FAQs – Frequently asked questions
Hoosac wind power plant
Where will the Hoosac wind power plant be located?
The Hoosac wind power plant will be located in the Massachusetts towns of Florida and Monroe. It will cover two mountains flanking Tilda Hill Road: the Hoosac Range, and Crum Hill.
How many turbines will be in the Hoosac wind power plant?
Twenty wind turbines are planned: 11 on the Hoosac Range, and nine on Crum Hill.
What will be the total capacity of the Hoosac wind power plant?
The turbines proposed for Hoosac are rated at 1.5 megawatts (MW) each, for a total plant rating of 30 MW.
What will be the size of the turbines?
The turbines will each be 340 feet tall, from the base to blade tip at its highest point. This is roughly the size of a 34-story skyscraper.
How visible will be the turbines?
Each turbine will be lit with two white lights and two red lights. The white lights will flash constantly during the daytime. The red lights will flash constantly at night.
Turbine #16 will be the third highest point in Massachusetts. Only Mount Greylock and Saddle Ball Mountain will be taller.
Seven of the Hoosac turbines will be among the 10 highest points in the state.
Eleven of the turbines will be above 3,000 feet.
The turbines will be visible from many places in the Berkshires, as well as from parts of southern Vermont and a few spots in Eastern New York. Please click on our maps for more detail.
Who is proposing the Hoosac wind power plant?
Enxco, Inc. is the company proposing the plant. At least seven related entities are involved in the project: Enxco, Inc.; Enxco Development Corporation; Enxco (East Coast), Inc.; Enxco East Coast, Inc.; Hoosac Wind LLC; New England Wind LLC; and Northeast Wind LLC.
Enxco is a subsidiary of the EdF Group, 70% of which is owned by the French government.
Who is manufacturing the Hoosac wind turbines?
GE Wind Energy, a unit of GE Power Systems and part of General Electric, is the manufacturer of the Hoosac turbines.
How much electricity will Hoosac generate each year?
Enxco claims that Hoosac will produce 84,000 megawatt hours (MWh) annually, which is high compared with similar wind power plants.
Nonetheless, based on Enxco’s number, Hoosac will produce in one year the amount of electricity used in Massachusetts for half a day.
That is the equivalent of less than 14 one-hundredths of one percent of the state’s annual consumption.
At that rate, we will need 442 turbines on Berkshire mountains just to keep pace with the expected increase in the state's electricity consumption from 2006 through 2009.
Will Hoosac reduce air pollution in the Berkshires?
Hoosac will have no effect on air pollution in the Berkshires. It will not replace the output of any fossil-fuel power plant in the Berkshires.
Airborne pollutants from coal-fired plants in the Midwest will continue to fall on the Berkshires. The St. Lawrence cement factory, proposed in New York 16 miles west of the Berkshire County border, will burn 500,000,000 pounds of coal a year, with pollutants expected to spread over the Berkshires as they travel eastward on air currents.
Emissions from vehicles will also be unaffected by Hoosac.
Meanwhile, almost all emissions of power plants in Massachusetts are produced east of the Berkshires. Electricity consumption in Massachusetts is expected to increase 1.5% annually, which will outstrip any possible benefits to the state as a whole from wind turbines in the Berkshires.
How much pollution will Hoosac offset?
There is no generally accepted method for estimating the amount of pollution offset by wind power plants.
If 30 MW of the largest natural gas plant in Massachusetts were shut off for a full year to make room in the regional grid for Hoosac’s maximum capacity of 30 MW, just two tons of sulfur dioxide would be offset and less than eight tons of nitrogen oxides.
By comparison, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, cars and trucks produced 207 tons of sulfur dioxide and 5,357 tons of nitrogen oxides in Berkshire County during 1999, the most recent year for which EPA figures are available.
Enxco has relied upon out-of-date estimates to predict Hoosac’s future pollution offsets. That approach was recently discredited by the Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs in part because it fails to account for the dramatic downward trend in pollution emissions from power plants due to tough state laws and regulations.
Will Hoosac create jobs?
Wind power plants of Hoosac’s size typically create one or two jobs. Most of the plant’s management can be handled off-site with computers.
During construction, the majority of jobs will be filled by workers brought in by contractors and subcontractors because specialized skills are needed to build wind turbines.
Will Hoosac attract tourists to the Berkshires?
In the opinion of the director of the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, while there will always be someone willing to drive 150 miles to see a curiosity, wind turbines will not put ‘heads in beds.’ The Berkshire type of tourist will not come here to see turbines.
The Bureau has found through extensive studies of the Berkshire tourist and 20 years of experience that visitors to the Berkshires are seeking a premium cultural experience in a pastoral setting, such as is found nowhere else in America. The reason people come here is not to see industrial installations but to enjoy the scenic, rural, pastoral environment. The notion that tourists in the area might do a day trip to see the Hoosac turbines is not supported by the Bureau’s research, according to the director.
His perspective is echoed by tourism directors in other scenic destinations around the world who have objected strenuously to proposals for wind power plants.
Will Hoosac affect property values of nearby homes?
Based on the experience of people living near other wind power plants, yes. In Kewaunee County, Wisconsin, for example, a local official reported that because of unrelenting noise and other problems caused by the wind power plant there, the plant owner bought two nearby homes and tore them down, and two other neighbors have gone to court.
