Falmouth Wind Turbines A 10 Million Con Job

Vestas the foreign manufacturer of both turbines warned by letter and email prior to construction each turbine generates up to 110 decibels of noise.

General Electric a domestic wind turbine company refused to place one single wind turbine due to ice throw and residential setbacks.

One Vestas wind turbine is twice as loud as a GE wind turbine.

By August 18, 2008, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative today known as the Mass Clean Energy Center put their two wind turbines up for sale:

Two wind turbines, made by the highly regarded manufacturer, top blade height of nearly 400 feet, each capable of generating power for about 1,000 homes. Some assembly required. Asking price: $5 million-plus, or best offer.

No one would buy them and no one made a bid at auction.

1. How Badly did MTC/Mass Clean Energy Center want to sell the turbines they owned?

The MTC/CEC was aggressively looking for buyer(s) for its two stored turbines. On December 8, 2006, the MTC/CEC issued a “Notice of Availability of Two 1.65MW Turbines”.

That notice addressed local permitting: “Permitting Schedule – the project proponent must present a credible and documented plan for obtaining all necessary permits in time to construct the project by December 31, 2007. MTC has a preference for projects that have completed the permitting process”.

By December 31, 2007 turbines should be sold and erected.

2. The MTC/CEC Was Anxious

About 4 months after Wind 1 was supposed to have already been bought and installed somewhere, Falmouth approached MTC/CEC and encouraged it to not wait for the Fairhaven permit to be defended in court. With the expected time delay of it stuck with the Fairhaven project, the MTC/CEC was anxious to get Wind 1 sold.

[Fairhaven had caught an appeal, and the MTC/CEC was holding on to the 2 turbines they had in storage much longer than anticipated].

3. The Renewable Energy Trust Fund administered by MTC/CEC

The Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust Fund is supported by a non-bypassable surcharge of $0.0005 per kilowatt-hour (0.5 mill/kWh), imposed on customers of all investor-owned electric utilities and competitive municipal utilities in Massachusetts. The Fund collects millions of dollars every year from ratepayers. The Fund does not have an expiration date.

4. DID EVERYONE AGREE TO SKIP The Special Permit Process in Falmouth?

Not initially. The Town’s contracted professional engineer, Weston & Sampson, who’s scope of work including “local permitting” (on both turbines), prepared permitting drawings and a Special Permit application for Wind 1 dated May 7, 2008.

The application now before the ZBA was actually prepared in May of 2008 and not submitted.

( Town never applied for permits as designated by contract engineers)

5. The Special Permit Override

Six days after W&S prepared the ZBA application, the Falmouth Town Planner presented a memo to the Building Commissioner asking him to sign off that no permit was needed.

The Town’s professional staff overrode the opinion of the Town’s contracted professional engineer.

6. A Representation to its Board MTC/Mass Clean Energy Center

The MTC/CEC Staff told its Board in April of 2013: “that study (KEMA) did not include a detailed acoustic analysis based upon a sampling of ambient acoustic conditions (as is our current, more rigorous practice) which might have identified a potential exceedance of the 10-decibel limit”.

They knew the turbines were too loud prior to construction.

The Falmouth Massachusetts Zoning Board and Courts respectively shut down both town-owned nuisance wind turbines in 2015 and 2017.

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