Council Hears Wind Turbine Proposals

The Portsmouth Town Council heard a number of possible outcomes for the town's wind turbine generator, but did not vote during public and executive session on Monday night. 

The town council is weighing possible options for its broken wind turbine generator, which has been stopped since last May. 

Last July, the town council learned repairing the wind turbine next to Portsmouth High School could . 

On Monday night, Gary Crosby presented the following two options for discussion to the council. 

The first option involves wind turbine repair and resuming operations, which includes the following: 

• Town retains ownership of the turbine;
• Town funds gearbox replacement and puts turbine back into operation;
• Town continues to receive all revenue from the sale of power to National Grid;
• Town signs an O&M contract with service provider;
• O&M contractor is responsible for all scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, minor repairs, and 24/7 monitoring at its expense;
• O&M contractor guarantees availability will not drop below a certain level without penalty and gets a bonus if they exceed a certain availability level;
• An insurance policy (paid for by the town) catastrophic failure & business interruption;
• Capital reserve and turbine removal at end of life provided for in the economic model.

The second options would involve selling the wind turbine to a developer, and could involve the following: 

• Wind developer assumes ownership, dissassembles and disposes of the existing wind turbine at no cost to the town; 
• Wind developer installs, maintains, owns and operates a new wind turbine of the same size on the same site, again at no cost to the town; 
• Wind developer enters a lease agreement with the town; 
• At the point the new turbine becomes operational with the lease payments equal to paying off all of the town’s remaining debt service over a period of time; 
• Wind developer enters into a power purchase agreement and sells power to National Grid under a Rhode Island distributed generation long-term contract; 
• The town returns to purchasing power from National Grid as it did prior to wind turbine; 
• Wind developer to remove the new wind turbine at the end of its useful life at no cost to the town.

What do you think about the possible options? What should be done with the Portsmouth wind turbine generator? Tell us in the comment section below!