« Environment - More on "Pollution partners not all paragons: State recognizes 22 firms it also has fined" | Main | Ind. Gov't. - "Adult businesses back on agenda" for New Haven »

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Environment - Wind turbines in the news

Tom Spaulding reported yesterday on the Indianapolis Star site:

A 106-megawatt wind farm built to give Indianapolis Power & Light Co. a new green supply of energy began operating this week in Northwest Indiana, one of several developments under way in the growing number of turbines in the state.

The Hoosier Wind Project near Fowler in east central Indiana consists of 53 turbines and was built by enXco, which announced this week that the farm will be delivering carbon-free electricity to IPL.

It is the second wind farm to begin supplying power to Indiana in two weeks. A wind farm capable of generating enough power to light 60,000 average homes was dedicated last week in northwestern Indiana of Horizon Wind Energy's operations near the town of Brookston. * * *

IPL's parent company, AES Corp., said in the summer that it plans to build wind turbines in an area that would span the line between Clinton and Tipton counties, a project that would cost up to $1 billion. The counties are north of Indianapolis.

A public hearing Dec. 8 will consider the proposal to put wind turbines in southeastern Clinton County. The proposal by AES Wind Generation LLC, a Virginia-based company, calls on installing and operating up to 200 2.5-megawatt windmills. The farm will cover roughly 32,000 acres in the eastern portion of the county.

"By size, it will be the largest (wind farm) project in the area," said Mark Mills, director of the Clinton County Area Plan Commission.

Clinton County Commissioner Bill Beard said he's excited about the wind farm potential.

"I'd say that has the potential to double the assessed valuation in the county, thereby reducing tax rates," Beard said.

In other recent news about wind farms in Indiana, officials last week celebrated the completion of the first of three phases of the Meadow Lake Wind Farm near Brookston in northern Indiana. The Meadow Lake farm has 121 turbines already, and the second phase will add 66 turbines.

In a story today in the Evansville C&P, Garret Matthews reports:
BOONVILLE, Ind. — A Warrick County judge has ruled the 60-foot-tall wind turbine that Huntington Creek Subdivision resident David Johnson wants to build is OK under the county's zoning ordinance.

"A free-standing wind turbine tower is permitted as an accessory use in an R-2 district upon the proper granting of a variance," Judge Keith A. Meier of Superior Court No. 1 wrote in a decision earlier this month.

The ruling concerned a variance granted to Johnson by the county's Board of Zoning Appeals in the spring.

The ILB quotes from a longer story on the challenge in this Sept. 10, 2009 entry.

Here is a list of other ILB entries on wind turbines.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 25, 2009 08:39 AM
Posted to Environment