Project still blowing in the wind
Highland County awaits decision on state's first proposed wind farm

by Garry Kranz
for Virginia Business
July 2007

The owners of an alternative energy development in Highland County hope winds of change are blowing in their direction.

Highland New Wind Development, LLC, wants to build up to 22 wind turbines atop family property on a mountain ridge near the Virginia-West Virginia line. Yet the project remains bogged down in state hearings and legal wrangling, despite its potential to produce clean electric power and help alleviate pollution generated from fossil fuels.

This month, regulators with the State Corporation Commission will hear comments from supporters and opponents during a July 17 hearing in Richmond. What would be the state's first industrial wind farm has triggered vociferous debate in rural Highland County. Many residents oppose the project on grounds that it would compromise the area's scenic beauty and potentially harm rare birds and bats.

Tal McBride, who along with his father, Henry, launched Highland New Wind in 1999, is disappointed the project is taking so long to wind its way through the state's regulatory system. Delays are pushing the estimated $60 million price tag higher due to spiraling costs for raw materials such as copper and steel. Still, McBride is convinced that windmills would provide a boon to Highland County, which sports one of the smallest populations (2,400) east of the Mississippi River. "We have no industrial tax base to speak of, and farmers here are being taxed off their land," says McBride.

If approved, the 140-foot-high, wind turbines could provide about 40 megawatts of electricity - enough to power about 15,000 homes. A new substation would be needed to tie the turbines to a 69-kilovolt line owned by Allegheny Power.

Two years ago, the Highland County Board of Supervisors approved a conditional-use permit for the wind farm on a 2-1 vote. That action is being challenged in the courts by some of the project's opponents. In April, an SCC commissioner recommended tentative approval with the stipulation that additional environmental studies be done to examine the potential impact on migratory birds and bats. The recommendation arose after the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries questioned the findings of earlier bird and bat studies conducted by Highland New Wind. At this point, McBride declines to hazard a guess on whether approval is imminent. "I'm hopeful," is all he says.

Wind energy is apparently gaining ground with electric utilities that traditionally burn fossil fuel. Last December Dominion Virginia Power, the state's largest utility with 5 million customers, announced a partnership with Dutch Royal Shell to build a 164-megawatt wind farm in West Virginia. Also Arlington-based AES Corp. has about 1,000 megawatts of power under construction in the U. S. (none of the wind turbines are located in Virginia) and about 3,000 megawatts globally.

In 2006, wind farms in 36 states generated less than 1 percent of the country's electric supply. Within 15 years, that figure is projected to grow to 2 to 7 percent.