Consultants recently told the Nauset Regional School Committee that the district will be able to pay off a proposed $2.7 million wind turbine at the high school in less than three years. But others with knowledge in the field say that is way too optimistic. ...Nauset business manager Hans Baumhauer is skeptical. Without knowing the size of the turbine, the height, or cost, he said it is too early to speculate on profit. "I have grave concerns about that number," Baumhauer said of Michelman's estimate.

Consultants recently told the Nauset Regional School Committee that the district will be able to pay off a proposed $2.7 million wind turbine at the high school in less than three years.

But others with knowledge in the field say that is way too optimistic.

Under the best of scenarios, the proposed turbine at Nauset Regional High School would start turning a profit in just over two years.

But that estimate was made before the state awarded a $400,000 design and construction grant to the project and before Gov. Deval Patrick signed a renewable energy bill that greatly improves the economics of municipal renewable energy projects.

These new developments could cut the estimated time to profitability in half, Tom Michelman, of Boreal Renewable Energy Development, told members of the Nauset Regional School Committee July 17.

Known as "years to cash flow positive" this is not the same as paying off the project, which typically is financed with a 10- to 20-year low interest bond. Instead it estimates how many years until a project can support itself by generating enough revenue to cover loan payments and operating expenses.

Nauset business manager Hans Baumhauer is skeptical. Without knowing the size of the turbine, the height, or cost, he said it is too early to speculate on profit.

"I have grave concerns about that number," Baumhauer said of Michelman's estimate.

Annual wind speeds can vary by 20 percent or more from year to year - a factor taken into account in the feasibility report that Boreal helped prepare.

Nauset has a full year's worth of wind speed and direction data collected from nearby test towers. The report states that if winds blow at levels 20 percent below that average speed, it will take nearly 15 years to reach profitability. But if winds blow at 120 percent of the average speed, that figure is cut to 2.1 years.

"They are better (estimates) than we generally see," Michelman said in an interview last week. "But that is a function of the excellent wind resources at the site."

Others familiar with wind energy and the Nauset project agreed there was reason for optimism.

"(Nauset) has one of the best wind resources in the state," said Tyler Leeds of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the state's development agency for renewable energy. Leeds was project manager for the Nauset proposal and the agency has already awarded the project nearly $440,000.

Leeds said the results from the nearby test tower were among the top two in the state out of more than 50 wind speed estimates on other projects. Leeds believed that Michelman's financial analysis that the Nauset turbine could turn a profit in a few years was fairly realistic.

Lynn Di Tullio, the program manager for the University of Massachusetts Renewable Energy Research Laboratory said the average time to a positive cash flow was three to six years. She said shorter times to profitability are reassuring to lenders.

"It means you will pay it off, and that's a good thing," she said.

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