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September 20, 2007

Stakeholders gather questions about proposed sites for RI wind farm

It was a day of questions and few answers for the Governor’s wind stakeholder group, which met this morning at the University of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay Campus.

The group is charged with identifying which of 11 potential sites would be best to place a state-owned wind farm. Governor Carcieri has proposed building a large wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that would generate 15 percent of the state's electricity usage.

At their meeting, the stakeholders were asked to come up with a comprehensive list of questions they would need answered in order to help make their recommendation.

The questions proposed covered practically all aspects of the project, from what will the entire costs for each of the proposed sites be, to whether the state might be able to sell advertising space on the wind turbines.

The group was promised answers to the questions over the next month, in time for the next meeting in mid-October. The Governor’s energy adviser hopes the group will come to a consensus at that meeting and recommend a site.

That site would then move to the permitting process, which would involve public hearings and regulatory approvals from various state agencies. If the project is located in federal waters, it would require federal approvals as well.

Posted by Tim Barmann  at 3:50 PM | Permalink

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