With just one commercial wind turbine, the town could bring in $10.4 million dollars over 20 years and not have to spend a cent to power its municipal buildings. ...The town's bylaws now limit residential and commercial turbines to 65 feet in height. The town would have to amend the bylaws to permit 200-foot-high residential turbines, and 400-foot-high commercial turbines, he said. And the town will have to deal with expected opposition from some townspeople who would not welcome turbines of this size. "There are people in town who are against this," Sexton said.

The wind turbine at Holy Name Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School on Granite Street was idle for most of last week. Contractors were trying to repair a problem created when cables twisted as the turbine rotated to face the wind.

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, through its Renewable Energy Trust fund, has awarded a total of 48 residential and small-business projects a total of $703,000 statewide since 2005. Twenty-four of those projects have been completed ...But an independent audit last spring found that, of the 19 that were up and running, nearly all were performing below levels forecast by installers, with an average power output 40 percent less than expected.

A state board taking evidence in a case that pits Cape Wind against the Cape Cod Commission has issued a schedule that pushes any decision to at least next year. ...There is no specific time frame for when the siting board will make its decision following that date, according to Timothy Shevlin, spokesman for the siting board.

Canada is the biggest exporter of oil to the United States, and one might expect environmentalists to cheer the prospect of exchanging a little of our dependence on foreign oil for dependence on foreign wind. But some fear that a flood of clean power from Canada will undercut New England's efforts to become a national leader in green energy and technology. Jobs could be lost, they caution, and local utilities may have less incentive to reduce their use of coal and other fossil fuels that contribute to global warming. Concerns also exist that the construction of expensive transmission lines to bring renewable energy from Canada could drive up the region's electricity rates, already among the highest in the country.

A proposal to build a wind turbine on Town Farm Road is beginning to feel more like a done deal than a pipe dream. Backers of the plan, which involves a unique collaboration between the School and Electric Light departments, are ready to order the turbine itself. Ipswich is a member of the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co., a nonprofit consortium of 25 of the 40 municipal electrical utilities in Massachusetts.

Blue H USA this week gave Cape Codders their first serious taste of a proposed deep-water wind farm project. ...The so-called floating turbine is, in fact, a tension-legged platform similar to those already used by the oil industry for some offshore drilling rigs, and that platform may be installed in seas 30 to 300 meters deep. The bulk of the platform is below sea level and is anchored to the sea floor, which keeps the unit stable even in high seas.

Could wind turbines rise above the Main Street landfill or pop up along the abandoned Route 95 roadbed next to 107 in the foreseeable future? ...Since its inception in the summer of 2007 the committee has been laying the groundwork to bring wind power or other sources of alternative energy to the community, Truesdale informed Town Meeting members last week. After surveying the town the committee identified 13 potential sites to erect a wind turbine, Truesdale said.

Cape Wind wants to build 130 wind turbines in the middle of the sound, an area that falls in federal waters. To connect the turbines to the energy grid, however, the company would need to run two 115 kilovolt cables through state waters to landfall in West Yarmouth.

If the town decides to put up a wind turbine it could cost as little as $25, the membership fee of a local cooperative. Seems like a pretty good deal, especially since turbines cost about $4.3 million apiece, and that doesn't include maintenance or repairs. And as icing on the cake the town would receive lease payments as well. ...There is a small risk for towns, added Downey. If additional financing power is needed the cooperative may ask towns to put their credit behind a project. If a town refused, it would be terminated as a member. That clause worried some selectmen, particularly David Schropfer who thought larger towns may push smaller towns, such as Eastham, into a risk they couldn't afford.

The project to get 10 15-megawatt wind turbines up and running in the Berkshires has gone more quickly than putting up two in Princeton, but town officials took one more step forward with the project this week. Jonathan V. Fitch, general manager of the Princeton Municipal Light Department, said if everything goes according to plan, the two German-manufactured turbines will be delivered in May and will be up and running in June. All the permits and legal work on the project are done,

Since the concept of creating a wind farm in Nantucket Sound was born, it has faced a barrage of lawsuits and administrative appeals. And if past is precedent, the maze of legal actions surrounding Cape Wind will surely spread.

A former state representative agreed today to pay nearly $500,000 in restitution for misleading customers of his wind turbine business, according to a statement released by Attorney General Martha Coakley. Former Democratic Representative Mark Howland of East Freetown will have one year to pay $488,000 in restitution for violating the Massachusetts Consumer Protection act by deceiving customers – mainly in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth, according to the agreement filed in Fall River Superior Court.

The Coast Guard revealed this week that it has contracted for a study of the effects on marine radar from the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound. At the end of a radar and navigation forum Tuesday in North Falmouth, Raymond Perry, captain of the port for Sector Southeastern New England, announced the study, Coast Guard Senior Chief Richard Uronis said yesterday. The $100,000 study should be completed by December, Uronis said. It will be performed by Maryland-based Technology Service Corp.

The developer of what was to have been three wind farms in Buzzards Bay before a site off Fairhaven was dropped in May said Monday a second site off Dartmouth may not pass muster because of a combination of factors, which would leave only a third site off the Elizabeth Islands for 40 to 60 wind turbines. C. Trevor Childs, project coordinator for the South Coast Offshore Wind Project of Patriot Renewables, said Monday the Dartmouth site - which has been opposed by many local residents and state legislators - is less certain than it was months ago because of environmental, social and economic factors.

A South Coast Wind Power Collaborative meeting held in Marion this week brought everything from frustration to hope as several initiatives were discussed. Reports on Sodar wind speed testing done at Old Rochester Regional High School and Mattapoisett's landfill brought mixed results. Wind speeds at both locations did not prove sufficient to suggest a feasibility study, but they did bring a suggestion of further study from Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) representative Nils Bolgen.

The project, including the early research and the last stages of construction, will cost close to $1.7 million. The school had financial and other help from a variety of sources ...Spectators won't have to get too close to check it out: The turbine measures 262 feet to the tip of its tallest blade and is visible from Route 146, Interstate 290 and as far away as the second floor of Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Gordon Library, according to WPI.

The manufacturer may change, but without major revisions to Cape Wind's plans for a Nantucket Sound wind-energy plant, further complications in the project's regulatory review are unlikely. General Electric - identified earlier as the prospective supplier of wind turbines - appears to have dropped the 3.6-megawatt model Cape Wind had hoped to use, said Rodney Cluck, Cape Wind project manager for U.S. Minerals Management Service. "However, other companies out there are" making similar models, he said.

A spokesman for developer Cape Wind Associates LLC said the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. should have no significant impact on the firm's proposed 130-turbine project for Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind originally hired Lehman Bros. to line up financing for the project in 2005. But Lehman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week after the collapse of its debt investments. A subsidiary of Barclays, the British banking conglomerate, acquired much of the Lehman business out of bankruptcy on Monday.

With the high cost of electricity and a shaky economy, convincing customers to voluntarily pay more than they have to is a challenge, according to energy company officials who attended an industry conference yesterday. The challenge is unlikely to get easier with energy costs expected to continue to rise for the foreseeable future, Cape Light Compact administrator Maggie Downey said outside the forum at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel. "We are in a new business environment and the prices that we're dealing with are always going to be higher," she said.