Published on March 30, 2005

MONTPELIER — Given the galvanizing attention the issue created last year as it criss-crossed the state, the wind farm hearings now under way in front of the Public Service Board (PSB) are not drawing much of a crowd.

Attendance has been so scant that if the hearings were a movie it is highly unlikely that Turbines for East Mountain would ever see the inside of a DVD or VCR player.

Even the parties with an interest in the case are not showing up. No one is at the table for the Nature Conservancy, which has party status in the proceeding. And despite representations that the hearings could determine the future of wind power in Vermont, no one from the fledging industry is showing up on a regular basis.

Part of the problem could lay with the form.

The hearings utterly lack a narrative. Witnesses are called in an order that has more to do with their availability than legal strategy. Evidence comes in bits and chunks, and lawyers ask questions on testimony already pre-filed with the board. Consequently there is little drama, and neither party gets to tell, chapter and verse, his story.

Tuesday concluded the sixth day of testimony in the case. At issue is whether a certificate of public good should be awarded East Haven Windfarm to erect four state-of-the-art wind turbines on East Mountain.

The petition is seen by many as the first step by the Montpelier-based company to develop a wind farm on the ridgelines of Essex County, that could result in as many as 50 329-foot towers.

The company already has filed a petition with PSB to erect test towers at three other locations in the county. A site visit has been scheduled for those locations sometime in June.

Also, the four towers now before the board were initially touted as a demonstration. And while that distinction has not surfaced as an issue in the hearings, recently company president Matt Rubin said in passing that the project will give the public a chance to see if four towers can co-exist with a natural landscape noted for its scenic, rugged beauty. And, too, if they will attract visitors to an area that is increasingly dependent on tourism.

As proposed, the four 1.5 megawatt turbines, manufactured by General Electric, will produce enough electricity to power 3,000 homes. At issue in testimony Tuesday was how well those turbines will operate in cold weather, and whether icing will significantly undercut their productivity.

On the stand was Dr. Bruce Bailey whose company, AWS Truewind out of Albany, New York, performed meteorological tests at East Mountain. In response to questions, he said his company has performed tests for a broad range of clients, including government agencies and utilities. Among its services, the company provides evaluations of wind sites for banks and other investors. But it is best known, according to Dr. Bailey, for the meteorological tests it performs. It is also a company that supports the development of wind energy.

At the summit of East Mountain, the site of a former U.S. radar base during the fifties, AWS measured wind speeds, wind direction, and provided long term projections. The testing used two towers or two stations, and ran comparisons with data from nearby Burke Mountain. The company also used data supplied by the wind farm at Searsburg.

Dr. Bailey testified that cold temperatures of minus 30 below or lower will cause a wind turbine to shut down. Fluids and oil at those temperatures become too thick to lubricate moving parts.

Because of equipment failure, AWS lost about 21 percent of the wind speed data it collected at East Mountain during the winter. To offset the loss, it turned to the Searsburg location, where it also picked up data on temperature fluctuations.

The decision to use data from a wind farm at a lower elevation than East Mountain struck attorney Anthony Roiseman as a poor choice. Mr. Roiseman is one of the two attorneys representing the Kingdom Commons Group, an alliance of about 40 Northeast Kingdom residents who oppose putting wind farms on ridgelines.

“Why were you having so much trouble with all this equipment,” he asked at one point. “Why didn’t you get it right the first time?”

“We made the best analysis we could with the data presented,” replied Dr. Bailey.

Previous testimony has indicated that icing will occur on the turbine’s blades 25 days a year. There also has been testimony that says the winds speeds on East Mountain are most reliable during the winter months.

Before the board Tuesday, Mr. Roiseman questioned how much power the turbines could generate if they had to shut down during those months when the wind blew the hardest. Cold temperature shutdowns, high erratic winds, and icing, he suggested, would cause a significant loss of power. And he pointed to the low availability rate at Searsburg as a case in point.

But Dr. Bailey argued that the main culprit for downtime at Searsburg was not the weather, but technology. He characterized the Searsburg projects as “a test program for a new technology that isn’t indicative or representative” of the gains the industry has made since then.

He also noted that the new turbines GE is producing have a high rate of availability during the winter in places like central New York and Minnesota.

Early in his testimony, Dr. Bailey told the board that low level clouds are “the principal mechanism for creating ice” on ridgelines and mountain summits. He went on to say that low level cloud formations at East Mountain occur 20 percent of the time over a cold weather span of six months, from November to May.

And, according to his calculations, icing at East Mountain would account for about an 8 percent loss of turbine productivity. Or, a loss doubling the one that has occurred at Searsburg over the years.

The hearings will resume Wednesday, March 30, and are scheduled to run into next week. Still pending is testimony on whether the project will have an adverse impact on the area’s aesthetics, and on the investment that has been made with public funds to conserve its high ecological values.