The districts, Keeneyville Elementary District 20 in Hanover Park and Community Unit District 300 in Carpentersville, started to explore wind turbines that can harness wind power and convert it into electricity. But both districts soon found their promising idea stymied by restrictive state and local laws. The districts then hit upon another solution: wind farms, clusters of turbines that can generate enough electricity to power several buildings, or even multiple local governments. ...An Illinois House bill could potentially fix these issues and provide the legal framework for school districts and municipalities throughout the suburbs to start benefiting from wind power produced on a large scale.

Senior figures from wind energy firms have been working at the heart of Government, advising ministers on the potential health impacts of turbines, the WMN has learned. The Government was last night accused of "doing unprecedented and highly questionable favours" for the wind industry amid growing concern about the "clear conflict of interest". ...Questions have also been raised about a move to limit the power for people living near new wind farms to sue operators for negative health impacts caused by noise.

Boisvert said future projects only will result in more spending as the utility carries out needed improvements. She also said one of the most expensive projects on the horizon could be the proposed Coos County Loop. She said this project requires the transmission lines in Coos County to be upgraded so new biomass, wind and solar power generated there can be transported to Southern New Hampshire and other states as needed. Boisvert said PSNH has to carry out that project to meet the state's Renewable Portfolio Standards approved by state lawmakers. ... It has yet to be determined if the costs will be borne by PSNH ratepayers, New Hampshire state taxpayers or shouldered by customers of member utility companies that make up ISO-New England throughout the Northeast. "There's no definitive answer," Boisvert said.

A company that wants to build a floating wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard has received a boost from the state's congressional delegation. In a letter dated June 26, the entire Massachusetts delegation asked the U.S. Minerals Management Service to review an application by Blue H USA LLC for a lease to test floating platform technology and collect data at the site for the proposed wind farm. The company announced the congressional support for its application at its U.S. headquarters in Boston yesterday.

Two utilities on Tuesday proposed $1.9 billion worth of electric infrastructure improvements to ensure reliability of the existing power grid as well as to connect northern Maine to the New England power grid for the first time. ...A study has indicated that the existing power grid serving CMP customers will no longer operate reliably beyond 2012 without the improvements, Burns said. Meanwhile, residents of northern Maine have not enjoyed the potential fruits of electric deregulation because Maine Public Service Co. is not connected to the rest of the New England power grid.

Wind farms are springing up in Midwestern fields, along Appalachian ridgelines, and even in Texas backyards. They're everywhere, it seems, except in the windy coastal waters that lap at some of America's largest, most power-hungry cities. That's partly because the first large-scale effort to harness sea breezes in the U.S. hit resistance from an army led by the rich and famous, waging a not-on-my-beach campaign. For almost eight years the critics have stalled the project, called Cape Wind, which aims to place 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound about five miles south of Cape Cod.

Sapec SA, the third-largest supplier of crop-protection products on the Iberian Peninsula, plans to raise cash for construction of U.S. wind farms by selling other alternative-energy projects after they are completed this year. ...The wind farm projects in the U.S. are facing delays amid uncertainty about the extension of renewable-energy tax credits and problems getting the turbines from Spain, according to Velge. Naturener, which had planned to install 210 megawatts of capacity in Montana this year, will complete only 107 megawatts of the Glacier Wind project this year. The first project in Canada will not be completed until 2010, rather than in 2009.

The Scottish Government has set a target to produce 31 per cent of electricity demand from renewable sources by 2011, and 50 per cent by 2020. Any proposal to construct, extend or operate an onshore wind farm in Scotland with a generation capacity in excess of 50 Megawatts (MW) requires the consent of Scottish Ministers under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989. The Scottish Government's Energy Consents Unit is currently processing 37 renewable project applications - 28 wind farms, eight hydro projects and one wave project.

Determining which way the wind blows has rarely been as important to a politician as it is to Gov. David Paterson. Paterson's ambitious goal of increasing renewable energy to 25 percent of New York's power by 2013 will hinge on wind turbines. Since most of New York's renewable energy comes from hydroelectric power plants with little capacity to grow, and the pace of growth in solar energy has gone at less than light speed, with only 15 megawatts of installed capacity to date, the wind industry will likely account for most of the desired growth in so-called clean energy. Local companies like AWS Truewind and MSE Power Systems, both founded in Albany, are poised to profit from New York's promotion of wind energy.

Equipment shortages and rising costs are stalling as much as $120 billion of offshore projects the European Union and other governments are counting on to reduce the use of fossil fuels and combat global warming. Royal Dutch Shell Plc on May 1 said it planned to sell its 33 percent stake in the London Array, the world's biggest sea-based wind park. "It's been more difficult to build offshore projects than everyone thought,'' said Goeran Lundgren, head of Nordic power generation at Stockholm-based Vattenfall AB, which has put a 640- megawatt wind farm in the Baltic Sea on hold. ...Vestas hasn't sold a sea-based turbine since December 2006. The company suspended sales of its 3-megawatt V90 offshore model after it had to replace faulty gearboxes at three wind parks. It began offering the model again this month. Offshore "is a niche,'' said Chief Executive Officer Ditlev Engel.

Cost issues aside, Avista has no choice but to add new renewable sources of electricity to its portfolio. Initiative 937, approved by Washington voters in 2006, requires utilities to acquire new renewable energy resources or to buy so-called renewable energy "credits" from others so that they supply at least 15 percent of their retail load with renewable energy in 2020. I-937 requires utilities to meet biennial conservation targets beginning in 2012, and because wind-turbine farms take only about six months to build after construction begins, Avista doesn't have to erect its wind turbines right away, Silkworth says. "Our needs don't really start until 2012; so, we're not thinking of building this thing for a few years," he says.

