Peter Roth said the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee approved Granite Reliable Power Company's request for site and facility of a 99 megawatt wind park without necessary assurances that the company can come up with the money to build the $275 million facility. The decision needs to be altered to show "adequate monetary strength." Roth, senior assistant attorney general who was appointed as Counsel for the Public, asked the committee to clarify its decision.
No hearing date has been set and no response has been filed by the applicant.
The committee also has received requests for rehearing from both the Fish and Game Department, which wants $25,000 up front to review bird and bat studies and an intervenor, Industrial Wind Action, has also called asked for the case to be reopened for a variety of reasons.
On July 15, 2009, the committee issued its decision, finding that the applicant had met its burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that it had the requisite financial capability to construct and operate the project. It also stated as a condition that Granite Reliable Power could not begin construction until financing was committed.
On March 16, 2009, and April 2, 2009, the committee held evidentiary hearings to take testimony and receive documents into evidence on the question of the applicant's financial capability. Major portions of the hearings were closed to the public and the media. However, those documents were made available to the Counsel for the Public.
By law, Roth noted, the committee must find that the applicant has "adequate financial, technical and managerial capability to assure construction and operation of the facility in continuing compliance with the terms and conditions of the certificate." "At the time of the hearings neither the applicant nor its parent company possessed sufficient capital or credit to pay for the construction of the facility," Roth wrote.
"The evidence presented in the record also suggests that there is no way to accurately predict when the Applicant will be able to raise the capital or credit sufficient to construct and operate the facility." "Counsel for the Public believes that the decision can be revised to both protect the public's interest and address the existing financial reality," Roth wrote.
This is the second wind park approved in the state by the Site Evaluation Committee. The first was approved in 2007 for a smaller park in Lempster.
Roth said it has never previously made a finding of financial capability without a balance sheet or financial commitments demonstrating adequate monetary strength.
"Wherefore, Counsel for the Public prays that the Sub-Committee reconsider its findings and ruling on the question of financial capability and revise the conditions imposed to the Certificate to provide, as discussed above, for greater scrutiny of the Applicant's financial capability once such is actually committed, and grant such other and further relief as may be just."
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