District 300 would shoulder 80 percent of the costs - as well as potential benefits and decision-making - associated with the consortium that would build wind turbines to generate the electricity. Dave Ulm, the district's energy coordinator, said the entire project is estimated to cost between $46 million and $50 million.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund invested $15 million in Invenergy's High Sheldon Wind Farm, located in Wyoming County, through Credit Suisse Customized Fund Investment Group, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced Monday.

A company plans to build a $420 million wind farm with 133 turbines in southwest Campbell County. San Ramon, Calif.-based Third Planet Windpower is eyeing 14,000 acres for the project on both sides of Wyoming Highway 50 near the Johnson County line. The company has begun talking to local landowners about leasing land.

Vermont Public Power Supply Authority based in Waterbury wants to build three turbines on an old Air Force radar base in East Haven. The project would provide renewable power for approximately 4,000 homes.

Electricity distributor NorthWestern Energy is seeking approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to conduct "open-season" bidding from developers to gain access to two proposed electric transmission lines costing at least $1 billion. The power lines, if approved, could kick start wind farm development in Montana and deliver the renewable electricity produced by wind farms to markets across the West, according to NorthWestern officials. "We want to be the highway," NorthWestern spokeswoman Claudia Rapkoch said.

To make use of this clean [renewable] energy, we'll need more transmission lines that can transport power from one region to another and connect energy-­hungry cities with the remote areas where much of our renewable power is likely to be generated. We'll also need far smarter controls throughout the distribution system--technologies that can store extra electricity from wind farms in the batteries of plug-in hybrid cars, for example, or remotely turn power-hungry appliances on and off as the energy supply rises and falls. If these grid upgrades don't happen, new renewable-power projects could be stalled, because they would place unacceptable stresses on existing electrical systems.

Behind the scenes in the U.S. and in Europe, the race is on to build the world's first deep-water wind farms, ones that would operate on floating platforms in waters hundreds of feet deep, like oil rigs found in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. There are gargantuan technical hurdles ...

The grand U.S. ambitions of Indian wind-turbine manufacturer Suzlon Energy Ltd. are facing mounting problems. The Indian company -- the world's fifth-largest wind-turbine maker by sales -- earlier this year acknowledged that 65 giant blades on turbines it had sold in the U.S. Midwest were cracking because of the extreme gusts in the region. The company is reinforcing 1,251 blades, almost the total it has sold in the U.S. Now, other problems are emerging, in part because the company quickly ramped up U.S. sales to meet burgeoning demand for alternative energy. ...

The Prattsburgh town board has ruled in favor of eminent domain. The decision means First Wind, the company that wants to build a 36 turbine wind farm in Prattsburgh can now take portions of land from property owners who oppose the project. Eminent domain was proposed after seven property owners said they would not sell their land to the company. First Wind wants the property along the town highways to lay underground cables.

They're too noisy, too big and too clunky. And they kill bats and birds. Those are key criticisms about harnessing the wind and converting Mother Nature's fury into energy via a wind turbine, which might be better known as a windmill. Karl Douglass, an engineer with a degree from Drexel University, went about trying to remedy those complaints and he believes he's done that. Sometime this summer, his Omniwind Energy Systems of Dublin in Central Bucks will begin production on a wind turbine that he says is quiet, relatively compact and environmentally friendly. ..."You wouldn't even have seen windmills in Pennsylvania not long ago, but still it's a small amount in the overall scheme," Wood added. "Solar, wind, biomass are nice, but they're a niche, they only fulfill a small percentage of our needs."

Windflow chairman Barrie Leay strongly criticised Meridian Energy and other state-owned electricity generators on Tuesday for ignoring his company's turbines and spending more than $1 billion importing European turbines. However, Meridian Energy spokesman Alan Seay said the company's engineers had looked closely at Windflow's turbines, but they unanimously agreed they were not suitable. ...Windflow's 0.5 megawatt machines were not big enough, and Meridian's engineers had concerns about the noise generated by the two-bladed design, Seay said.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in February, Edison Mission Energy, a unit of Edison International, said the 144-foot-long windmill blades it recently bought from Suzlon have begun to split at three wind-power sites it operates in the Midwest. Suzlon has recalled 1,251 blades from its top-of-the-line turbines, which represent the majority of blades the company has sold to date in the U.S.. Its troubles don't end there. A year ago, the company bought a controlling stake in a large German turbine manufacturer, REpower Systems AG, in one of India's biggest overseas acquisitions. ...Now, Suzlon can't get its hands on the blueprints. Hamstrung by a German corporate law, Suzlon must offer to buy out minority shareholders before it can demand REpower's designs. It's unlikely that the company could make a tender offer until 2009, say people with knowledge of the companies. ...Mr. Kher blamed the cracks on the Midwest's unexpectedly violent changes in wind direction. Though Mr. Tanti says that only 45 blades have cracked, Suzlon says it will add an extra lamination layer to almost all of the blades it has shipped to the U.S. To repair cracked blades and reinforce the rest, the company expects to spend $30 million.

