely the locations cherished by environmentalists or inhabited by wealthy property owners likely opposed to such development. In western Maine, for example, the Appalachian Trail Council has pledged to block a wind farm proposed for Redington Mountain by Yarmouth-based Endless Energy Corp., on the grounds it will degrade the wilderness experience of hikers and other visitors.
But as interest in wind farm development grows -- for the past five years, the country's wind generating capacity has grown about 28% annually, to 6,374 megawatts, according to the American Wind Energy Association -- Mars Hill could provide an object lesson in how developers can find the right balance between strong winds and the social, economic and existing development characteristics of potential sites. "We want to use Mars Hill as a good example of a site that's already home to many types of land uses," says an Evergreen Wind Power project advisor, who, for reasons of corporate protocol, cannot be quoted by name. "We think it can be a real positive for other potential projects throughout the Northeast."
Property tax windfall?
UPC Group, which developed large wind farms in Italy and Sardinia during the 1990s before it began looking for wind power opportunities in this country, says its development approach starts by cultivating community support for a proposed wind farm. In Mars Hill, that meant Evergreen began simultaneously courting Mersereau and the landowners who controlled Mars Hill's ridge at the same time it began installing equipment to test the site's wind characteristics.
Landowners had a direct financial incentive to work with Evergreen, since the company will pay annual rent for each turbine it installs on their property. Mersereau says those payments could be about $3,000-$5,000 per turbine, though the company says that range may not be accurate, given that payments are based on a percentage of the total power generated by the turbines, which can fluctuate.
For the town of Mars Hill, the economic benefits start with an estimated $200,000 boost to local property taxes from development that doesn't require many additional town services, such as extending water and sewer lines. What's more exciting, Mersereau says, is the project's potential spin-off effects, including jobs for local contractors -- which Evergreen has said it plans to use whenever possible -- and increased tourism and visitor traffic from school groups, scientists and representatives from communities considering their own wind projects.
Mersereau has worked with Evergreen to help educate residents about the project through presentations to the town council and planning board and public meetings. Despite some residents still expressing concern about the project's visual impact, Mersereau says there has been no organized campaign to stop it. "Around here we're used to dealing with farmers and letting them do what they want with their land," he says.
Evergreen's application is now in the hands of the DEP, which will examine a host of environmental factors, such as the potential for bird kills, to see if the project will be as low-impact as the company and the town believe it to be. And while Mars Hill is so far proving to be a willing host community, Evergreen still has to prove that the wind farm is economically viable.
Mars Hill is significantly lower than the typical 2,500-3,000-ft. mountaintop wind farm site, says David Van Wie, owner of the environmental consulting firm Land & Water Associates in Hallowell, which could mean a lower average annual wind speed. Wind farms in Maine also face the challenge of the state's limited transmission capacity, which could make it difficult for companies to sell their electricity. ISO New England has identified Maine as one of the critical bottlenecks in the New England grid, noting that there is already surplus electricity generated in Maine that can't be transported to high-demand areas such as Boston and Connecticut. (Evergreen denies that transmission capacity will be a problem for Mars Hill, saying it has already identified customers for its electricity but is not ready to name them.)
Despite these challenges, wind farm proponents say that just getting a wind project built goes a long way to furthering the industry, by building public acceptance of the technology. As more wind farms are built around New England, they say, Mars Hill's controversy-free development process could become the rule rather than the exception. "Surveys show that after a wind project goes up, acceptance rates go up significantly. A lot of people find they are nowhere near as bad as they expected," says Van Wie. "Our perceptions are more powerful than we think."
And if Ray Mersereau, town manager of the municipality of Mars Hill, gets his wish, Mars Hill soon will be just as well known for hosting the state's first electricity-generating wind farm.
Last month, Mars Hill and Bangor-based Evergreen Wind Power, a subsidiary of worldwide wind farm developer UPC Group, filed its formal application with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to install 33 of the 389-foot-tall wind turbines along the Mars Hill ridge, which together could generate a maximum 50 megawatts of electricity capable of powering 50,000 houses. If DEP approves the application this spring -- and Congress reinstates a federal wind energy tax credit that's currently tied up in a stalled national energy bill -- Evergreen hopes to break ground before summer and have the windmills turning by November, making Mars Hill the first utility-scale wind development in Maine.
