Portsmouth
to Spend $885,000 on Broken Turbine
By ecoRI News staff
PORTSMOUTH — The Town
Council voted 4-2 at its June 3 meeting to spend $885,000 to repair the broken
wind turbine at Portsmouth High School. The turbine, which sits atop a
213-foot-high tower, has been shut down since June 2012 because of a busted
gearbox.
The town still owes
$2.1 million from the $3 million in bonding voters approved to erect the
turbine seven years ago. When operational, the 1.5-megawatt wind turbine
produces nearly 2.7 million kilowatt-hours of power annually, enough
electricity to power 280 homes, according to a report presented
recently to the Town Council.
The town is expected to
receive a $250,000 state grant to help offset the total cost of repairing the
gearbox, which would bring the town's cost down to $635,000. The state funding
is from settlement money from a Clean Air Act lawsuit, according to Attorney
General Peter Kilmartin.
The turbine was
operational and ran successfully from March 2009 until early 2012. In 2012, the
turbine’s gearbox suffered premature failure and must be replaced to return the
wind turbine to service.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Portsmouth had the engineering firm of DA Robert LLC of Seattle inspect the turbine to find out what went wrong. Answer: It
was assembled wrong probably by a guy who does not follow the RTFM rule or
refuses to ask for directions. DAR reported that “several turbine assembly errors became evident, such as improper rotor
installation, possible blade pitch calibration, and one ladder splice section
that was installed upside down.” - wc
Read Kilmartin’s full news release by clicking here.
The state funding is
contingent on the town obtaining the remaining money for the repair work. The
funding stems from a 2007 court order resulting from a lawsuit brought by Rhode
Island, other states and the federal government against the American Electric
Power Service Corp. (AEP). Rhode Island and the other plaintiffs alleged that
AEP constructed and modified numerous power plants in the Ohio River valley
without the permits required under the federal Clean Air Act, causing increased
smog in Rhode Island and other states.
Under the court order,
AEP paid a $15 million penalty and committed $60 million to perform or finance
pro-environmental projects, of which $24 million was distributed to eight
states to fund pollution reduction, renewable energy and green building.
Rhode Island’s portion
of the initial settlement was $1.2 million, distributed through five annual
installments of $240,000. In 2012, a revision was made to the AEP consent
decree to give Rhode Island an additional $714,000 to fund public air pollution
mitigation projects. Under the revised consent decree, AEP agreed to reduce its
total sulfur dioxide emissions (of their pre-2007 baseline) by about 90 percent
by 2029.
In previous years, the
attorney general’s office has leveraged this court-ordered money to reduce
state energy costs and harmful air pollution through the installation of wind
turbines at Fishermen’s Memorial State Campground and East Matunuck State
Beach, and providing for upgraded air emissions devices on state-owned heavy
equipment.
Additionally, in 2012,
a $1.2 million solar roof project on a RIPTA building in Providence was funded
through this money.