The coal burning power plant at Rawhide constructed 25 years ago provides PRPA with 70 percent of its energy needs. Of the remaining gap, 17 percent is generated through hydro projects in scattered locations with the remaining 13 percent gained by natural gas, wind and power purchases made from surrounding utilities. Pending federal carbon tax legislation could make coal plant operations increasingly more costly forcing many utilities, including PRPA, to turn to cleaner, albeit more expensive, energy forms suc wind. Historically, PRPA has bolstered its renewable portfolio through the purchase of renewable energy credits, or RECs, that allow it to invest in wind farms owned by others who pay for main-tenance and repairs. If a carbon tax were instituted, PRPA would not get credit for RECs and would only see benefit from its homegrown Medicine Bow wind project built nearly a decade ago. Last year, wind power generated 1 percent of PRPA's total energy, Moeck said. ..."Basically we're becoming more dependent on electricity every day, Troxell said. "It's not simply the plasma screens and air conditioners, either. We live in a digital world that is powered by electricity ..."

Green energy might be trendier, but it's old-fashioned black coal that will drive the state's new energy production in the next three years. Three coal-fired plants are scheduled to go online in the state by 2010, generating an additional 1,730 megawatts of power. Wisconsin Public Service Corp.'s Weston 4 power plant will go online first. The 500-megawatt plant is running, but will not go live until sometime this summer, according to spokeswoman Kelly Zagrzebski. The state's Public Service Commission approved the $752 million project in 2004. ...She added construction of the power plant helped central Wisconsin's economy. Washington Group International, the project's general contractor, used several local companies and skilled laborers on the job. Nearly 1,000 employees worked on construction of the plant, Zagrzebski said, adding that the expansion created 42 new full-time positions with the utility.

There are a lot of engineering and economic questions that need answering before turbines sprout from Lake Michigan. But one thing's for sure: The wind out there dwarfs anything found on Wisconsin's land, said Robert Owen, wind energy consultant, mechanical engineer and meteorologist in Middleton. Owen studied the data collected by the wind sensors set up by the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab off the coasts of Milwaukee, Kenosha, Chicago and Muskegon, Mich. "We can't do gigawatt-scale wind farms in Wisconsin," he said. "We can do them in Lake Michigan." ...Michael Vickerman, executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, said there's nobody in the middle of Lake Michigan to start campaigns opposing wind farms. However, building on water is a good 10 years away, he estimated, and there's plenty of space left on land to build turbines in Wisconsin. "It'll probably have an important part to play in the future," he said of off-shore wind farming. "I don't know when that future will arrive."

Lake Michigan might give Wisconsin the edge it needs when competing with other states for wind farm developments. The state goes head-to-head with other states for wind farms, just as it does for manufacturing plants or offices, so Wisconsin is seeing if developers can make more money building wind turbines in the lake than they could on land in Iowa or Minnesota. Studies show Lake Michigan is windy in the right way: Its gusts pick up at the same times during the day that residents use more electricity, said Alex Depillis, engineer-wind monitor for EcoEnergy, Madison. But wind farm developers must balance the increased wind against the cost of construction, which is higher in the middle of a lake than on land, Depillis said.

Delaware Electric Cooperative customers could soon be buying wind power. The cooperative, and its Virginia-based supplier, announced Tuesday they were joining Delmarva Power in its quest for land-based wind power. It's unclear how much wind power the cooperative, which serves 72,000 member-customers, would purchase. Unlike Delmarva, the cooperative is not required by state law to buy renewable power. ...Land-based wind power can be competitive on price with traditional fuels once a federal production tax credit is taken into account, said Brian Yerger, a Wilmington-based alternative-energy research analyst at Jesup & Lamont Securities. But Yerger added that it costs more to transmit that wind power from afar.

Think long term for solar and wind investments, three experts say. Everyone it seems has been investing in green energy - from Google to ExxonMobil. But this year the booming sector is suddenly in a serious funk. So is this time to get out - or jump in and snap up some long-term winners? To find out, the Monitor's Laurent Belsie recently talked with three experts who closely follow the field: Matt Patsky, portfolio manager of the Winslow Green Growth Fund, Paul Hilton, director of advanced equity research at Calvert, and Eric Becker, portfolio manager with Trillium Asset Management. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

It can fight all it wants, but Calumet County will get a wind farm, said Peter Dorn. "It's just a matter of time," said Dorn, a member of the county's Planning, Zoning and Farmland Preservation Committee. "Any time the state government steps in and recognizes its dealing with a big industry, local control is going to end." The state recognized it with wind farms, and even though legislation to establish statewide standards for approving wind farm development failed to survive the State Senate last week, Dorn said he knows it will be back when the new legislative session starts in January. "It just delayed it a year," he said. "That's all."

The PUC estimates the state will need an additional 75,000 megawatts in the next 18 years as older, less-efficient plants are retired. Statewide, some 20-25 gas-powered plants are being planned, along with three coal plants, and two or three nuclear plants. Wind farms are being added, but they still only provide about 5 percent of the state's electrical needs. Even if it were all the proposed plants were to come onto the grid, Texas might still be paying more for electricity than other states, according to Terry Hadley, spokesman for the Public Utility Commission. "What sticks out is the fuel cost," he said. "Most plants in Texas use natural gas, and the price of natural gas is just soaring."

Opponents to expanding wind energy on public land are voicing their opinions, and sometimes in a loud manner. About 50 of those opponents met Wednesday with OG&E Electric Services and Department of Wildlife Conservation officials to discuss concerns about expanding Centennial Wind Farm north of Fort Supply onto Cooper Wildlife Management Area. It is a scenario OG&E says will not happen. In light of growing local and statewide opposition and concern by wildlife organizations about the impact to the region's natural habitat, OG&E has declined to pursue the development of any wind energy on public land, officials said.