WORKING TOWARD GREAT LAKES WIND

Offshore wind farm developer scaling back plans
Dave Alexander, February 13, 2010 (Muskegon Chronicle)

"Norwegian developers are in the process of cutting their proposed Lake Michigan Aegir Offshore Wind Farm in half and moving it further from the Silver Lake State Park shoreline.

"Officials from Scandia Wind Offshore LLC say they are reacting to overwhelming negative reaction to the location of their original plan for a 1,000-megawatt, $3 billion wind farm. As originally proposed, the 100 to 200 wind turbines would sit on 100 square miles off the near shore of the Oceana-Mason county line…Scandia is reconfiguring its proposal to uniformly move the wind farm to four miles off the Lake Michigan shoreline..."

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"Leaders from the Lake Michigan POWER Coalition — the well-organized group opposing the wind farm — will not end their opposition to the Scandia project based on the changes discussed by the developer…Specifics of the newly designed wind farm layout will be made public by the end of the month…after meetings last week with public officials…The wind farm developers said they hope to have county board advisory votes by mid-summer.

"Scandia will want an initial vote of support for the company to begin costly economic and environmental studies…Public officials will have plenty of points along the development path to object to the company’s plans as state and federal permits are sought, Scandia officials have said. The wind farm timeline has construction beginning in 2015…[Scandia] is not surprised at the…opposition…[They have] been developing onshore and offshore wind farms since 1995…[and they know] some local opposition always arises…Scandia officials said they are “shocked” [that the] proposal is not winning points in Lansing…"

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"Scandia officials have said they want to receive an initial thumbs up or down on their plans from the two [most involved] counties before they formally approach state regulators…The governor-appointed Wind Council has been working on policies and regulations concerning wind farms on the lakes for more than a year…[and produced a] report on siting wind farms on Michigan-controlled waters.

"It was a map [in the] Wind Council report that Scandia used to help find its original wind farm site — an area that is most favorable, due to wind strength, water depths and access to the electrical grid…[T]he state have regulations in place…[but the Wind Council] is developing legislative language for a law setting the rules and process for offshore wind farm approval in Michigan…A bill is expected to be introduced in the coming months… Scandia awaits the legislative process to produce the regulations it must meet if it goes forward on its Lake Michigan plans."