Will Hoosac affect the quality of life of its neighbors?
Yes. Common complaints of neighbors to other wind power plants cover such problems as television signal interference, mechanical and low-frequency noise, strobing shadows as the sun rises and sets behind spinning turbine blades, constantly flashing aircraft warning lights, and glint off the turbine blades. Increased lightning and stray voltage are other complaints.
Will Hoosac cause any negative environmental impacts?
Enxco will cut nearly 4 1/2 miles of new roads (some 35 feet wide) through forest, crossing more than a dozen streams and wetlands. The contours of the Hoosac and Crum Hill ridgelines will be cleared, blasted and filled to accommodate vehicles 135 feet long and weighing 197,000 pounds. (By comparison, state highways are designed for 67-foot vehicles.)
The Hoosac Range is a migratory route for hawks, golden eagles and bald eagles. As scientists are discovering at similar sites, bats are also vulnerable to injury and death from turbine blades. Protected plant species are on the property. One stream flows into a pond that has wild brook trout; it also flows into Dunbar Brook, designated by the state as a cold-water fishery.
Will Hoosac generate substantial tax revenues for the federal and state government?
No. As can be seen below, wind power projects like Hoosac drain money from taxpayers and electricity ratepayers.
How much tax revenue will Hoosac generate for the towns of Florida and Monroe?
According to an interpretation by a state employee, the Hoosac project will be exempt from local property taxes. The town administrator of Florida believes it will be subject to property taxes.
How much other revenue will Hoosac generate for the towns of Florida and Monroe?
Ten of the turbines are on town-owned land in Florida and Monroe (five in each town.) Each town will receive lease revenue based on the output of Hoosac’s turbines, and the cost of its electricity.
Under the lease terms, it appears that each town could receive anything from $188,000 down to $11,250 annually, depending upon the output of Hoosac’s turbines, and the price of its electricity.
Each town will also receive a $2,000 pre-operating payment.
Who will buy the Hoosac electricity?
Enxco has a contract with the Center of Ecological Technology (CET) to market electricity generated by Hoosac.
The State of Connecticut has paid pre-development costs for Hoosac as a partner with Enxco in Northeast Wind LLC. Under its laws, Connecticut must receive a direct benefit from its investment. So, an undisclosed portion of Hoosac’s output and Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) will go to Connecticut.
How much are we paying as taxpayers and electricity ratepayers for Hoosac?
Over the 15-year life of the Hoosac project, Enxco could reap more than $90 million in tax credits, renewable energy credits, and other subsidies, courtesy of taxpayers and ratepayers. In fact, Enxco is likely to profit more from the perks financed by taxpayers and ratepayers than from selling the electricity generated by the Hoosac turbines.
Enxco will receive at least $15 million in federal Production Tax Credits (PTCs) that can be used to reduce taxes on income from other operations. It will write off about $14 million in accelerated depreciation on its federal income taxes, reaping the full benefit over six years instead of the usual 20 years for conventional energy facilities.
At the state level, it will profit from a 100-percent corporate tax deduction on net income, which applies to all costs incurred for installing wind turbines. According to one source, it will be exempt from paying sales taxes on the turbine parts.
Locally, its Hoosac project appears likely to benefit from property tax exemptions, based on the interpretation of state law by a state employee.
Each year, Enxco could sell more than $4 million in Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from Hoosac that must be purchased by electricity retailers such as Mass. Electric. The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC), a state agency, has contracted to purchase $17 million of the RECs from year six through 15 of the plant’s operation. Consequently, over a 15-year period, the total value of the Hoosac RECs could climb above $60 million.
Here are the specific financial projections: 10 years of PTCs, $15,409,800; accelerated depreciation over six years, $14,000,000; 15 years of REC sales to electricity suppliers, $47,355,000; MTC purchase of RECs for years six through 15, $17,075,142.00, for a total cost of $93,839,942 to taxpayers and electricity ratepayers.
This total does not account for inflation (which would increase the value of PTCs), increased cost of RECs over the next few years, state corporate income tax deduction, property tax exemptions, or sales tax exemptions.
Does Enxco have all necessary permits for Hoosac?
No. A group of residents of the town of Florida has filed an appeal of a Wetlands Protection Act permit issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The group is concerned about environmental damages that will be caused by construction and operation of Hoosac. A group of residents of the state of Massachusetts has filed a motion to join the appeal as an “interested party.” Green Berkshires, Inc. is assisting both groups.
Enxco must also obtain a permit from the state Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program because the construction of Hoosac will destroy the habitat of a variety of goldenrod found in only a few places in the state.
The Massachusetts Highway Department must issue an overload permit and a curb cut permit.
It is the opinion of Green Berkshires, Inc. that Enxco must also obtain a permit from the U.S. Army Corps.
Enxco could be prosecuted under the federal Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act if any federally-protected birds are injured or killed by the Hoosac turbines.
When does Enxco expect to begin construction of the Hoosac wind power plant?
Enxco plans to begin building the roads for Hoosac in Spring 2005.
When will Hoosac begin operation?
Enxco expects Hoosac to begin operating at the beginning of 2006.