Guidebook for windmills is planned

Some of Rhode Island’s attempts at harnessing renewable energy haven’t exactly been smooth ones, particularly when it comes to erecting wind turbines.
Proposals for wind mills in various communities have been met recently with opposition from neighbors worried about everything from ruined views to diminished property values.
At least five Rhode Island towns have put moratoriums on wind turbine proposals while ordinances are reworked.
Now state energy and economic-development officials are looking to assemble a statewide plan they say could offer some assistance, identifying the optimum sites for renewable energy projects based on factors such as sustained wind speeds, wildlife, residential impact and potential effects of “light flicker.”
The plan would be modeled after the ocean Special Area Management Plan, or SAMP – that the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council assembled over two years to guide development on 1,467 square miles of ocean off the Rhode Island coast, including wind farms proposed by Deepwater Wind.
While the ocean SAMP has drawn criticism from environmentalists and commercial fishermen, it has also won praise on a national stage as a model for other coastal states.
Now officials are looking at doing the same for land as more wind turbine projects are hitting the drawing board or are moving along in the approval process.
At a R.I. Economic Development Corporation meeting last month, board members questioned whether they should approve loans and grants from the state’s Renewable Energy Fund for “one-off” projects for individual residents and businesses, instead of focusing exclusively on assisting “utility scale” proposals that provide energy to a larger number of users.
EDC Director Keith W. Stokes said he is discussing assembling a “land SAMP” with officials such as Kenneth Payne, administrator of the R.I. Office of Energy Resources.
“We all want to go green,” Stokes said recently. “I just want to create a consistent path to get there, so at the end of the day, we get the best return on investment.” Talk of a land SAMP comes as the R.I. Division of Planning is drafting its new state energy plan, which will outline recommended standards and guidelines for renewable energy facilities.
Payne said a land SAMP would go further, drawing upon the expertise of the Coastal Resources Center at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, which was integral in putting together the ocean SAMP.
The center has extensive data on coastal environments that would be useful for a land SAMP, Payne said.
“It will use the site planning that already exists and augment that with the scientific capabilities of URI,” Payne said. “It’ll be extremely high-quality planning, and it won’t be mysterious about where projects are potentially a good fit, and where they don’t work so well.”
Payne and Stokes said a land SAMP would research issues such as the effects of turbines on local birds, or possible “drop zones,” areas where debris such as ice would fall from turbine blades. The report would also examine distances of some sites from the energy grid, and the potential cost of “plugging in.”
Officials said a land SAMP wouldn’t take nearly as long to develop as the one for the Rhode Island coastal waters, or cost nearly as much. The ocean SAMP took two years to complete at a $9.8 million price tag.
The land SAMP should take less than a year to finish, and cost less than $1 million, Payne said. “You don’t have to map the ocean floor,” he noted, then joked: “And you don’t have whales on land, so you don’t have to track their migration. On land, there’s already so much data present.”
State officials are working on an agreement with URI’s Coastal Resources Center and other agencies. Payne said some of the funding for the SAMP could come from federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act still available to his office for renewable energy projects. Stokes said a group of nine Rhode Island municipalities developing a wind turbine proposal inspired him to push for the land SAMP. In that project, the East Bay Energy Consortium – made up of Bristol, Warren, Barrington, East Providence, Portsmouth, Little Compton, Tiverton, Middletown and Newport – are working on a “utility-scale, community-wind” proposal that is intended to eventually lower the municipalities’ energy cost.
The consortium identified the Tiverton Industrial Park as the best site on which to build eight to 10 land-based turbines and would provide 20 to 25 megawatts of power. Stokes said the site appears appropriate – zoned for industrial uses, located near an existing natural gas power plant, and situated at a place that can be easily hooked into the power grid.
The municipalities, which could possibly partner with a private developer that would finance the project with a power-purchase agreement with the consortium, are in the process of studying the feasibility.
Stokes said the land SAMP could identify similar opportunities.
“Our sense is that there are other options like that around the state,” Stokes said. “My goal is to expand the options out there, not restrict them.”
Not all projects have proceeded as smoothly. In North Kingstown, town officials pulled a building permit for a 427-foot turbine, asserting the property owner didn’t follow approved plans. The proposal had drawn the ire of neighbors.
There was a similar outcome to a proposal from a 300-foot turbine at a farm near Sachuest Point in Middletown. The application was withdrawn and Middletown officials placed a moratorium on new proposals until the wind turbine ordinance could be strengthened.
Payne sees the land SAMP as a possible guidebook for planners and developers.
“It won’t eliminate potential controversy,” he said. “But it will give solid data on which you can help resolve controversy.” •