A lawsuit brought against the Taylor County Commissioners Court in April for granting what the plaintiff claims are illegal tax abatements to wind farms in the county was dropped Thursday with little fanfare. Tuscola resident Dale Rankin, an opponent of wind energy, filed the lawsuit in April alleging that wind energy equipment is not eligible for tax abatements under the state tax code. Rankin said he decided to "nonsuit," or essentially drop, the lawsuit because of what he called "procedural issues." However, he said he plans to refile the lawsuit.

The borough has applied for two Department of Environmental Protection grants, each for $168,000, to fund a proposed $173,000 windmill and solar electric system. The borough would pay $5,000 toward the overall cost. Borough Manager Dave Montz said if one or both grants are awarded, the total amount will not exceed $168,000. Council President Mark Sampogna said, however, he is unsure if council will approve the project, even if funding is secured. The height of proposed installation, 100-feet to 120-feet, could have a negative impact on the appearance of the park, he said.

Tazewell County State's Attorney Stewart Umholtz is threatening legal action against the county itself if it ignores his advice and expands an enterprise zone to include a proposed wind farm. Umholtz sent a letter Tuesday to County Board members, saying he opposes expanding the zone to include the Rail Splitter Wind Farm near the Tazewell and Logan county line, saying it would violate state statute. "Let me make myself perfectly clear," Umholtz said in the letter. "The proposed expansion of the enterprise zone does not meet the statutory requirements and should not be approved by the County Board."

The commission's probe of the program began in September when it asked FPL for documents and explanations of how it has spent about $10 million collected from the program's 38,000 subscribers. Again and again, FPL filed requests to keep its records confidential, saying they contain "proprietary business information" and "contractual vendor data." But FPL records not under seal show that out-of-state renewable energy companies benefited more from the Sunshine Energy Program than did Florida companies. "I think it's disappointing for FPL customers who fully expected and assumed they were putting their hard-earned money into developing renewable energy in Florida," said Holly Binns, field director of the nonprofit environmental group Environment Florida. "This is one example of why voluntary green energy programs aren't sufficient to develop a renewable energy economy here."

A disagreement over the terms of a tax deal for a windfarm development in Prattsburgh will apparently have to be settled in court. The Steuben County Industrial Development Agency refused to change the terms of a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement Thursday for a 36-turbine project by First Wind, formerly known as UPC. Attorneys for the Prattsburgh and Naples school districts requested a renegotiation, claiming the company should be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more in taxes. The tax agreement involves First Wind paying a fixed amount to the school districts, the town of Prattsburgh and the county over a 20-year period.

A disagreement over the terms of a tax deal for a windfarm development in Prattsburgh will apparently have to be settled in court. The Steuben County Industrial Development Agency refused to change the terms of a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement Thursday for a 36-turbine project by First Wind, formerly known as UPC. Attorneys for the Prattsburgh and Naples school districts requested a renegotiation claiming the company should be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more in taxes. ...The Prattsburgh school district is being shorted about $1 million, school attorneys claim.

Aside from Wyoming County, there are 62 other wind energy projects proposed across the state, according to the New York Independent System Operator. They include plans by Massachusetts-based First Wind (UPC Wind) for two projects in Ontario County and one in Genesee County; a 120-megawatt wind farm in Orleans County by Airtricity Inc. of Ireland; and a 75-megawatt wind farm in Genesee County by Tonawanda Creek Wind LLC. ...Fanning all this wind farm activity is the federal government's renewable energy production tax credit of about 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, said Thomas Drennen, a professor of economics and environmental studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva.

Germany was replaced by the United States as the world's No.1 market for newly installed wind turbines last year due to falling subsidies, the German wind energy federation BWE said on Tuesday. While new installation of wind turbines worldwide rose about 31 percent overall to 20,076 megawatt (MW), new installations in Germany slumped 25 percent to 1,667 MW last year, the association said in a statement.

The Texas attorney general is looking at tax breaks for wind farms, and early signs are he doesn't think the law allows them. "Fixtures and improvements owned by the wind turbine company as personal property would not be 'real property' that may be the subject of a tax-abatement agreement," according to a legal opinion issued by Attorney General Greg Abbott on Jan. 29. The wind industry wants a another chance. "We have asked the attorney general to review it and take a second look," said Paul Sadler, executive director of The Wind Coalition. "If they will not, it may be necessary to tweak it in the next legislative session."

Two school districts claim they won't get their fair share of tax payments from a wind farm development planned for the Prattsburgh area. Charging deliberate attempts to prevent them from receiving proper payments, two local school districts filed lawsuits recently against the town of Prattsburgh and Steuben County Industrial Development Agency, and other agencies. The lawsuits filed by both the Prattsburgh and Naples school districts allege the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement for the yet-to-be-built 36-turbine wind farm project creates a significant loss in anticipated revenues for the schools. Both districts want the tax agreement thrown out.

Green-e, the company hired by PRPA to track renewable energy credits, said it can't guarantee PRPA funds are actually going to targeted renewable projects. Renewable Energy Credits are essentially tradable certificates of proof that one kWh of electricity has been generated by a renewable source. Green-e, owned by the Center for Resource Solutions, audits the sale of renewable energy credits, ensuring that the value green electricity has on the environment is only purchased once through the sale of credits. But the company cannot verify money going to the owners of renewable energy projects such as Shell is actually being invested in the energy project and not going into the general fund.

