Wind farm proposals for remote and scenic parts of Scotland are always controversial, but the public must now consider the issue of how best to transmit the extra electricity generated. A lot of power is to be generated in the sparsely populated and windy west of Scotland and then transmitted south to consumers. While wind farms may be unsightly to many and are considered to blight the landscape, proposed power pylons needed to carry hundreds of miles of overhead lines across hills and glens are potentially more harmful to the environment and tourism.

Lease agreements vary but can usually range from $3,000 to $6,000 per turbine allowed on the land, said Jan Johnson, a spokeswoman for PPM Energy. Most projects pay landowners per kilowatt that's generated from the turbines on their land.

The 15-story towers and crackling cables that are planned to cut across the Northern Virginia countryside are just red lines on a map, a paper illustration of what could come. But for Cameron Eaton, who learned shortly after Thanksgiving that one of the proposed routes for a new high-voltage power line slices across her Fauquier County property, they have already brought the specter of financial ruin. She bought her 100-acre Delaplane farm last year, when it was an overgrown slice of land anchored by a rundown old farmhouse just off Interstate 66. She plowed all her savings into it. To pay down her $1 million mortgage and build up her horse business, she planned to sell a five-acre chunk within a couple of years. Then came what her neighbors have come to regard as “the black cloud.”

Plans are in the works for Iberdrola, the company heading the proposed Ellis County wind farm, to enter contract negotiations with landowners adjacent to the project area. Project manager Krista Gordon said the contracts are not yet finalized, but arrangements are being made and landowners are being approached, she said. "It's designed to compensate anybody for any potential inconvenience caused by the project," she said. "We understand that construction activity has the potential to be disruptive." Some landowners, however, say that these attempts to negotiate are too little, too late.

Lawmakers in Jefferson County are about to get a crash course in wind farms and the revenue they generate. Tomorrow, the Board of Legislators will meet with Syracuse attorney Kevin McAuliffe, who specializes in payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreements relating to wind projects. Because there are a number of wind farm proposals in the county, lawmakers are looking into ways PILOT programs can be structured. In any PILOT deal with a wind farm developer, money is paid to the county, school districts and municipalities where the turbines are located. Legislature Chairman Ken Blankenbush said he'd like to see a uniform PILOT deal - a one-size-fits-all package for every wind company.

Lingering hard feelings over negotiations for wind-farm-tax agreements last month may lead Franklin County to create a planning department. ... Thursday, when IDA Executive Director Brad Jackson came before the County Legislature's Economic Planning and Development Committee, he was criticized for not doing enough to look out for the county's interest at the negotiating table. Saranac Lake Democrat Timothy Burpoe said legislators thought Jackson was supposed to be the county's representative in the room. Burpoe said higher megawatt figures could have been obtained with a tougher stance against Noble and the towns. But because a deadline was imposed to reach the deal quickly, Burpoe said, he and some other legislators felt pressure to settle for a deal even though the county ended up with the smallest share.

The resilience of Colorado's vaunted "new energy economy" is being tested after a series of job cuts, financial setbacks and political firestorms. ...Hard times for the green industries stem from a combination of technical challenges, low-cost foreign competition and an uncertain outlook for government support of alternative energy.

Some lawmakers remain concerned about the price of offshore wind energy, which has not yet been used in this country. Copeland said he was concerned the deal would lock ratepayers into higher bills than if electricity suppliers competed on a regular basis to fill Delmarva's required renewable-energy purchases. He said the public should be able to have its voice heard through their elected representatives. "We ought to let private investors compete against one another to get us the best price point and price stability. I think the marketplace would do that better than some regulatory regime," Copeland said. He said he wants to make sure low-income residents can afford wind power.

The Cattaraugus County Legislature will be represented on a panel that will work with town and school delegates to set up a tax-exemption policy for the Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency’s wind farm projects. A blanket state tax exemption for wind farms and other alternative energy systems was lifted in the county by the Legislature in 2008 following a lengthy debate.

If the measure gets on the ballot this November and wins voter approval, he said, it will force people and businesses to leave for places with lower energy costs. "This will destroy the state of Maine," he said, appealing to the crowd to fight the initiative.

Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter found billions of dollars in solar and wind projects were approved without appropriate oversight, including and regulatory and planning procedures. ...The controversial Samsung deal, which will pay $110 million over 20 years over and above the already hefty FIT premium in exchange for $7 billion in investment, was done with "no formal economic analysis ... to determine whether the deal was prudent."

Because NorthWestern operates the transmission lines, the utility must meet federal reliability standards. That means keeping the power entering the system balanced with the demand, or electricity leaving the system. You might imagine wind power as a child playing with a light switch: On. Off. On. Off. That means NorthWestern must quickly dump or add power to balance its transmission lines. When the turbines at Judith Gap produce too much power, NorthWestern sells it back mainly to Idaho Power, sometimes below cost, according to former Royal Johnson, a Billings businessman, a former state senator and a member of The Gazette editorial board. When there isn't enough wind, NorthWestern may have to pay a premium, Johnson said, of up to $130 per megawatt hour. .........Montana has tons of proposed power projects cued up, Gates said, but one project depends on the other. "They need transmission built, and the question is which gets built first," Gates said. "So it's the chicken-and-the-egg thing." Another note of caution was sounded by Bill Drummond, who heads the Western Montana Generation and Transmission. His customers buy wholesale power from BPA, but those contracts run out in four years. Drought and rising demand is tapping the hydropower resources, so BPA is keeping its supply for its closest customers. Right now there are few sellers of electricity to back up wind power, Drummond said. "Faith-based power marketing is a dangerous thing," he said.

An occasional critic of state and federal energy policies, Van Scotter said he doesn't see that help coming anytime soon. He believes that while government pursuit of alternative energy sources is basically worthwhile, wind power is still far too erratic to provide much immediate relief to state industry.

The Long Island Power Authority's wind-farm proposal is about to get some serious new scrutiny - from LIPA itself. At a board of trustees hearing Thursday, LIPA chairman Kevin Law said he intends to conduct thorough economic analysis of the proposal to put 40 wind turbines off the coast of Jones Beach. Law stressed that he, like most Long Islanders, is a strong supporter of renewable energy sources, particularly amid growing concerns about how greenhouse gases contribute to global warming. But he also realizes that Long Island ratepayers have a pricing threshold. "We have an incredible affordability crisis here on Long Island, and we need to do things that make economic sense," he said after the meeting.

Quebec's stringent "local content" requirements for wind-farm developers do little for most Quebec wind-energy businesses, but will increase rates for all Hydro-Québec customers, several experts in the field say. Under the terms of the call for tender for 2,000 megawatts of wind-generated electricity, developers must guarantee the expenditure of at least 30 per cent of wind-turbine costs in the economically troubled Gaspé region and at least 60 per cent of total wind farm costs in Quebec. "This will make wind power more costly," Université Laval economist Jean-Thomas Bernard said.

Local fishermen have raised a number of concerns about the state's plans to use Boon Island as a demonstration site for offshore wind turbine testing. The turbines would take away prime fishing, lobstering and shrimping areas, according to lobsterman Pat White of York, who initiated two recent meetings on the issue at the York Senior Center.

Local fishermen have raised a number of concerns about the state's plans to use Boon Island as a demonstration site for offshore wind turbine testing. The turbines would take away prime fishing, lobstering and shrimping areas, according to lobsterman Pat White of York, who initiated two recent meetings on the issue at the York Senior Center. At least a dozen fishermen and lobstermen attended each.

Haritonova's comments, came in response to the intentions of EVN to sue Bulgaria over the dispute with DKEVR over the obligations for purchasing electricity from renewable energy sources. Stressing that it had accumulated losses of BGN 100 M in Bulgaria, EVN vowed on March 19 to file a lawsuit with the International Court of Arbitration to protect its investments, unless an agreement was achieved within 3-6 months.

"Without subsidies, (wholesale) power prices need to be around 600 crowns ($100) per megawatt-hour to make things fly," Andreas Aasheim, an advisor to Norway's wind energy association Norwea said. But lasting wet weather periods can push power prices down, as was the case this year, reducing the appetite for investment into capital-intensive wind power.

Van Jamison, a vice president for Gaelectric, an Irish firm developing several wind projects in Montana, says in the past few months, scores of potential wind projects here have withdrawn their spot from the queue for transmission of their power, meaning they've pulled back on their plans. "This is not a very robust market, where you'll be able to make any kind of money any time soon."