During a public hearing on Wednesday, a commission reviewing Vermont’s approval process for power projects will likely hear from residents of Windham. Voters there revised their town plan years ago to ban commercial wind development.
Two Vermont state senators are planning to unveil legislation
that would call for a three-year moratorium on large-scale wind power projects
in the state.
State regulators have approved wind testing towers
in southern Vermont, despite opposition from
the host towns. The decision comes during an intensifying debate
over renewable energy projects in Vermont.
The state has dismissed
trespass charges against a Northeast Kingdom newspaper publisher who was arrested last year while
he was covering an anti-wind protest.
Green Mountain Power has
commissioned the last of its 21 wind turbines in Lowell – well in time for the company to meet an
end-of-the-year deadline for federal tax credits.
State utility regulators
recently gave a boost to a wind energy developer eyeing a project in the Northeast Kingdom. The Public Service Board
refused to dismiss the developer’s application for a wind testing tower. But the project still faces
fierce local opposition. And there are growing calls for a statewide moratorium
on ridgeline wind development.