Wind energy projects headed for Champaign and Logan counties will get up to $3 million in grant awards to move forward with production, Gov. Ted Strickland announced Thursday. ...Diane McConnell, a Union Township resident and member of Union Neighbors United .. said the lack of information that affected residents have received is her biggest worry.

The Champaign County Commissioners voted to support state and local wind energy projects Tuesday. The commissioners unanimously passed a resolution backing renewable energy development in the state and urging Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland to set a requirement for 20 percent of the state's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2025.

Cuyahoga County commissioners pressed President-elect Barack Obama Friday for $46.3 million in federal stimulus money that could be key to landing a wind turbine project in Lake Erie. The commissioners' top development officer said that the county and state are in talks with a European wind turbine manufacturer that "expressed willingness" to pay for half of a $56 million turbine project -- and establish a plant at the Cleveland port.

Gov. Ted Strickland next week is expected to sign a compromise electric energy bill that backers say will protect consumers, create jobs and expand the use of renewable energy sources such as solar power. ...While nobody predicted the legislation would lower electric bills, a key goal is to prevent big price spikes that have occurred in other states that deregulated the electric energy market as Ohio did in 1999. ...The bill also requires that 25 percent of Ohio's electricity be generated from alternative energy sources by 2025 and creates an energy efficiency standard that requires utilities to meet a cumulative 22 percent standard by reducing usage.

Subtle changes buried in an energy bill plotting the future of Ohioans' electricity rates guarantee that today's prices will never fall and make it nearly impossible for producers of green power to gain a foothold in the state. The amendments were added by the Ohio Senate to Gov. Ted Strickland's proposed energy bill, which the Ohio House has scheduled to debate at the leisurely pace of one hearing a week into the new year. Strickland, a Democrat, had asked the Republican-led General Assembly to pass the bill by Dec. 31, which now appears unlikely.

A new federal proposal to help electricity flow more freely could help the energy-choked East Coast. But it could also infuriate landowners, who have traditionally gotten their way in fights against utilities in Delaware. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman last week named Delaware as part of his proposed eastern National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. It would run from New York to Virginia, and west to Ohio. A second corridor would run through California, Arizona and Nevada.

Partnership Latest in Series of Actions by Governor Rendell to Accelerate Alternative Fuel Development, Increase Domestic Fuel Supply

Gov. Ted Strickland is willing to set yearly goals for the use of renewable power sources but he wants to give utilities more time to ease into compliance than lawmakers proposed, his office said Friday. The Democratic governor responded to changes Ohio House Republicans want to make to his sweeping energy plan. He agrees with the House's plan to set strict deadlines for utilities on using renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. But Strickland wants the benchmarks to begin in 2015, instead of next year as the House plan specifies.

WASHINGTON - The House rejected a resolution Wednesday that would block government plans to spur construction of major new power lines in many states regardless of local opposition. The issue has been contentious in parts of the East Coast and in the Southwest, where two high priority transmission corridors for power lines were proposed. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., warned colleagues that unwanted power lines could come to their district.

An Erie, Pa.-based energy company wants to determine whether its feasible to develop a wind farm on property at the Lake County Landfill in Painesville Township. Lake County commissioners have approved an agreement with Lake County Winds, LLC, a subsidiary of BQ Energy, that allows the company to conduct a study to see if the land would be conducive for wind energy.

New jobs could come from alternative energy sources, including wind turbines and other alternative energy sources, Leavitt said.

A plan by a Midwest utility to distribute energy-efficient light bulbs to customers backfired when it was learned that the recipients would not only have to pay for the bulbs, but also pay the utility for the electricity they wouldn't be using. Ohio's governor sent a letter to regulators who pulled the plug on the program for now, or at least on the charges that caught consumers off guard.

