LEMPSTER - The dozen twirling towers atop Lempster Mountain can be seen from the high school in Newport, 12 miles away.

Some call them "majestic." Others have said "striking," "unreal" or "in your face," depending on their perspectives. Anyway, there's no way to camouflage these 256-foot-tall towers and their 139-foot blades.

Not that many people in Lempster would care to do so. The windmills have become something of a badge of honor, even a brand, for the town.

Tourists have come from Rhode Island, Maine and Massachusetts to see them. Sturgeon's General Store sells Lempster T-shirts with the outline of a windmill on the front. The welcome sign to town proudly proclaims "First to Produce Clean Green Energy in New Hampshire."

A year after New Hampshire's first commercial wind farm went up, most residents have either embraced the enormous towers topping the ridgeline or become resigned to their existence.

But as the debate over renewable energy, and wind power in particular, continues, questions remain about what wind projects like the one in Lempster mean for New Hampshire ratepayers and the region's overall electricity needs.

Wind is the fastest-growing segment of the renewable energy sector. But its critics counter it is a threat to nature, a nuisance to the community and not a viable solution to meet the nation's energy needs.

The turbines look like they're churning out electricity, but just how much? And is it enough to make a difference, or are they just striking symbols of the goal of energy independence?

Wind power advocates, along with the state's largest utility, say Lempster has been a success so far, and they see wind as a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

Detractors, meanwhile, counter that mountaintop wind projects like the one in Lempster are ineffectual at best, enormous art installations sitting on high for everyone to gawk at.

"Mostly it's just highly symbolic," said Eric Rosenbloom, a Hartland resident and president of the anti-wind group National Wind Watch. "It's like a giant billboard"." Look what we've done."

Environmental impact

Kevin Onnela stepped out of his green Chevy truck and pointed at a wild turkey passing across his lawn.

"See how it affects the wildlife?" he said. "There's a turkey right out there."

Onnela is one of three landowners who have agreements with energy developer Iberdrola Renewables to have the windmills on their land.

One turbine is just 500 feet from his house. He can stand at his front door and, looking left to right, see nearly all of them. A burly, 57-year-old professional logger who favors his privacy, Onnela said he couldn't be happier to have the hulking machines outside his window.

Aesthetics was just one concern, however, when the project was seeking state regulatory approval several years ago. There were reports of birds and bats being killed by wind projects. Other wildlife would be chased from the altered habitat, they said. Also, the noise from the swooshing blades would be a nuisance - maybe even intolerable - to nearby residents.

One recent afternoon, each of the turbines was whirling at what seemed a moderate rate. The sound, which some describe as being like the low hum of an airplane, is a rhythmic whoosh sometimes accompanied by an alternating whistle. Even 100 feet away, the windmill's swoosh fades behind a conversational speaking voice and can barely be heard over an idling car engine.

Onnela said he has to open his windows to hear the one by his house.

"You know what it sounds like to me?" he said. "The ocean."

His neighbors seem less enthused about the sound, but are not much bothered by it, either.

"I didn't notice them for a while," said Casey Howe, who lives further down the mountain with her young daughter. "I only hear it two or three times a month."

The actual size of the project was a bigger shock, she said. When she saw the first tower go up near her home, she was more awestruck than upset.

"I was just in absolute amazement," Howe said. "It was unreal, almost."

Selectman Everett Thurber said he has heard a few grumbles (including from his wife), but most people seem to enjoy the wind farm. Or, at the very least, tolerate it.

"I think, more or less, people have said, ‘Okay, they're here,' " Thurber said. "We live in a town with no zoning. We chose to live here. This is a fact of life of living in a town with no zoning. Sometimes you have to live with things you don't like."

Of all the living creatures on Lempster Mountain, Onella says, he has perhaps been the most affected.

"You've got to remember, I was the original New Hampshire hillbilly," he said. "Now, we've got people driving by and asking to see them."

Electrical output

The outside attention Lempster has received over the windmills has been significant, according to residents and local officials.

Tourists from around New England, and even as far south as Florida, have paid visits to film or photograph Lempster's colossal attraction.

But for all the talk of the "clean, green energy" it's providing, little is known publicly about how much actual power is being generated by the project.