With that schedule, Mars Hill could also be the first new wind farm anywhere in New England since an 11 turbine, six megawatt installation was erected at Searsburg, Vt. in 1997, even though more than a dozen wind farms have been proposed in the region since the mid-1990s. That's because, since it was first proposed three years ago, Evergreen's Mars Hill project has avoided the controversy and organized opposition that has entangled many of those other proposals -- thanks to the basic characteristics of the Mars Hill site, and the town itself. "We are actively looking for development in our area," says Mersereau. "And Mars Hill is already developed -- there's a ski area on it, a golf course in front of it, radio and cell phone towers up there taller than these structures will be."
Those factors are crucial, because for wind farms to be economically feasible they must be located in areas with average annual wind speeds of at least 11 m.p.h. And in New England that typically means mountain tops, coastal areas and islands -- precisely the locations cherished by environmentalists or inhabited by wealthy property owners likely opposed to such development. In western Maine, for example, the Appalachian Trail Council has pledged to block a wind farm proposed for Redington Mountain by Yarmouth-based Endless Energy Corp., on the grounds it will degrade the wilderness experience of hikers and other visitors.
But as interest in wind farm development grows -- for the past five years, the country's wind generating capacity has grown about 28% annually, to 6,374 megawatts, according to the American Wind Energy Association -- Mars Hill could provide an object lesson in how developers can find the right balance between strong winds and the social, economic and existing development characteristics of potential sites. "We want to use Mars Hill as a good example of a site that's already home to many types of land uses," says an Evergreen Wind Power project advisor, who, for reasons of corporate protocol, cannot be quoted by name. "We think it can be a real positive for other potential projects throughout the Northeast."
Property tax windfall?
UPC Group, which developed large wind farms in Italy and Sardinia during the 1990s before it began looking for wind power opportunities in this country, says its development approach starts by cultivating community support for a proposed wind farm. In Mars Hill, that meant Evergreen began simultaneously courting Mersereau and the landowners who controlled Mars Hill's ridge at the same time it began installing equipment to test the site's wind characteristics.
Landowners had a direct financial incentive to work with Evergreen, since the company will pay annual rent for each turbine it installs on their property. Mersereau says those payments could be about $3,000-$5,000 per turbine, though the company says that range may not be accurate, given that payments are based on a percentage of the total power generated by the turbines, which can fluctuate.
For the town of Mars Hill, the economic benefits start with an estimated $200,000 boost to local property taxes from development that doesn't require many additional town services, such as extending water and sewer lines. What's more exciting, Mersereau says, is the project's potential spin-off effects, including jobs for local contractors -- which Evergreen has said it plans to use whenever possible -- and increased tourism and visitor traffic from school groups, scientists and representatives from communities considering their own wind projects.
Mersereau has worked with Evergreen to help educate residents about the project through presentations to the town council and planning board and public meetings. Despite some residents still expressing concern about the project's visual impact, Mersereau says there has been no organized campaign to stop it. "Around here we're used to dealing with farmers and letting them do what they want with their land," he says.
Evergreen's application is now in the hands of the DEP, which will examine a host of environmental factors, such as the potential for bird kills, to see if the project will be as low-impact as the company and the town believe it to be. And while Mars Hill is so far proving to be a willing host community, Evergreen still has to prove that the wind farm is economically viable.
Mars Hill is significantly lower than the typical 2,500-3,000-ft. mountaintop wind farm site, says David Van Wie, owner of the environmental consulting firm Land & Water Associates in Hallowell, which could mean a lower average annual wind speed. Wind farms in Maine also face the challenge of the state's limited transmission capacity, which could make it difficult for companies to sell their electricity. ISO New England has identified Maine as one of the critical bottlenecks in the New England grid, noting that there is already surplus electricity generated in Maine that can't be transported to high-demand areas such as Boston and Connecticut. (Evergreen denies that transmission capacity will be a problem for Mars Hill, saying it has already identified customers for its electricity but is not ready to name them.)
Despite these challenges, wind farm proponents say that just getting a wind project built goes a long way to furthering the industry, by building public acceptance of the technology. As more wind farms are built around New England, they say, Mars Hill's controversy-free development process could become the rule rather than the exception. "Surveys show that after a wind project goes up, acceptance rates go up significantly. A lot of people find they are nowhere near as bad as they expected," says Van Wie. "Our perceptions are more powerful than we think."
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