Public Service Company of New Hampshire has filed for almost a 10 percent hike in electric rates for next year. ...Part of the increase has to do with both the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, designed to curb carbon emissions, and the Renewable Portfolio Standards, set up to move the state toward getting 25 percent of its power from renewables by 2025. Murray estimated that amount 20-30 percent of the increase can be attributed to those two programs, but indicated those costs haven't been completely determined yet. "In terms of RGGI, this is all quite new to us," he said.

[T]here are some negatives associated with the increasingly popular form of alternative energy, according to a University of New Hampshire expert. But the cons - mainly noise and vibrations from the rotating turbines - are generally things people can live with, UNH assistant professor of geography Mary Lemcke said. In South Berwick, a 300-foot-high ridge across from Marshwood High School is being eyed as a possible location for a wind farm. A Cape Neddick-based alternative energy company is conducting a yearlong wind study there with the hopes a wind farm would be viable. For Wisconsin resident Gerry Meyer, however, the sound of five 400-foot-tall wind turbines located within three quarters of a mile of his home is simply unbearable.

More wind farms may start cropping up across New Hampshire, but questions remain about how profitable they are. A new state law pushes energy companies to use more renewable energy, including wind. But how affective turbines are remains largely untested. ...Iberdrola surveyed the Lempster site for five years before building and hopes to be making power by the end of the year. Even then, it may take a little longer for the wind farm to cut electricity bills.

It's a bit behind schedule, but a $48 million project to bring wind power to New Hampshire via a dozen huge turbines near Mount Sunapee should be up and running by Christmas. ..."We have a love-hate relationship with them. . . . Some people think it spoils the ridgeline," said Lempster Selectman Ed Everett Thurber. Concern about appearance, and about the effect of the large construction work stretching along about five miles of ridgeline, led several landowners in and around Lempster to file opposition to the project after it was proposed, some four years ago. Thurber said his only concern was how the turbines would sound when they start spinning.

Drive through Lempster these days and you'll see the progress being made on the state's first commercial wind farm. When up and running, the 12 windmills on Lempster Mountain are expected to produce enough clean renewable energy for about 10 thousands homes. With America increasingly looking for clean energy and independence from oil, wind farms are one possibility. A big one is proposed for Coos County. The project has its fans, but it also has it opponents. NHPR correspondent Chris Jensen has the story.

Representatives for the company looking to build 33 wind turbines on ridgelines in the unincorporated areas of Dixville and Millsfield fielded some tough questions from the more than 120 people who attended a public hearing in Groveton last night. ...Nine parties have applied to intervene in the case, meaning they would become parties to the proceedings and could file briefs, collect discovery and question the applicant. They include wind and anti-wind energy groups, the Appalachian Mountain Club and five individuals.

Parts for New Hampshire's first commercial wind farm are arriving by truck and train. The 400-foot-tall turbines will be built on a ridge on Lempster Mountain in Lempster ...The parts that sit atop the 12 towers and hold the turbine blades weigh 64 tons each.

Imagine 30 wind turbines whirring ATOP two remote Maine peaks. The 300-ton towers, with blades sweeping 400 feet high and aglow with aircraft-warning lights, would each produce 9,000 megawatt-hours of renewable electricity per year. So what's wrong with this picture? A lot, according to groups like the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC)–like the fact that the windmills in this proposed farm would be visible from a 34-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail.

Governors of the six New England states met July 9 for their New England Governors Conference meeting in Boston to discuss energy and try to forge, among other things, an agreement on funding new transmission lines to bring electricity from remote wind and biomass power plants in Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire to the urban centers on the Eastern Seaboard. The state chief executives met in private for what was reported to be some free and candid bargaining, but participants later confirmed that New Hampshire will likely have to go it alone if it wants expand transmission capability in Coos County in order to make renewable energy projects with a total of between 300 and 400 megawatts a reality.

He said that although many people are interested in building them [windmills], the reality is that the windmills only make sense in the southwestern parts of the state, north toward the Sunapee region, and in the White Mountains -- areas with elevated, open space and consistently strong winds. "That excludes a lot of regions where people think it's windy, but (the wind is) not consistent enough," Weissflog said. "People are currently looking for alternatives, and they're really grasping at straws sometimes."

Boisvert said future projects only will result in more spending as the utility carries out needed improvements. She also said one of the most expensive projects on the horizon could be the proposed Coos County Loop. She said this project requires the transmission lines in Coos County to be upgraded so new biomass, wind and solar power generated there can be transported to Southern New Hampshire and other states as needed. Boisvert said PSNH has to carry out that project to meet the state's Renewable Portfolio Standards approved by state lawmakers. ... It has yet to be determined if the costs will be borne by PSNH ratepayers, New Hampshire state taxpayers or shouldered by customers of member utility companies that make up ISO-New England throughout the Northeast. "There's no definitive answer," Boisvert said.

