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By LUCAS?WRIGHT
Daily Globe Staff Reporter
SHELBY — The company in charge of the 91-turbine Black Fork Wind Farm project slotted for 14,800 acres of leased land in Richland and Crawford counties confirmed Friday construction on the project is being pushed back over one year from its initial timeframe.
After receiving approval from the Ohio Power Siting Board January 23, Scott Hawken, a senior project manager at Element Power, said construction on the wind farm will not go ahead in March 2012 as was outlined in the company’s proposal to the siting board. Instead, Hawken said the construction is projected to begin in late 2013 or early 2014.
“It took almost a year to get through the application process with the state,” Hawken said. “We hoped when we initially applied that we’d be able to start building this spring of 2012, but the process just took a little longer than we expected, so it’s just not feasible for us to start this spring.”
In addition, Hawken noted the company still needs to initiate a power purchase agreement with a utility to actually buy the power generated by the proposed wind farm. He said Element Power has been in negotiations with several utilities in Ohio, but a long-term agreement has not been secured.
“That’s a factor we need to be awarded before we can move forward with construction,” Hawken said.
Another consideration the company is keeping a close eye on is Production Tax Credits for renewable energy — a federal program aimed at helping fund renewable energy projects around the country — which expire at the end of 2012. Because 2012 is a presidential election year and there are other concerns on politicians’ minds other than the Production Tax Credits, Hawken said he doesn’t believe the credits will be extended by the end of this year.
He said many companies, including utilities companies, are waiting to see if congress extends the tax credits. If it does, Hawken said, utilities companies will be more willing to buy from renewable energy sources like wind farms.
“(Production Tax Credits) have been around since the early 2000s, and it has gotten bipartisan support,” Hawken said. “It’s always usually a one- to two-year tax credit that’s been out there. It has gotten extended year after year,” he said. He noted there was a lag in the system a few years ago that allowed the tax credit to expire for several months, but it was eventually passed again. Element Power anticipates the utility companies are waiting for the tax credits to be renewed before choosing to bargain with wind farm projects for energy generation deals, Hawken said.
Hawken also brought up Ohio’s alternative energy portfolio standard, which states 25 percent of the energy used in Ohio must be generated from alternative energy sources by 2025. Fifty- percent of that energy must come from renewable energy sources, such as wind farms, and half of the sources of renewable energy used must be located in Ohio, he said.
“Either way the utilities are going to have to procure renewable energy to meet those demands of the future,” Hawken said. “It’s just whether they do it now, or wait to see if this tax credit will help them in 2013 or beyond.”
Hawken said in addition to the power purchase agreement, the company is working with Richland and Crawford County officials to ensure a road-use agreement is met between the three entities. According to Black Fork Wind Energy’s proposal approved by the siting board, the company will bring all roads used by semi trucks to haul in the large pieces of the wind turbines back up to pre-construction condition. Matt Butler, a spokesman for the Ohio Power Siting Board, said with the board’s okay January 23, the company can go ahead with construction whether it comes to a written agreement with the counties or not as long as the company keeps its promise to bring the roads back to pre-construction condition after the project is completed. Black Fork Wind Energy, the company proposing the Black Fork Wind Farm, is a subsidiary of Oregon-based Element Power.
Hawken said to determine what “pre-construction condition” means, the company is working with the county engineers to see how much repair will be needed following the construction. In addition, he said Element Power has hired a Mansfield-based transportation consulting company to complete a route analysis about what roads will be the best to use for the trucks. Hawken said most of the process is done, but the legal agreements between Richland and Crawford Counties still needs to be worked out.
Hawken noted although the Black Fork Wind Farm project can be transferred to another entity — for example, if an outside company wanted to buy the project along with the permits and legal obligations that go with it, they could — the company does not plan to abandon the project due to the current hold-up. Hawken also said no outside company has offered to purchase the project.
The wind farm is estimated to produce 200 megawatts of energy, according to the company’s proposal to the siting board. |
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