Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. acknowledged yesterday that it does not yet have the rights to build a large wind farm offshore in Lake Erie. The company has agreed to buy a Canadian subsidiary of Utah's Wasatch Wind Inc. that has applied for those rights, but they have not yet been granted.

The city announced yesterday it is one of 103 Massachusetts cities and towns to receive a planning assistance grant from the Green Communities Program from state Department of Energy Resources. The grant will help communities like Newburyport take the necessary steps to becoming official Green Communities by providing free technical assistance to reach a set of pre-written standards.

At a confidential meeting today, parties including the staff of the Maine Public Utilities Commission and Central Maine Power Co. will seek ways to settle CMP's landmark request for a $1.4 billion upgrade of its transmission system. But two prominent parties in the case say the settlement attempt - initiated at CMP's urging - reflects political pressure by the utility's parent company and threatens to short-circuit a legal process that's meant to test whether the project is necessary in its proposed form.

Danish Wind Industry Association managing director Jan Hylleberg said ‘Our surveys show there's a huge desire in the councils to construct more windmills ...however, the energy gained from any new wind turbines would almost be offset by the planned removal of older and malfunctioning ones by 2020.

Between 500 and 1,000 protesters gathered last weekend at Mont-Saint-Michel in France to demonstrate against plans to build a wind farm along the Normandy coast. They say it would be a useless eyesore disfiguring the bay area. The European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW), along with four other environmental groups, organized the event "to denounce the massacre of our national and cultural heritage by the wind farm scourge." Though protestors hailed from France, Britain, Belgium, Holland, and Italy, the event received very little media coverage.

With wind turbines literally on the horizon, Naples officials are again calling on state leaders to make sure the power-generating machines are farther away from the town's borders. ...Turbines on the hills near Naples became operational earlier this year. Plans for more turbines in Prattsburgh in Steuben County and Italy in Yates County give new urgency to the call for re-siting, said Naples Supervisor Frank Duserick

In Utah, state officials are fielding various combinations of energy proposals, a list that includes solar and geothermal installations and an energy storage project ...Scores of projects - some speculative, others well-funded and a few quirky - have surfaced with energy companies eager to take advantage of loan guarantees and tax breaks being promoted by President Barack Obama.

In the scramble to harness ocean wind power, floating turbine technology may be the holy grail. Turbines that can be floated into position and anchored in deeper water are the solution to much of the politics that confronts shallow-water projects, according to proponents of the concept. A pair of announcements this month seems to herald the next step into deeper water.

Wind power was among several concerns Obama's Ocean Policy Task Force heard during a public meeting in Providence, its only stop on the wind-rich East Coast. The meeting came a week after the task force recommended creating a National Ocean Council to coordinate and hold accountable a hodgepodge of federal agencies responsible for conservation and marine planning.

Renewable energy is too costly, takes up too much land and is unable to supply the continuous electricity needed to meet Abaco's power needs, presentations on behalf of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) have argued, although attendees at the Wilson City power plant town told Tribune Business yesterday the alternatives had not been properly explored.

The tricky business of going green in Ontario just got more complex yesterday, as the McGuinty government introduced a mandatory "Buy Ontario" component for new solar and wind projects. The changes were part of a bundle of new policies designed to spark homegrown green manufacturing, as well as the wide deployment of its products -- everything from small, rooftop solar panels to industrial-sized wind farms. But in trying to strike a balance between competing interests, the Liberals appear to have rattled all sides.

Well over 100 people attended the public hearing called to receive feedback on the Oceans Management Plan, billed by the state government as a first-in-the-nation attempt to manage all development in Massachusetts waters. But just one issue dominated proceedings: wind generation. ...Overwhelmingly, the dozens who rose to speak were opposed to the plan, either outright or in part - although most also asserted their support in principle for alternative power generation.

Ontario will cover the total cost and provide "a reasonable rate of return" for investments in green energy projects through decades-long contracts with fixed electricity prices. The government said it is the first program of its kind in North America. ..."They're going to fast-track wind turbines ... without looking at the health related issues, and that ought to be a concern of everyone," he said.

This week, Concerned Citizens to Save Roxbury appealed the Maine Department of Environmental Protection's approval of the Record Hill Wind Project. The group wants the DEP's board to hold a public hearing to explore conflicting medical and technical information regarding the licensing of large wind turbine projects. The appeal comes while Gov. John Baldacci is on a trade mission in Europe to promote Maine as an attractive place to develop wind power.

Business leaders who huddled with Obama administration officials on Tuesday said an infusion of more than $1 billion in federal grants for renewable energy projects is driving a surge of private investment in wind and solar operations. But they said sustaining the boom could depend on whether Congress will require utilities to derive a share of their power from renewable sources.

Wind-turbine makers say growth in their industry could dramatically slow unless the federal government requires more electricity come from renewable energy. New federal stimulus grants helped restart a stalled wind-power industry, but Vic Abate, a General Electric Co. vice president in charge of its wind-turbine business, said orders for wind turbines to be built in 2012 and thereafter have been "extremely light."

A public informational meeting will be held Wednesday at the Butler Township Municipal Building for input into amending the township zoning ordinance to address wind turbine issues. The meeting, slated from 6 to 8 p.m., was announced at last week's meeting of the Butler Township Board of Supervisors by Chairman Kevin Kowalick, a Republican-Herald employee. The decision to amend the zoning ordinance was spurred by the plans of Broad Mountain Development Co. LLC to construct 27 wind turbines, or windmills, in the Fountain Springs area.

Through its sophisticated operations center here, the Iberdrola power company can instantly check on any of its 5,500 wind turbines in 10 countries, using giant electronic maps showing the locations and data from the machinery such as wind speed and temperature readings. By pushing a few buttons, operators can see whatever they need to make their global system more efficient as it turns wind into electricity, from blown-out schematics of each turbine to real-time photographs. What Maine officials would like to see is a few of those wind turbines in their state.

The governor made his first formal step in developing offshore wind resources, saying in a news release today that he has requested the formation of a federal-state-local task force. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine sent a letter this month to the U.S. Department of the Interior requesting the formation of the task force to guide and facilitate the leasing process of federal waters off the Virginia coast to develop wind power.