Fuller Clark talked about existing transmission lines in New Hampshire's North Country and the issue of who pays for expansion of lines, and by what method energy might be moved from that area to meet demands in the rest of the state and New England. While the expansion cost for Hampton Falls is the responsibility of Public Service of New Hampshire, it actually falls on the ratepayers, Fuller Clark said. "If PSNH can't come up with a solution to transmission, (we) turn to Canada," Fuller Clark said, describing Canada as having "extraordinary plants. Ideally, we would prefer to develop our own resources here."

In two or three years, the region should have a fledgling renewable energy industry in place and enough Internet capacity to attract call centers and other firms that need first-rate communications, they say. ...Both energy firms believe the existing Public Service of New Hampshire transmission lines, thought to have 100 megawatts of remaining capacity, can handle the extra current after a relatively small private investment. Patch has told lawmakers Noble will spend between $10 million and $15 million to tighten the power lines. Bartoszek confirmed his company would spend a tiny part of its $100 million project cost on transmission improvements.

There's a biomass renaissance going on in New Hampshire and Vern Waters, like other timberland owners, loggers and foresters, hopes to benefit from it. ...Biomass, according to SPNHF Spokesman Jack Savage, is "positive on any number of levels, but first, from a simple forest management perspective, this is essentially like weeding your garden and doing a biomass harvest is going in and pulling the weeds and instead of tossing them you're taking them and you're turning them into electrical power that ideally is replacing fossil fuels."

With no regional solution in sight, New Hampshire should establish a commission to take charge of expanding electric transmission capacity in the North Country, a state senator said Tuesday. Without more transmission capacity, development of renewable power is largely stymied in New Hampshire, Sen. Martha Fuller Clark told a Senate committee. Clark said her bill would create a single entity to develop a plan to pay for the expansion. ... So far, the upgrade has not won support from ISO New England, which manages power for the region and would decide if all New England electric users would benefit and consequently should share in its cost.

Hopes for a renewable energy park to be developed appear to be dashed, at least for now. The partnership hoping to open the park, which had three options on land in town including a 50-acre parcel owned by the school district, has pulled the plug on those options this week. The reason, Levine said, is the transmission lines in the North Country are not able to accept the level of power that would be generated from the venture, which had already been given the name Groveton Renewable Energy Park. Levine said the project is in line behind two wind generation projects in the approval process as well as for connecting to the power grid transmission system in the region.

A batch of good news will be revealed to Goshen residents at a public informational session at 7 p.m. Thursday in the town hall. Financing to purchase a new fire truck is in place and the town will also be receiving two large monetary settlements from the Lempster Windfarm project. Neither one will require formal approval by Goshen voters. ..."We have a contractual agreement to receive $30,000 by Dec. 28 to cover Goshen's legal expenses on the windfarm presentation before the state hearing along with background work," Carrick said. The $30,000 will replace funds Goshen actually spent with this effort. He said an agreement has also been worked out with Lempster Windfarm to provide an additional $50,000 in the future when the project first comes on line.

A way to open up the state's logjam in building renewable energy projects could come out of a proposed 10-state regional greenhouse initiative. According to the Public Utilities Commission, the North Country needs a power line upgrade in the $200-million range to help developers build hundreds of megawatts of future wind farms and biomass electricity plants. Those could meet most of the state's goal of producing 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Until they win approval or drop out, those projects at the head of the line are blocking plans for a 600-megawatt gas-fired plant somewhere in Rockingham County. The would-be developer is unidentified on the Web site of the ISO-New England electric grid. The federal approval process accepts applicants on a first-come, first served basis.

George Gantz, a Unitil vice president, unveiled some company dreams this past week to reinvent the big regulated utility. He told Rep. Naida Kaen, D-Lee, and other stakeholders for "distributed energy" that Unitil would like to work itself out of business as a traditional energy retailer. Distributed energy, a new buzz word, is made by small generators scattered across the electric grid, often remote from the big power plants. ...Under existing law, that would be like McDonald's buying burgers from its patrons. But everybody would win if Unitil could claim the renewable energy credits a business or homeowner can earn under a new state law also sponsored by Fuller Clark. It rewards sustainable energy sources.

Several new North Country energy projects are in the works, but questions remain on how to transmit to homes and businesses the power they would generate. Experts at an ad hoc energy stakeholders meeting held Oct. 16 at the State House in Concord generally agreed that construction on several proposed wind farms and wood-fired power plants in Coos County will take three to four years - and perhaps longer if New Hampshire hopes to convince other New England states to cover 90 percent of the costs. ...Donna Gamache of PSNH said the hard part is guessing which players are serious and have the stamina to wait out the regulatory approval process. She said what she called "the California model" would may be "the easiest way to absorb the risk." In California, a regional electric grid underwrote the cost to transmit new solar and geothermal power to the populated coast in the hopes that future developers would pay their share as they hooked into the lines. If PSNH tackles a project like that without state help, experts fear ratepayers would eat the stranded costs if too few plants came on line.