Husted and top GOP House leaders were planning to unveil new legislation today that rewrites -- and beefs up -- renewable energy provisions in the governor's comprehensive utility regulation bill, pending since last fall. The new bill will be sponsored by State Rep. Jim McGregor, a Republican from Gahanna, who earlier introduced a bill requiring utilities to generate 22 percent of their power with wind, solar and other renewable technologies by 2020. They would have had to pay heavy fines if they did not meet a strict time table. The measure stalled, but parts of it are now expected to resurface.

What began with an attempt to work out a compromise electricity regulation bill with Gov. Ted Strickland instead ended with Democrats walking out of House Public Utilities Committee in protest during the wee hours of the morning. The action drew a sharp contrast to the bipartisanship that has permeated the Statehouse for more than a year. ...Environmental advocates said they were pleased with the bill, which includes benchmarks to ensure that utilities produce at least 25 percent of their power from renewable and advanced energy sources by 2025. However, advocates were disappointed by an amendment that lets the PUCO reduce energy efficiency benchmarks if they can't be achieved for regulator, economic or technological reasons. "We're hoping this is an insurance policy that will never be executed," said Jack Shaner of the Ohio Environmental Council.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Advocates of wind energy sought to get a step ahead of Ohio's new political climate Monday, urging the newly elected governor and Legislature to include windmills in the state's future energy plans. "While wind energy may not solve all of our energy needs - in fact, it likely won't - it is a key part of an overall strategy to diversify our energy sources, increase our energy efficiency, and I think this is a good start," said Battelle senior vice president Dennis McGinn, manager of the research institute's energy, transportation and environment division.

Ohio lags far behind the rest of the Midwest -- and most of the country -- in wind power use. ...So why does Ohio have one wind farm -- the four turbines at the Wood County Landfill in Bowling Green -- instead of windmills all over the northern part of the state? "In the past, other states have offered better incentives," said Joe Woods, managing director of North Coast Wind and Power LLC in Port Clinton.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's energy bill is on its way to the Ohio House of Representatives after the Senate unanimously passed an amended version Wednesday. Substitute Senate Bill 221 generally affirms the major tenets of Strickland's Energy, Jobs and Progress for Ohio plan, which includes creating a hybrid approach to regulating prices when rates set by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio expire at the end of 2008, and growing the state's investment in eco-friendly energy sources. ...While upholding most of Strickland's proposals aimed at increasing the state's investment in advanced and renewable energy, the senate bill puts a 3 percent cap on consumers' costs in making the shift.

The debate continues on the U.S. side of Lake Erie over what the new energy mix should look like. In Canada, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's administration has shown a strong preference for hydroelectric power and wind power. ...But Gail Krantzberg, a former Canadian chair of the International Joint Commission who's now director of McMaster University's Center for Engineering and Public Policy, said the McGuinty administration may have to buy dirty energy produced by coal-fired power plants in the Ohio Valley if it can't find enough viable ways to make up the difference. Wind, by its nature, can only be a supplemental source of power because it takes steady breezes to spin the turbine blades.

At least two companies are interested in offshore wind development in New York's Great Lakes waters - BQ Energy, which developed Lackawanna's Steel Winds, and AWS Truewind. "I don't think it's inevitable, but I think it's very likely," said Bruce Bailey, AWS Truewind's president. There are significant obstacles and unknowns. ...Installing wind turbines in water can be at least twice as expensive because of the cost of mobilizing marine crews, the specialized nature of the installation equipment and the turbines and the need to move the power onshore, experts say. And that doesn't factor in what would be necessary to deal with the ice that often covers the eastern end of Lake Erie in winter.

For the first time since talk of wind turbine development began in West Central Ohio several years ago, residents of Logan and Champaign counties got to see a close visual representation of the controversial structures. The designs, which included a map showing 78 proposed turbine locations - 15 in Logan County and the remainder in Champaign - and several photos superimposed with scale wind turbines, gave the 100-plus residents who milled through Everpower Renewables' open house Tuesday at Triad High School a view of the proposed project. ...