GE Energy Financial Services, which invests in energy projects, expects to finish two new wind farms in Texas and Illinois by the third quarter of this year, ahead of any potential tax credit expiration. GE is developing the projects with Invenergy Wind LLC. The farm in Texas, east of Lubbock, will have 100 wind turbines for capacity of 150 megawatts. Mr. Howell declined to say how much the project will cost. Wind developers who can't finish their projects this year could face a second problem. Global demand for wind turbines is so hot that developers must order the equipment months in advance.

General Electric Co. and Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world's two biggest wind-turbine makers, are reaping benefits from record orders by U.S. utilities racing to add generating capacity even as they face the loss of subsidies. GE, Vestas and Siemens AG stand to gain although the extension of the production tax credit, due to expire in December, is stalled in Congress. ..."Customers are giving billions of dollars of orders already because they're afraid they're going to lose their spot in line,'' John Krenicki, who runs the GE Energy division, said March 5. GE posted more than $4.5 billion in wind-turbine sales last year, the most since it bought the business in 2002 for less than $300 million from Enron Corp. GE's total revenue last year was $172.7 billion. ...Investors, and company executives, are betting the credit will be restored once a new U.S. president is in office.

Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar kicked off his re-election campaign Tuesday in typically feisty fashion, saying he will be battling well-funded opponents who want to "silence" his voice against special interests. Molnar, a Laurel Republican representing the PSC's southeastern Montana district, said he has spent four years fighting - and sometimes losing - battles on behalf of consumers, voting against actions he says have raised electric and gas rates. ...When asked which "high-ranking politicians" he has exposed as raising utility rates and taxes, Molnar pointed to the federal tax credit for wind power producers. The credit could go to wind power developers in northern Montana that plan to sell power to Canada, thereby using federal tax credits to subsidize power consumed by Canadians, he said.

To resolve cost issues, the utility commission established an amount that utilities can assess against wind developers to make up for the costs associated with integrating wind into the power grid. The commission also removed a cap on the size of small-power projects that can qualify for a rate published by the commission. However, the judgment was not easily reached. In 2005, Idaho Power asked the commission to suspend small-power wind development so it could study how much it costs the company to provide back-up generation when wind output fluctuates.

Supervisors from towns with wind projects want to see host community agreements in their towns as a part of any tax breaks for wind power developers. The Jefferson County Board of Legislators heard from the county's counsel on negotiations, Kevin R. McAuliffe, Tuesday night. He advocated negotiating only payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements. But the supervisors want to see PILOT and host community agreements. "We think it's only fair," Hounsfield Supervisor Jean H. Derouin said. "We have the legal expertise to make it a binding contract.

Atlantic Canada's largest wind farm is up for sale. Creststreet Power and Income Fund LP of Toronto, a significant owner of the $50-million wind farm in Pubnico Point, Yarmouth County, wants to sell its share of the development in response to the federal government's decision to eliminate the tax benefits of trusts. ...Creststreet's recent quarterly results show that for the first nine months of 2007, Pubnico Point's production was eight per cent below the independent engineer's projection, compared with seven per cent the previous year. The lower production is being blamed on lower wind speeds, according to the Creststreet report.

Scottish and Southern Energy has acquired Ireland's leading renewable energy giant Airtricity in a deal worth E1.46 billion. While the buyout deal is the latest in a string of 'green' corporate investments, the financial viability of the acquisition is yet to be tested, and alternative renewable resources and underlying uncertainties in the UK's energy markets could threaten wind power strategies. ...However, the financial implications of wind power expansion plans are not yet clear. The landscape of the European energy markets is changing rapidly and it is possible that wind power could be replaced by competing technologies and fuels. An obvious threat to wind power investments will be the decision on new nuclear plant builds. Wind power could also be undermined by extensive investments in alternative renewable energy sources. Furthermore, while the price and allocation of carbon permits under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme is a major driver behind wind power investments, if prices were to collapse as they did in 2007, this could spell trouble for investors and shareholders alike.

The large subsidies paid by British electricity consumers to fund the drive towards wind power are generating sizeable profits for existing wind farm owners without producing many new turbines. The UK needs a massive expansion of wind energy to meet government climate change targets, and the amount of subsidy paid to renewable electricity generators through consumers' electricity bills will rise from more than £600m ($1.2bn, €800m) a year to £3bn a year by 2020. But the format of the subsidy system, known as the renewables obligation (RO), combined with bottlenecks in the planning system, mean these cash injections are simply enriching the operators of existing wind farms well beyond their expectations. "The RO is a very expensive way of providing support for renewables," said Andrew Wright, managing director of markets at Ofgem, the electricity regulator.

Many area residents voiced their concerns - some by talking softly, some by yelling - over a proposed tax reduction for the Cohocton wind power projects Friday morning. The hearing, hosted by the Steuben County Industrial Development Agency, was a way for SCIDA board members to receive some specific community input on a Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreement the board is negotiating with Canandaigua Power Partners and Canandaigua Power Partners II, according to SCIDA Executive Director James Sherron. "This meeting is for you, the public to be allowed the opportunity to give comment relative to what the IDA has been asked to do," Sherron said, adding SCIDA's jurisdiction extended only to financial assistance. ...Cohocton Wind Watch ringleader James Hall, in his 11-minute speach, told Sherron he did not approve of giving a PILOT with lower payment rates than what UPC had previously said was budgeted for the project. "In writing, in the formal application, (UPC) admitted, and said publicly, they're willing to pay $4.5 million in taxes," Hall said. "Not bad. Sounds like we might even drop a lot of our opposition. I'd like my taxes to go down."