State siting board approves Lewis County wind farm

LOWVILLE — The New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment (Siting Board) on Nov. 12 granted approval to Number Three Wind, LLC to construct and operate a wind farm in Lewis County.

The Siting Board’s decision followed “an extensive review and public participation process to ensure that the wind farm meets or exceeds all siting requirements,” according to a release from the Siting Board.

The 105.8-megawatt (MW) Number Three Wind project will consist of 31 turbines — 13 to be located in the Town of Lowville and 18 to be deployed in the Town of Harrisburg.

In addition to the turbines, project facilities will include access roads, electric collection lines, a project substation, meteorological towers, an operation and maintenance building, and electrical interconnection facilities, the release stated. The project will be interconnected to the grid via an overhead 115-kV interconnection line about four miles long from a project substation to a new 115-kV switchyard in the Town of Lowville, to be built adjacent to National Grid’s existing Lowville-Bremen 115 kV line.

The facility will be located on about 8,000 acres of leased or owned property. The developer contends the project will have positive economic impacts of five permanent jobs, temporary construction employment, lease payments to landowners, and a new source of revenue for schools, fire departments, county government, and town governments. Number Three Wind — an affiliate of Chicago–based Invenergy, LLC — estimated that the project construction will create about 50 jobs with a payroll of $4.2 million.

The Siting Board said it determined that the wind farm will be a “beneficial addition to the electric generation capacity” of the state and is consistent with the state’s energy policy and planning objectives. The facility will also serve the goals of improving fuel diversity, grid reliability, and modernization of grid infrastructure. Fuel diversity will be improved through generation of electricity with wind power rather than with fossil fuels; grid reliability will be enhanced through additional generation of power from a separate site through a different energy source; and modernization of the grid will result from construction of a new electric-generating facility, the Siting Board added.

Number Three Wind stated that it expects to enter into a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) agreement with the Lewis County Industrial Development Agency and it will be subject to special district taxes. Based on similar arrangements at other wind projects in New York, Number Three Wind estimates the project will generate “substantial tax revenue for the county, towns, school districts, and fire departments that serve the parcels where the project facilities will be located.” The release didn’t provide estimated dollar amounts for the PILOT agreements.