57-MW Stetson Wind Farm Starts Commercial Operations in Maine

January 23, 2009 | 8 Comments

First Wind has confirmed that commercial operations have started at its Stetson Wind farm. Situated in Washington County, Maine, Stetson Wind will have the capacity to generate enough energy to power approximately 23,500 New England homes per year.

Stetson Wind, a 57 megawatt (MW) project, will surpass First Wind’s Mars Hill facility as the largest wind energy project in operation in the State of Maine. The project consists of 38 General Electric 1.5-MW wind turbines, and will have the capacity to generate approximately 167 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity every year.

“The Stetson Wind project continues Maine’s aggressive leadership in pursuing energy independence,” said Maine Governor John Baldacci. “We are capitalizing on the clean, renewable sources of energy that exist in our State, like wind, solar and tidal. By harnessing these sources of energy locally, we keep money in our State and we create jobs in our State, all while improving our environment and our national security.”

The project officially began generating power on a commercial basis and delivering it to the New England electrical grid earlier this week. Construction on the project began in January 2008. The project created 350 development and construction jobs and First Wind spent approximately US $50 million with Maine-based businesses developing and building the project.

“Today, we are proud to mark the commencement of commercial operations of our Stetson Wind project,” said Paul Gaynor, president and CEO of First Wind. “With nearly 100 MW of clean, wind energy being generated between Stetson Wind and our Mars Hill project, we’re making renewable wind power in Maine a reality and plan to continue our commitment to the state through a number of other projects already in development.”

First Wind plans to build additional projects in Maine, including a proposed 25.5-MW expansion at Stetson Wind, as well as the 60-MW Rollins Wind project near the town of Lincoln. First Wind has submitted permit applications with state agencies for both projects.

8 Comments

Carolyn Rae
February 4, 2009

Gerry Meyer, we have a meeting tonight at the Dixmont/Etna School on Rt 143 at 6:30pm and would love it if you could show up and share some impute on living near the turbines.

Tony Clark
January 29, 2009

Brian,Fred,Marv,
Take it from Gerry - a man that knows the truth

see www.whitherindustrialwindpower.wordpress.com/

Gerry Meyer
January 28, 2009

All this "has the capicity to produce" is nonsense. Divide the 23,500 homes by four to get a possible practial amount of homes powered by the project. Wind turbines are designed to be 27 to 30% efficient. The Forward project by Invenergy that I live in was 17.5% of it's capacity in the 3rd quarter of 2008. The next time you need to buy a furnace or air conditioner try to find one that is that inefficient. What about the health affects from living near industrial wind turbines. You don't mention that. Or the lower property values. The more I learn about wind energy the more I realize there really are no benefits other than to fill the wallets of the wind energy companies. I no longer see deer or turkeys on my property since the turbines began turning. I hear the turibnes in all rooms of my home on a daily basis. There are 5 within 3/4 of a mile of our house. Our quality of life has been tremendously deminished. I know the same has happened in Mars Hill.

Marv Kausch
January 28, 2009

I agree: 167 GWH is about 1% of the total needs for the State of Maine. Here's how I verified your numbers. The per-capita power consumption in the US averages 1.5 KW, a convenient number to calculate even the entire power consumption of the country. Using this number and 1.3E6 people in ME and 8760 hrs/year, I get that 167 GWH is 0.997 % of ME's electrical generation.

Fred Linn
January 28, 2009

I see where I went wrong-----all the previous tables were in megawatts, and the final table changed units (thousand megawatts---GWh---and I didn't see the change)

Thanks Brian, like I said, I found it hard to believe too. It always helps to have someone check my math----LOL.

Brian Crounse
January 26, 2009

Oops- of course the "167 kWh" I mention above should be 167 GWh- sorry to cause any further confusion.

Brian Crounse
January 26, 2009

Fred,

Alas, the zeroes have got you down.

Total generation for ME (using the same data source) in 2006 was 16,816 GWh- you are off by 1,000.

You're off on the wind farm, too, but by a different factor: 167 million kWh => 167,000 MWh => 167 GWh. This is ~ 1% of ME's total production, not 10%.

Finally, the article wording is a little ambiguous- it talks about "the capacity to generate" 167 kWh. I think of capacity as being the nameplate capacity But 38 turbines * 1.5 MW * 8766 (hours per year) is about 500 GWh, so the 167 already seems to factor in a capacity factor of 33%, which seems reasonable.

So there you have it- this particular project is ~1% of ME's generation- not bad, but not 10%!

Fred Linn
January 25, 2009

The last figures I could find were for 2006.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/state_profiles/maine.pdf

This seems to tell me that the total of all power generation for the State of Maine for 2006 was 16,816 Megawatt hours.(16.816 Gigawatt hours)

----" The project consists of 38 General Electric 1.5-MW wind turbines, and will have the capacity to generate approximately 167 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity every year."----------

167million KWh = 167,000,000 KWh = 1.67 GWh

1.67 divided by 16.816 = 9.99%

(check my math for me folks--I find this hard to believe)

That would mean that Maine went from 0 wind energy in 2006 to almost 10% of total generation capacity with one project, and that isn't even counting the previous Mars Hill output. I'd say considering that, the total wind generated electricity for Maine HAS to be over 10% per year in less than 3 years.(2006 to 2009--depending on when the statistics were compiled, maybe as little as 2 years.)

That places Maine well over 50% total renewable energy electrical generation.

WAY TO GO MAINE!