That information, which is reported to the state's Public Utilities Commission, is kept confidential. Iberdrola Renewables, a subsidiary of a Spanish energy giant, is not regulated by the state, and so making such information public is voluntary. Doing so would put it at a competitive disadvantage in New Hampshire's deregulated, or "restructured," marketplace for energy suppliers, company and state officials said.

When seeking state approval for the project, Iberdrola officials testified the 24-megawatt project would produce an estimated one-third of its potential output, or about 70,000 megawatt-hours per year. That would be enough energy to power around 9,000 homes in New England, according to average energy usage data from the Energy Information Administration.

Rosenbloom, of National Wind Watch, is skeptical.

"The best output is on the plains," he said. "Mountain-sited turbines have low output. The wind is not nice and steady like it is in the plains."

A windmill's capacity factor - the actual output measured against maximum potential - is typically 25 percent to 40 percent, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a pro-wind advocacy group.

There are issues other than efficiency, too. Power production is inconsistent and unpredictable, Rosenbloom said, which requires other suppliers to pick up the slack. Wind power can only be an add on, he said, which makes other systems more expensive.

The industry has countered that adding wind to the grid will not affect reliability, or increase the specter of blackouts, as some critics have suggested. The AWEA says reliability standards ensure that new projects won't negatively affect the grid. Blackouts are more often caused by surges in energy usage, it says, than failures to improve the grid's infrastructure to accommodate wind.

Clean, green energy

Selling electricity from the plant is just one revenue stream for wind projects. The other is from selling renewable energy certificates.

In 2007, New Hampshire joined other New England states in creating mandatory renewable portfolio standards. The laws New Hampshire adopted call for the state to get 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources, such as wind, solar, hydroelectric and biomass, by 2025.

To comply, utilities such as Public Service of New Hampshire would have two choices: They could buy renewable energy certificates, or RECs, from producers and brokers, or they could pay a penalty, called an "alternative compliance payment," to the state.

A single REC represents 1-megawatt hour of power produced. So, for example, if the Lempster wind farm produces 70,000-megawatt hours per year, it will also have 70,000 RECs to sell.

PSNH is by far the Lempster wind farm's largest customer for these certificates, according to documents filed with state regulators. PSNH agreed to buy 90 percent of the RECs, with the remaining 10 percent going to the N.H. Electric Cooperative.

The number of RECs the wind farm produced also is kept confidential, as they could be used to calculate the power produced. Prices to buy them vary, depending on the type of renewable energy (wind vs. solar, for example) and the aggressiveness of a state's portfolio standards.

The certificates produced from the Lempster project - called Class 1 - are considered the most desirable. They now fetch prices around $35 per REC, according to Martin Murray of PSNH. But as the state ramps up its standards, and requires utilities to have more and more Class 1 RECs on hand, prices may climb.

It has come with a price. Consumers have borne some of the extra expense to buy RECs and ACPs by way of an "energy charge" on their bills.

Taxpayers also have shouldered some of the burden, paying for new wind projects through state and federal tax incentives and grants.

Last month, the first round of stimulus cash awards for clean energy projects was announced. Of the $500 million given out nationally, Iberdrola received more than half. Three weeks later, the company announced it was getting $251 million more in stimulus money for additional wind projects. So far this year, Iberdrola has received nearly $550 million in stimulus money. None of that money has been used for the Lempster project, company spokesman Paul Copleman said.

He added that every energy technology is supported by the federal government. Wind energy is no exception, he said, nor should it be.

Federal and state grants and tax credits are key to lifting these projects off the ground, according to Chris Namovicz, an energy analyst with the Energy Information Administration. Wind-generated electricity increased by 45 percent from 2005 to 2006, and shot up 21 percent in 2006-2007, more than any other renewable energy source, according to the EIA.

If those subsidies were to stop, so would much of the growth in the wind industry, Namovicz said.

As for the electricity, it goes back into the regional grid run by ISO New England, rather than providing direct power to the town. Even Onella does not get any of the power produced on his own land.

Jack Toplewski, Onella's neighbor, said he does not believe wind is the only answer to reducing the nation's dependence on fossil fuels. But he is convinced it is one answer, part of a larger solution. And if the project falls short of its projections for output, so be it. "If it's a cure for 8,000 homes and we get 800 homes," he said, "that's 800 homes that aren't dependent on fossil fuel."