A Raleigh couple whose proposal to construct a windmill farm in Down East Carteret County has drawn recent controversy say the moratorium the county has now put in place for wind turbines and other towers was the first indication they had from the county of its concerns. The Carteret County Board of Commissioners approved a nine-month moratorium this week on the permitting of electricity-generating wind turbines, towers and other tall structures while the county staff devises regulations for their use in the county. ..."Maybe we would have (expressed concern) if we had any idea they were talking about structures nearly 500 feet in the middle of a residential community," Langdon said. And it's only been since the Pauls went to the Utilities Commission that the community has reviewed the plans and voiced its concerns.

The residents of Fairhaven are not naïve, gullible nor ignorant. The residents are connecting the dots and I believe they see that this project has been handled in a secretive, deceitful and underhanded manner. That the information from the developers is biased when the presenters receive monetary gain by the wind industry. ...With a monetary gain by so many involved in this project, I have to wonder what happens to honesty, integrity and caring to those poor residents living near the turbines.

Melka said company officials are still trying to determine what the one year extension means. He said in the past to qualify for the federal credit there had to be five percent of the total project costs spent. Zahn said wind energy proponents understand the subsidy will be discontinued. He said the subsidies will eventually go away for all fuel sources.

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity recently approved an expansion of the Freeport/Stephenson County Enterprise Zone to support the 100-megawatt EcoGrove Wind LLC wind farm proposed for northwest of Lena. In March, the Stephenson County Board approved the enterprise-zone extension, but the state's final approval of the initiative marks a milestone for the EcoGrove project, said Shawn Gaffney, president of EcoEnergy LLC, the company that will build the EcoGrove farm. Freeport-based EcoEnergy is a division of The Morse Group. "It was critical to the project," Gaffney said of the state's approval of the e-zone extension. "That's really the last big hurdle we had to move forward on the project."

[T]he Town Board on Monday unanimously passed a revised version on its second attempt. The Town Board had passed the proposal back to the Planning Board in June following a public hearing during which residents aired objections. Along with outdated technical language, windmill owner and Zoning Board of Appeals member Mark Thorn found the proposed tower height too low. He also said a setbacks of 1.5 times the height of a tower would make it hard to put windmills on smaller properties, thereby discouraging their use.

Less than two weeks after a Brace Road resident put up a 133-foot windmill, the Town Board held a hearing Monday on a proposed law that would have outlawed that same windmill. The windmill's owner, Mark Thorn, came armed with a Power-Point presentation to lobby against the proposed law's 100-foot height limit on windmills and other restrictions he felt would discourage wind energy. Afterward, Supervisor Dodie Huber allowed that, "we may want to give it (windmill zoning) back to the Planning Board." Planning Board Chairman Terry Wilkins added later, "We've heard from the public. We'll work as a team and make the necessary changes."

The planning and zoning commission created a "turbine zone" in the southern part of the county where wind farms will be allowed. "We decided on that so we could take some time to slow down and figure out how to allow these (turbines) without infringing on other people's rights."

Stricter wind farm conditions set by the Tipton County Board of Zoning Appeals for the proposed Prairie Breeze Wind Farm appear to being having little effect on local officials when it comes to wind farms in Howard and Grant counties.

Government plans to generate 30 per cent of UK electricity from renewable sources by 2020 are doomed to failure, according to the chief executive of one of the world's biggest utility companies. Wulf Bernotat, chief executive of E.ON, said that British politicians needed to stop misleading the public about what was achievable. He said that British plans to build 33 gigawatts of offshore wind power, up from 0.6 gigawatts at present, was impossible, given the necessary investment and relatively short timeframe.

E.ON AG, Germany's largest utility, said its 207-megawatt Roedsand-2 offshore wind park in Denmark was operating at 130 megawatts capacity today because of ice on the turbines. "Stopped turbines must be restarted at site which cannot be done at present weather conditions."

Energy giants E.ON UK have denied claims they are having problems with the construction of the Robin Rigg windfarm. Rumours in recent weeks have suggested they were having difficulty installing the foundations for the turbines in the Solway Firth due to the amount of sand. ...Developers hope it will be completed next year and it should produce 180MW of electrical generation.

E.ON is planning to build a large offshore wind farm in the North Sea. This was announced by the company today at the 5th Maritime Conference of the German Environment Ministry in Hamburg. The wind farm will be built roughly 40 kilometers (approx. 25 miles) to the northwest of the East Frisian island of Juist. To this end, E.ON has now taken over the Offshore Wind Park Delta North Sea project from the Enova Group. The sea area selected has already been designated as particularly suitable for this purpose by the Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH – German Federal Agency of Maritime Shipping and Hydrography).

A new wind park, whose turbines have special sensors for automatic stoppage if they sense movement of birds, was opened in Algarve on May 16, by Portugal's Minister of Economy, Innovation and Development, Viera da Silva.

E.ON UK - the UK arm of the German utility giant - is to open an exhibition at Penrith, northwest England, detailing its plans for a five-turbine strong windfarm in the local area......Meanwhile, increasingly stringent planning laws, and often-fierce lobbying from local residents, has stymied the construction of onshore farms.

"We're going to basically get going on the permitting process," Colbeck said. "We wouldn't be spending the money if we didn't think we could get it approved." ...E.On, a German-owned company, purchased the North American division of the Irish-run Airtricity in October 2007. ...The turbines are expected to cover a large swath of ground in the town, Colbeck said, with some turbines in the north and some in the south. While E.On is moving forward, Hartsville town Supervisor Steve Dombert is looking forward to what the townspeople will see in terms of compensation for the project's impact on the town of around 500 residents.

Energy giant E.ON was rapped by watchdogs over misleading adverts for a windfarm planned for the region. The Advertising Standards Authority upheld two complaints against E.ON Climate and Renewables UK ... the first being E.ON used images of turbines in its press adverts that were around half the height of the eight proposed. ...Mr Wakeling's second complaint related to a photomontage in a brochure showing views of its scheme around 7km away. He argued there are communities nearer the wind farm location to whom the turbines will be more visually intrusive.

Through what is commonly known as “tax equity financing,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch will provide the $150 million up front and will be reimbursed through federal production tax credits (PTCs) that the 150-megawatt wind farm receives.

EON AG agreed to sell a 50 percent stake in three U.S. wind farms to Danish pension fund PensionDanmark as Germany's biggest utility seeks to free up capital. ..."The return is very similar to what we can get on listed equities, though with a very limited downside risk," thanks to fixed prices negotiated on the power generated by the turbines over the next 15 years."

Work on a transformer and cable housings to bring offshore wind power to Germany's mainland for the first time is on course for a likely start in October, utility E.ON's network division said on Monday. The alpha ventus wind park, also known as Borkum West and situated some 45 km north of the island of Borkum near the German-Dutch border, will be Germany's first such venture. "This wind park will probably start in October as the first of its kind in the North Sea," E.ON Netz said in a statement. Once the plant becomes operational, it will form the foundation to research and implement some 30 or more pending projects in the German North and Baltic Seas territories.

E. ON Climate and Renewables - the firm wanting to build wind turbines in Hartsville - still wants to work out a project. Robert Trotta, a vice-president for the firm, said at Monday night's board meeting the company is still interested. "As previously stated, we're having trouble finding ways to make the project viable under that new law," Trotta said.