Will there be more wind turbines in the Berkshires? Here's why one state official said it's 'extremely unlikely'

As Massachusetts races to meet its clean energy goals, will more wind turbines dot the ridge lines of the Berkshires?

Ask Francis Pullaro that, and the president of RENEW Northeast starts to chuckle.

“There’s no wind coming to Berkshire County,” Pullaro told The Eagle. His nonprofit represents renewable energy interests as well as environmental advocates. “There’s just a host of reasons. I think the simplest one of all is economics.”

Building and siting turbines on mountain tops takes money, much more money than plopping them down onto the plains of the Midwest, for example, or on the flats of northern Maine. This is why even though land-based wind is literally sweeping much of the country as the fastest growing form of clean energy, Massachusetts is now looking offshore to harness wind.

While Berkshire County is currently home to three individual, large-scale wind turbines and two wind farms, there's a host of reasons in addition to cost, why the commonwealth's race to meet its clean energy goals by 2050 most likely won't be fueled by wind blowing across the Berkshires. Experts point to poor weather conditions, aging technology and simply not enough open, rural space — if you can believe it — to safely put the large turbines far enough away from residents. 

“When wind first came to Berkshire County, we didn’t have the low-cost, large-scale solar projects that we have today,” Pullaro said. “The best wind speeds are on the ridge tops, and there’s just not a lot of land or space to do those type of projects, especially at a scale that makes it anywhere near competitive with solar today.”

Berkshire County has three large-scale wind turbines, the oldest, at Jiminy Peak in Hancock, and two in Otis. In total, those three turbines generate 3.6 megawatts.

Additionally, two wind farms dot the vista: Berkshire Wind Power Project at Brodie Mountain has 12 turbines operated by the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co. It can produce up to 19.6 megawatts, powering up to 7,800 homes.

Avangrid operates the largest wind farm on Massachusetts soil, Hoosac Wind in Florida and Monroe. It has 19 turbines on 75 acres of leased land and is visible from the Mohawk Trail. It's capable of generating 28.5 megawatts, enough to power 10,000 homes.

“Hoosac has always been one of our assets that has performed at a high level since day one," Ryan Haley, a senior manager for Avangrid’s region 3 onshore team said. "And it continues to perform very, very well for us.”

While Avangrid doesn’t release wind generation figures, Berkshire Wind does.

And there, things aren’t going so smoothly, particularly for the original 10 turbines at the farm, which went online in 2011.  

Jason Viadero, director of engineering and generation assets at Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company, pointed to the short wind season in the region.

“We get the vast majority of our wind generation December, January, February, March and then that tails off during the summer time,” Viadero said.

An irony of wind turbines is that they don’t necessarily perform well in extreme conditions — and they don't like power failures.

“The weather on Brodie Mountain in Berkshire County, it’s great for wind," Viadero said. "It’s also absolutely horrible for wind because we have high wind speeds, we have a lot of wind shear, we have cold winters, we have extreme icing conditions.”

The lifespan of turbines is expected to be about 25 years, but industry reports have noted that older turbines don't perform as well as newer ones.

Haley said preventative maintenance on the turbines in Florida just finished for 2024, and the turbines are ready to crank up for the winter, when the wind blows the strongest.

“Typically, in a perfect world, they do shut those turbines down twice a year just to do that preventative maintenance, pretty much checking the torque and tension of bolts, greasing of all the greaseable components, and doing a thorough cleaning of the machine,” he said.

Avangrid keeps warehouses stocked with parts for its wind farms across the country.

“When we need a part, we order it internally through our warehouse system, and we get it the next week,” Haley said.

But replacing equipment can pose challenges simply because of the 300-foot vertical climb.

“Any time any of these towers are unavailable or off line to generate, that’s obviously lost production,” Viadero said. “Honestly, we have at least one turbine broken down on the site on most days. … As of this morning we have five that are awaiting parts or awaiting fixes.”

Unlike Hoosac Wind with its onsite team, Berkshire Wind relies on mobile technicians from GE Vernova as well as its own technicians, who are based in Ludlow, 74 miles away.

GE’s restructuring in recent years and the April 2024 spinoff of GE Vernova has had an impact, Viadero said. 

“Since then, we’ve been struggling a lot with just parts availability,” he said. 

GE Vernova declined comment for this story.

Pullaro, at RENEW Northeast, said the six New England states are working on bolstering the interstate transmission system to clear up a bottleneck so power can flow from Maine and Quebec.

“There’s a provision in the energy bill for Massachusetts to partner with other states in New England on large-scale energy projects,” Pullaro said, referring to an attempt by Massachusetts and Maine to strike a partnership a couple years ago for 1,000 megawatts of electricity. “I’m not aware of anyone developing land-based wind outside of northern Maine at this point.”

The Clean Energy Bill, which Gov. Maura Healey signed Nov. 21, would allow that collaboration with Maine for land-based wind.

Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner of the state Department of Energy Resources, told The Eagle she's interested.

“It’s likely that we will talk with our friends in Maine again,” she said on Nov. 22.

As to the future of wind in the Berkshires?

“I would not say never,” said Mike Judge, undersecretary of energy at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. “I think extremely unlikely.”