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Turbine Setbacks Leave Towns Twisting in the Wind

November 23, 2009 - SACO -- The city thought it was ahead of the curve back in 2007 when it bought a windmill that was supposed to provide power for a transportation center built around a station for the Downeaster train.

The $200,000 windmill never came close to meeting expectations, but even that was OK. The city had an agreement in which the manufacturer would pay the difference between the value of the anticipated electricity and the value of the actual output.

All in all, it was a pretty sweet deal – until a month ago, when the manufacturer ended up in a Canadian bankruptcy court, where its assets will be broken up and sold.

The representative of one of Entegrity Wind Systems' two secured creditors said it will be "miraculous" if the sale of the company's assets raises enough even to cover the $3.5 million owed to those creditors. That would leave nothing for windmill owners.

"It's lessons learned, and we can be proud in knowing that we went ahead and did something and at the time, this was the best product out there," said Jonathan Carter, town manager of Kittery, which, like Saco, picked Entegrity on the basis of a competitive bid. "In theory, it's a good product."

In Maine, the theory and the practice never matched.

Saco and Kittery bought the wind turbines with the assurance that they would generate about 90,000 kilowatts a year. Entegrity guaranteed that output with the payment promise.

Saco's windmill generated only about 16,000 kilowatts from the time it was installed in February 2008 until this August, when a meter stopped transmitting data.

In Kittery, where the windmill was supposed to power a trash transfer station and lower the electricity bill for nearby Shapleigh Middle School, the machine generated about 35,000 kilowatts from September 2008 until this fall, when hydraulic brakes malfunctioned, locking the blades in place.

Saco never got the $11,000 it was owed for the first year's performance guarantee. Kittery and Entegrity worked out a deal for the company to buy back the windmill, but the town hasn't received any payments, which were supposed to have started this summer.

Officials in both communities said they have been contacted by James A. Heath, president and chief executive officer of Entegrity Wind, which has production facilities on Prince Edward Island and offices in Boulder, Colo.

Heath has told them he hopes to "restart" the company and possibly work out new agreements with Saco and Kittery.

For Saco, that would mean fulfilling four more years of a service contract that was part of the cost of the machine. For Kittery, that means buying back the turbine and dismantling it.

In a telephone interview from his home in Sante Fe, N.M., Heath said he can't guarantee that he will be able to work out any agreements, or even that he will get financing to start a new company.

He said he feels an obligation to both Maine communities to try to work out deals if the company gets off the ground.

Heath said one of the company's salesmen was wrong even to pitch the turbines in New England. He said he takes responsibility because he failed to exercise "adult supervision" on a young, aggressive sales team.

He said the windmills work best on flat, open land, like in Texas and Oklahoma, where the wind is strong and steady. New England, with hills and tall trees, has obstructions that can make even seemingly windy spots less than ideal for windmills.

Heath said Entegrity never did extensive wind tests on either location in Maine, but relied on wind maps provided by scientific organizations, augmented with data from nearby airports and other sources. He said the company has refined its wind models since making the sales in Maine.

"With the models we have now, we would never have put either one of those machines in," Heath said. "They should never have been sold. I was never a fan of selling our machines in New England."

There are only a handful of the windmills in New England, he said, including older models in Burlington, Vt., and Orland (where the machine has been disassembled), the two in Saco and Kittery, and machines at homes in New Hampshire and Essex, Mass.

Carter hopes Heath can start a new company because the market for the windmill would probably be stronger if the manufacturer were back in business.

If not, he joked, Kittery could end up putting the windmill up for sale on eBay.

In the meantime, he's trying to find someone with experience working on windmills to climb up the tower and figure out how to release the brakes on the blades, which are 50 feet from tip to tip.

"While we've got it, we might as well use it," Carter said.

By EDWARD D. MURPHY, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, November 21, 2009


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