Ribbon cutting ceremony held on Flagg Hill site

By Wiley Wood

Gregory Zupkus and Paul Corey of BNE Energy prepare to cut the inaugural ribbon at the Colebrook South wind farm, flanked by Bryan Garcia of Connecticut Green Bank, far left, State Representative Lezlye Zupkus, third from left, and State Representative Lonnie Reed, far right.

On the clear blue morning of October 15, the vanes of BNE Energy’s wind turbine No. 2 faced motionless into a moderate breeze from the northwest. A small crowd of company executives, state legislators, bankers and regulators gathered on the hilltop above Flagg Hill Road to mark the opening of Connecticut’s first wind farm. A ribbon fluttered between two posts.

“I’ve got good news for you,” said Paul Corey, a principal of BNE Energy, “this project is just about done.”

Eight years after securing the Colebrook site, and at a reported cost of $23 million, BNE Energy was poised to start feeding wind-generated electricity into the grid. “It’s all hooked up,” said Sam McGriff, a site foreman.

The hub sits 328 ft off the ground, and each of the blades is 168 ft long.

A bulldozer backed and filled near the base of the tower, as speakers praised the vision, hard work, persistence and commitment to clean energy that had transformed an 80-acre homestead in Colebrook’s southwest corner into a utility-scale generating facility.

The site’s two turbines are rated at 2.5 megawatts each. The company met a commercial operation date of October 13 and has a 20-year power-purchase agreement with Eversource Energy for 5 megawatts. “We see this as the future of Connecticut,” said Corey.

On a hot summer day, Connecticut presently uses approximately 6,000 megawatts of electricity. Joyce Hemingson of FairwindCT, a citizens’ group, reports that turbines in New England generate on average less than 30 percent of their rated capacity.

The hub, also called the nacelle, contains the generator.

The ribbon was cut, the blades rotated on their axis to catch the breeze, the turbine started to spin silently. “They’ll take it up to about half speed,” said McGriff, explaining that the blades could be trimmed like sails at the command of a computer, operated for this occasion from a laptop onsite.

A reporter asked Robert Stein, chairman of the Connecticut Siting Council, whether the turbines would have been permitted under the present setback regulations. “Just about,” said Stein.

The family of Dr. David Lawrence, who live on Flagg Hill Road across from the Colebrook South site, report feeling headaches and loss of balance since the turbine went into operation, according to Hemingson, as does Peg Papanek, a Norfolk resident on Schoolhouse Road.

Wind turbine syndrome is apparently caused by inaudible low-frequency waves, to which some people are particularly sensitive.

 Photos by Bruce Frisch.