A potential wind energy project is moving forward in the North Country with the approval of two temporary wind measurement towers.

AMHERST — Norm Hebert never thought the town would try to stop him from installing three wind turbines on his four acres. There is nothing in the town ordinances dealing with wind turbines, only silos and ham radio towers. So the 20-year resident began making preparations. He put down a deposit on three turbines with a Canadian manufacturer and cleared his land, a large corner lot in a densely settled subdivision near the Merrimack border. But when he applied for a building permit at town hall, Hebert was told that since there was no specific language in the town’s ordinance dealing with 90-foot tall wind turbines, he would have to get a variance. The town’s maximum height for accessory structures is 22 feet, and 35 feet for other structures, such as farm silos and radio towers.

A proposal for a wind-powered generating facility on the 23,781-acre Phillips Brook industrial forest is dashing immediate hopes of a $3.5 million permanent conservation easement on the parcel. Officials with the Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests confirmed that the easement - considered a keystone in a 180,000-acre forest between Milan and Dixville Notch in Coos County, and the state’s top priority for funding from the federal Forest Legacy Program for 2008 - is out for now.

The negative feedback project manager Jeff Keelen has heard about the possible Lempster wind mill farm is subjective, he said. Most of the major concerns he has faced involve the visual or noise effects the wind mill farm could create. “It’s hard to tell somebody that they should think the windmills are beautiful,” Keelen said. Citizens will have an opportunity to become better informed about the project at a public information hearing at 7 p.m. tonight at the Goshen-Lempster Cooperative School.

New England will need to add power plants capable of generating 4,300 megawatts, and $3.4 billion of additional transmission investment, by 2015 to avoid blackouts, the region’s grid operator says. The area will need 170 megawatts of new power before the summer of 2009 to assure adequate supplies, according to ISO New England Inc., the power grid and wholesale market operator that serves the region’s 14 million people........ If a 1,000 megawatt coal or nuclear power plant had been installed in 2005, buyers in the wholesale market would have saved $600 million in power costs, the report said.

Saying New England holds tremendous opportunity for wind energy development, Connecticut-based Noble Environmental Power today announced that it is teaming up with Vermont-based Vermont Environmental Research Associates (VERA) to explore potential windpark locations throughout the region.

The state will hold a public hearing Oct. 30 for a controversial wind farm proposed for 25 acres on Lempster Mountain. Last week, the state Site Evaluation Committee accepted Community Energy Inc.’s application as complete, part of the evaluation process for what could be the first major source of wind power in New Hampshire and one of the first new wind power sources in New England in more than decade. In July, the SEC unanimously voted to oversee the project after residents and town officials petitioned it to do so.

Under the agreement, ISO New England will project regional power needs three years in advance and hold annual auctions to buy power resources, including new and existing power plants. Incentives would encourage private operators to respond to power system emergencies, and operators that don't make extra capacity available would face penalties.

For wind developers, the Production Tax Credit (PTC) can either make or break a project. In Lempster, New Hampshire, the timely development of a 24-megawatt (MW) wind farm hinges on the probability of it coming online before December 31, 2007, when the PTC expires. Because a comprehensive review of the project was approved by the New Hampshire site evaluation committee, it could take Community Energy Inc. — the developer overseeing the Lempster wind farm — up to nine months to start construction. And if the PTC is not renewed before the expiration date, there’s a chance the project could stall for much longer.

After years of warning that New England's electric grid was on the brink of having to impose Third World-style rolling blackouts, top power officials now cautiously predict the region may have enough power for the near future. Since February, thanks to recent policy changes, proposals for 21 new power plants that could deliver enough electricity for about 3 million homes have come before regional power grid administrators. Those include a $1.5 billion NRG Energy Inc. plan for multiple new generators in Connecticut and a single generator that would burn methane gas from a dump in Westminster, near Fitchburg. The Holyoke -based organization that runs the six-state power grid and wholesale markets, Independent System Operator New England, plans to discuss the projects in a two-day Boston conference starting today .

Tuesday night, the Temple Select Board unanimously agreed to allow Rob and Vivian Nicholl a permit to install a 40-foot Skystream wind turbine on their property.

LEMPSTER (AP) -- The company proposing a controversial wind farm on Mount Lempster has taken the first step in the state's evaluation process. The developer, Community Energy Inc., has filed its application with the state Site Evaluation Committee, which voted unanimously to oversee the project at the request of residents and town officials.

The company proposing a controversial wind farm on Lempster Mountain has filed its application with the state Site Evaluation Committee. The action marks the first step in the evaluation process for what could be the first major source of wind power in New Hampshire and one of the first new wind power sources in New England in more than decade.

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- New York, New Jersey and five other Northeast states set a goal of cutting power-plant carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent over 10 years to help curb global warming.

More than 10 large and small wind-power facilities are on line in the region. More could be on their way. A proposed 24-megawatt project in Lempster, N.H., is under regulatory review. A 13.5-megawatt project in western Massachusetts' Berkshires is moving through the regulatory process.

``The problem we're having with all these wind farms is . . . they're proposing to put them in all the worst places," said Thomas W. French , assistant director of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. ``If they could do what the Russell Biomass plant did, which is to find a preexisting, historical industrial district, we'd be applauding them." As part of the ongoing state permitting process for the plant, French's division worked with its developers to reroute proposed power lines to reduce their impact on wildlife.

The New England power grid will have 30,345 megawatts available today - use is expected to peak at a record 28,030 megawatts, even after energy companies have put out a call for people to voluntarily reduce power consumption, she said.

WORCESTER— Absent interest in lower-priced fuels, New Englanders should brace for continued high electricity prices, the byproduct of a regional system heavily dependent on oil, natural gas and coal, the head of the region’s power grid said yesterday.

New England recorded its highest power usage in history Tuesday, according to Ken McDonnell, a spokesman for ISO New England, manager of the region's power grid. The peak, reached Tuesday afternoon, was 27,374 megawatts of power, eclipsing the previous record set on July 27, 2005, when usage reached 26,885 megawatts.

BERLIN, N.H. --Three windmills on a Mount Jericho wind farm have been vandalized, likely destroying one and badly damaging the others.