As wind power becomes more common, its unpredictability becomes more of a problem. Sudden drops in wind speed can send grid operators scrambling to cover the shortfall and even cause blackouts; unexpected surges can leave conventional power plants idling, incurring costs and spewing pollution to no purpose. ...When wind farms were less common, grid controllers could essentially ignore their varying output, as it was all but indistinguishable from natural fluctuations in consumer use.

In some parts of the state, from Cape Cod to the Berkshires, wind turbines are springing up to power municipal offices, homes, and businesses as a push for cheap alternatives to fossil-fuel energy continues to mount. But in the suburbs west of Boston, where green sentiments often run deep, one major hurdle stands in the way of environmental advocates and energy cost cutters - insufficient wind speeds. ...The Stow Board of Selectmen has discussed building a wind turbine on town property, but its chairman, Stephen Dungan, said the panel found local wind speeds were simply not high enough to make it pay off. "Basically, the option wasn't there," he said.

A new proposal for a wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard is promising what people on all sides of the Cape Wind debate can embrace: turbines in a location where nobody has to see them. Blue H, a subsidiary of a Dutch company, announced this week that it wants to build 120 floating wind turbines in deep water 23 miles off Martha's Vineyard and sought government approval to install a test turbine. Company officials then joined with the main opposition group fighting Cape Wind's proposed wind farm off Cape Cod in touting Blue H as a viable alternative that would be far from ferry lanes and invisible from shore. "If you had a horse and buggy and then the automobile was invented, it makes sense to embrace the technology moving forward," said Blue H spokesman Martin T. Reilly.

As electricity created by wind generation increases, there has to be a way for that electricity to be connected to the provincial system and transmitted to users. The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) provides that role and explained what it is currently doing to the council of the Municipal District of Willow Creek at its meeting on Jan. 9. Ata Rehman and Matt Gray of the AESO appeared as a delegation and described the current situation. The AESO plans the transmission system, arranges access for load and generation, and directs the day-to-day operation of the system. Transmission planning is a two-step process. First, the AESO identifies the need for transmission development and submits a need identification document to the Alberta Utilities Commission which will include a recommendation for transmission reinforcement in the area.

With windmills a big topic of discussion among many Herkimer County municipalities, Frankfort Board of Trustee members want the public to know there is not yet a project under way in the village. "I've been approached by many people who are under the impression that we have already started a project," said board member John Spina. "We are in the middle of studies about the feasibility of such a project and either party can back out of the project at any time." The village of Frankfort Board of Trustees began discussions about a possible wind mill project last March.

The largest wind turbine manufactured in the United States is running into some technical difficulty. Clipper Windpower Inc.'s 2.5-MW Liberty wind turbines at the 20-MW Steel Winds facility in Lackawanna, N.Y., are malfunctioning due to faulty gear sets. "At first, we were receiving great performance from the turbines," said Michael Alvarez, executive vice president and COO of UPC Wind Partners LLC, which co-owns the facility with BQ Energy LLC. "Over the summer, a gear-timing issue in the drive train's secondary stage was detected in some of Clipper Windpower's Liberty wind turbines at the Steel Winds site. The cause was found to be a supplier quality deficiency in the drive train attributable to the suppliers' manufacturing process. As part of Clipper's warranty, upgraded drive trains will be installed into all eight turbines at the Steel Winds site. Currently, two turbines are in operation."

Gordon expects the federal report to closely parallel the state's positive environmental impact report issued by Bowles. But even if the federal report is favorable toward Cape Wind, it does not mean an end to the fight, something Gordon readily admits. "I don't want to be naive about legal challenges," he said in a telephone interview yesterday while on a family vacation in Vermont. But with public opinion polls indicating majority support for the project statewide, he imagines a day when even his detractors will come around. "I'm hoping that even the opponents, diehard opponents, will hopefully have a shift in their attitude and hopefully stop trying to delay and obstruct a project that is needed and enjoys growing support," he said.

Researchers are using a wind tunnel to help develop computerized models they hope will make wind energy projects more efficient. While many are studying the aerodynamics of the blades used on the giant turbines, few are looking at the interaction with local wind conditions, said Charles Meneveau, who is leading the research at Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering. ...While touted as a clean energy alternative, critics have complained about the impact wind energy farms have on birds, which can be killed if they fly into the blades, and the aesthetics of dozens of turbines stretching across the landscape. Wind turbines, with blades up to 330 feet across, are the largest rotating machines ever built, said Mr. Meneveau, a turbulence specialist. ...Mr. Cal said the researchers hope to be able to better understand those factors "rather than just go out there and build these massive structures, implementing them and not knowing what's going to happen."