The number of proposed wind farms under active development in Vermont has reached a new peak. If built as proposed - a big "if" - the five projects could provide up to nearly 7 percent of the state's electrical energy.

"Isn't that exciting? Isn't that cool?" exclaimed Martha Staskus, a wind energy consultant in Waterbury, as she added up the potential megawatts of power last week.

The five projects would be scattered along ridgetops from the Northeast Kingdom to the Massachusetts border. The turbines' combined generating capacity would be up to 200 megawatts, although they would actually produce perhaps one-third of that because the blades turn only when the wind blows. Vermont's peak demand for electricity is about 1,000 megawatts.

"We really are getting somewhere, step-by-step," said Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and a supporter of renewable-energy development.

"It's been slow and painful, but the state is learning how to do it better; developers are learning how to do it better," he said.

Klein's committee last week endorsed a bill that, for the first time, would crack open the door to placing wind turbines on state-owned land.

There have been these other recent developments:

• Thursday, wind energy got a major boost when the state Public Service Board approved, with conditions, the 15-turbine, 30-megawatt Deerfield Wind project on a ridge in Searsburg and Readsboro. That's the second project in a row to win approval.

• Georgia Mountain Community Wind filed an application for state approval late last month for a three- to five-turbine wind farm in Milton, the first commercial wind project in Chittenden County. Tuesday, the project received a $75,000 grant from the state Clean Energy Development Fund to underwrite some pre-development costs.

• Charlotte-based Vermont Community Wind unveiled plans this month for an 80-megawatt wind farm on 4,000 acres in Ira, outside Rutland. The project is far enough along that the state Public Service Department is seeking a consultant prepared to assess the project's aesthetic and noise effects.

• Sheffield Wind, approved in 2006, is awaiting the outcome of an appeal of its stormwater permit.

• A Lowell landowner and two utilities have begun meeting with communities surrounding Lowell Mountain, where they hope to install turbines to generate 30 to 40 megawatts.

Barriers remain

Wind developers have installed hundreds of turbines in northern New York and dozens in Maine. Vermont state policy calls for utilities to rely increasingly on renewable energy sources.

Yet no new commercial turbines have been installed in Vermont since Green Mountain Power built a small wind farm in Searsburg 12 years ago.

The first three proposals to reach the state Public Service Board this decade all ran into concerted opposition from some nearby residents who objected on aesthetic and environmental grounds.

"Wind projects just aren't worth what they cost a community," said Greg Bryant, a leader of Ridge Protectors, a group that unsuccessfully opposed the Sheffield wind farm. "It's not even so much the visual effect, it's the infighting in the town over the project. It's really damaging to small communities."

Local opposition led Central Vermont Public Service Corp. to drop plans for an installation in Londonderry. A Manchester project that encountered similar opposition is dormant.

"Deerfield is a critical case," said Andy Perchlik, executive director of the trade group Renewable Energy Vermont said last week, before Thursday's PSB approval. Wind developers were watching to see if the project could win a permit despite concerns about its effect on black-bear habitat.

Perchlik had not read the PSB's 100-page order in the Deerfield case Thursday night, and said "the devil will be in the details" of the many conditions the board attached to the permit.

"But it is a big deal that they are saying the permit can go forward over the objections of the Agency of Natural Resources," he said, referring to ANR's concerns about bear habitat. "I think it sends a positive message that wind projects can be permitted in Vermont," he said. "Wind developers are still definitely cautious about the permitting process. It is long and arduous."

Wind-energy projects are required to win a certificate of public good from the state Public Service Board, which weighs the impact of development on a long list of environmental factors, aesthetics, noise and more. Opponents can take part in the hearings and appeal the results.

"What I hear from First Wind and others is that Vermont is still a difficult place to build a wind farm," Perchlik said. "They say, ‘There are other places we could go.' I'd say we're making progress towards getting more wind, but it is incremental."

‘Community' wind

To help win local support, the three most recent wind-farm proposals are billing themselves as "community wind" - that is, locally owned projects intended to provide electricity for the region in which they are located.

"The power will be created and used right here," said Per White-Hansen, the Charlotte electrical engineer developing a project of up to 80 megawatts on the hills south and west of Rutland.

He introduced the project to a meeting of 150 people in Tinmouth last week. "There is a lot of receptivity to this in Rutland," he said afterward.

The Harrison family of Milton is taking a similar tack with their much smaller Georgia Community Wind project, emphasizing local ownership and their intent to sell the power to local utilities.

"Some of the people in Milton that are close to the site aren't too keen about it," said Staskus, the Waterbury-based consultant working for the Harrison family. "But we haven't heard from Ridge Protectors," the opposition group.

But Bryant, of Ridge Protectors, said developers should not count on being welcomed wherever they go. Turbines that sweep rotor blades 400 feet in the air are difficult to accept on mountaintops, he said.

"It is the size of the turbines, and that, historically, Vermonters have always protected their ridgelines. If they come to your area, your ridgeline, you'll fight it," he said.

Perchlik was more optimistic about wind-energy's future.

"We're still confident that Vermonters want to see this happen. At some point there will be multiple wind farms across the state," he said. "We'd just like to see it sooner rather than later."