Ohio Power Siting Board approves construction of Black Fork Wind Farm

Colum­bus, Ohio (Jan. 23, 2012) – The Ohio Power Sit­ing Board (OPSB) today approved an agree­ment that autho­rizes Black Fork Wind Energy to con­struct a wind farm along the Craw­ford and Rich­land county line. The facil­ity will con­sist of up to 91 wind tur­bines capa­ble of gen­er­at­ing a com­bined 200 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

Black Fork plans to begin con­struc­tion in March 2012 and to have the facil­ity online by Decem­ber. The com­pany esti­mates that between $51 and $69 mil­lion will be spent in the region on equip­ment, mate­ri­als, labor, and asso­ci­ated costs. The project is expected to cre­ate between 70 and 95 con­struc­tion jobs and 10 per­ma­nent positions.

In March 2011, Black Fork filed an appli­ca­tion with the OPSB to site a wind farm on 14,800 leased acres in Craw­ford and Rich­land coun­ties. After con­duct­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion of Black Fork’s pro­posal, the OPSB staff sub­mit­ted a sum­mary of its find­ings and rec­om­mended that the Board cer­tify con­struc­tion of the project with cer­tain modifications.

At a local pub­lic hear­ing held in Sep­tem­ber in Shelby, Ohio, 25 wit­nesses tes­ti­fied about the project. Sup­port­ers empha­sized the advan­tages of renew­able energy and the eco­nomic ben­e­fits for area schools and gov­ern­ments. Oppo­nents voiced con­cerns about noise and aes­thetic issues as well as poten­tial impacts to the local envi­ron­ment and pub­lic health.

In Octo­ber, Black Fork, the OPSB staff, Craw­ford County, and the Ohio Farm Bureau Fed­er­a­tion filed an agree­ment to resolve out­stand­ing issues in the case. The agree­ment rec­om­mended approval of the pro­posal sub­ject to 80 con­di­tions intended to mit­i­gate the eco­log­i­cal, envi­ron­men­tal, and social impacts of the project. These con­di­tions address con­cerns includ­ing tur­bine set­back, shadow flicker, noise, con­struc­tion dam­age to roads and agri­cul­tural land, and the decom­mis­sion­ing of the facility.

The OPSB is respon­si­ble for review­ing and cer­ti­fi­cat­ing plans for the con­struc­tion of new energy facil­i­ties in Ohio. Before any com­pany can build a major util­ity facil­ity, the OPSB ensures that the facil­ity will ben­e­fit Ohio’s cit­i­zens, pro­mote the state’s eco­nomic inter­ests, and pro­tect the envi­ron­ment and land use.

Under Ohio’s alter­na­tive energy port­fo­lio stan­dard, 25 per­cent of elec­tric­ity sold in Ohio must be gen­er­ated from alter­na­tive energy sources by 2025. At least half of this energy must come from renew­able energy sources, includ­ing wind, and one half of the renew­able energy facil­i­ties must be located in Ohio. With the addi­tion of the Black fork project, the OPSB has cer­tifi­cated nine wind farms across the state total­ing 662 tur­bines and 1,251 MW of gen­er­at­ing capacity.

Addi­tional infor­ma­tion regard­ing this project is avail­able at www.OPSB.ohio.gov.

Con­tact: Office of Pub­lic Affairs, (614) 466‑7750

Posted by Staff Reports on Jan 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.