Light company buys wind power
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

Ashburnham is one of 14 local utility companies to buy into the Berkshire Wind Project on Brodie Mountain this month.

Ashburnham Municipal Light Company Director Stan Herriott said this is one of the ways the electrical company has bought into green forms of electricity. The project has been under discussion for a number of years, he said.

The Berkshire Wind project is located on Brodie Mountain in Hancock and Lanesboro.

The project cost $4 million and the plan is to install 10 1.5-megawatt wind turbines on the mountain. The project, expected to cost about $45 million, is planned to be operable by the end of 2010.

"The biggest hurdles are done with all the permitting done," Herriott said.

Harriott has said the project has all of the necessary permits and most of the necessary design plans so construction can start soon. Herriott said that the problem will be getting the turbines because they are back ordered and there are very few companies that build them.

"There is such a demand for them these days," he said. The farm should generate enough power for 5,000 households.

The project used to be owned by Berkshire Wind Group LLC.

Ashburnham owns about 4.5 percent of the project's 15-megawatt electricity production under the terms of the agreement.

"We originally entered into the agreement in 2002 and in that we had a agreed to buy all of the output when he got it all built," Herriott said.

Then there was the delay in the construction of the project, mostly because of pending lawsuits by the neighbors to the project. Herriott said the municipal companies agreed to buy the project as is if the previous owner took care of all of the lawsuits. Herriott said the final terms were met at the end of May.

Herriott said, the 2002 deal put the towns in a very good negotiating positions.

"He would have had to breach the contract if he tried to sell it to anyone else," Herriott said.

In addition to Ashburnham, the municipal light companies also includes Boylston, Groton, Holden, Hull, Ipswich, Marblehead, Paxton, Peabody, Shrewsbury, Sterling, Templeton, Wakefield and West Boylston. All of these groups are part of the non-profit Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company.

The town already receives about 150,000 kilowatts a month from a hydroproduction plant in New York state, but Herriott said this will be the first new deal for green energy.

The town uses about three million kilowatt hours a month, so at the moment about 5 percent of the town's energy is renewable.

The Light Company is also working to put up a testing tower to see if any wind power can be generated in town.