Wind power is slowly becoming a reality in New Hampshire and across New England.
Some towns are embracing it.
And some are not.
In the first of a two day series, NHPR Correspondent Hilary McQuilkin is going to take us to the state's first commercial windfarm....in Berlin.
Wind turbines on Jericho Mountain in Berlin. (Hilary McQuilkin, NHPR)
The town of Berlin, New Hampshire has stepped into the future.
Largely known for the century-old pulp mill which, on May 6, closed for good, Berlin is home to the first wind farm in New Hampshire.
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On Jericho Mountain, at 2,400 feet, the bumpy two-mile access road ends at four 160-foot wind turbines.
Three are up and running.
The fourth is scheduled to be put up later this summer.
Christian Loranger, from Acushnet, Massachusetts - and his company, Loranger Power Generation Corporation – is the project's driving force.
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CLIP 1 [Right now as you can see, we’re producing power, we have underground electric system that connects towers together. And then it will go to the first pole, it will run down 2 mile pole line out to the street, connect into the grid, it will travel down street about a mile to the substation, it’ll hit public service company’s substation and then from there branch out, you know, figuratively everywhere.]
Once a cranberry farmer turned developer turned energy entrepreneur, Loranger bought this equipment second hand from California.
With his wife and father, he spent nearly a year putting up the wind turbines here in Berlin.
With all four running, this little wind farm can produce 1.4 megawatts of energy, enough to power about 700 homes.
CLIP 2 [We were lucky with the wind and the land. Blessed to have the town like of Berlin, you know, I’ve never seen a town that had so many intelligent people really are able to really grasp something new, think it through, they challenged me with questions and things to research. That certainly made it possible, that they were willing to look into things, not just to say no, we’re not interested, but to research and go forward.]
Loranger scrutinized national wind data, topographical maps, and even approached a few other towns before settling on Jericho Mountain in Berlin .
The whole process took a few years – from changing the zoning ordinance, to site plan reviews, to construction.
Pam LaFlamme is the Berlin City Planner.
'The windmills aren’t turning today, what’s going on?' City officials say Berlin residents are paying attention to the wind turbines on Jericho Mountain. (Hilary McQuilkin, NHPR)
CLIP 3 [He came in and did everything the planning board asked. We set that up because we assumed people would be coming out and would want to know more. But there really wasn’t that kind of interest. In fact, what I hear is that I’ve head is “did you see the windmills the windmills aren’t turning today, what’s going on?†… People are just curious. I haven’t heard any negative feedback, even since they’ve been running.]
Lisa Linowes is with the volunteer organization, Industrial Wind Action group in Lyman, New Hamphire.
She is opposed to wind power in New Hampshire, but says this project- with the small 160 foot turbines - doesn’t worry her as much as some other endeavors do.
CLIP 4 [That turbine is just a little taller than what an individual turbine would be if someone chose to live off grid, um, so the impacts are not as significant. Still it is development on a ridge line and the community should understand what is going on …]
Berlin town officials did hold four public hearings, but nobody showed up to voice opposition.
LaFlamme says everyone in Berlin seems to have embraced the idea.
The wind farm, she says, is a way to escape their mill-town reputation.
CLIP 5 [Having Christian come pick this area was great because we’ve been known for a lot of years, as the community that carried an awful odor, and so being known as a community that is in it for renewable energy and being technologically savvy about how it does that is what we would rather be known for.]
Nearing completion of phase one in his project, Loranger plans to put up more turbines – perhaps up to 16 more – on the 140 acres he owns on Jericho Mountain.
But he admits it won’t be easy; he has big competition.
CLIP 6 [Large companies are getting into the renewable energy business, and they’re not buying one turbine at a time, they’re buying 80 or 100 turbines at a time, 700 million dollar projects, so, for a guy like me to go out and buy one turbine, no one is interested. Basically, the line I got I, we’re glad you’re interested in us, but unless you want to do at least a $50 million project and you don’t want to do it until 2009, we can’t help you …to grow will be a challenge.]
Loranger says he’ll have to investigate ways to buy new equipment second-hand … for example, turbines from projects that never got built.
But, growing the wind farm won’t happen for at least a year.
Loranger has another renewable energy project--one involving bio-diesel---in Massachusetts.
And, even though Loranger invests his time and energy on renewables, when asked about the future, he concedes that wind power is just one small piece of a very big puzzle.
CLIP 7 [We use a lot of energy in this country, and the world, look at the amount China, India, and this stuff is such a drop in the hat next to what we need. We need something big, major, it’ll be a combo of everything. there's no doubt about that..]
For NHPR News, I’m Hilary McQuilkin.
