FARMINGTON – A Canadian energy company filed an application Thursday with state land use regulators to install meteorological towers to collect wind data to determine whether to build a wind power farm north of Eustis off Route 27.
TransCanada Corp., a large North American natural gas transmission and power company with about $17 billion in assets, is considering building the project on four ridgelines in Kibby and Skinner townships in northern Franklin County, company project engineer Tom Patterson said Tuesday.
“We’re in the project-evaluation phase,” he said. “There are no guarantees we’re going to build it.”
The company expects to go through a full year of studies before deciding whether to submit an application for the project to the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission.
If the company does go forward with its proposal and receives permit approvals, it plans to start construction of the wind power project in August 2007 and to start commercial operations in December 2008.
The project has the potential to produce 200 megawatts of power, enough to satisfy the needs of 70,000 households, Patterson said, and would be about a $350,000 investment by the company.
It would provide up to 250 jobs at the peak of construction and 15 to 20 permanent jobs, he said.
The intent would be to connect into the Central Maine Power system and transmit power to the New England Power Pool.
TransCanada is the second company to consider building a wind power project in Franklin County.
Endless Energy Corp. of Yarmouth has built meteorological towers to collect data for its proposed wind farm on Redington Pond Range and Black Nubble Mountain in Redington Township.
Company President Harley Lee said Tuesday that he plans to submit an application to Land Use Regulation Commission for the project in the latter half of September.
If TransCanada decides to move forward with the Kibby project, it would be located 10 to 15 miles from the Canadian border and near the Somerset County line.
The company has an easement agreement with a landowner to develop the project on 3,767 acres of Kibby Mountain, Kibby Range, an unnamed mountain on the map and Caribou Mountain, Patterson said.
The land has the potential for 133 turbines, Patterson said. The turbines could be about 200 feet tall and have three blades.
An existing logging road network would be used to gain access to the project site, which is about 10 to 15 miles from the Appalachian Trail, Patterson said.
Another wind power initiative, the Kenotech Project, was slated for the same area about a decade ago and had all permit approvals, but the company ran out of money before the project could be built, Barton & Gingold President Elizabeth Swain said Tuesday.
The regulatory, environmental and public-policy management firm is working with TransCanada on the Maine project.
TransCanada is in the midst of developing a 740-megawatt wind power project in Quebec and expects to start construction by the end of 2006, Patterson said.
Patterson, company spokesman Kurt Kadatz and Swain planned to meet with Eustis selectmen Tuesday evening to inform them about the project.
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