By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — As mentioned by Board of Trustees member Kay Rand during the June 8 meeting of the Loring Development Authority, members of the board will need to decide whether to focus their developmental efforts on aviation or wind power in the near future.
A representative of Iberdrola Renewables presented a detailed scenario to the LDA Board of Trustee in May, proposing that 100 or more 2-megawatt wind turbines rooted at the commerce centre could create 50 full-time direct jobs and 500 construction jobs. While the feasibility of a wind project of this proposed magnitude remains unclear and a means to transport the energy to the larger New England power grid does not exist, the two entities have looked into an Exclusive Negotiation Agreement.
“[The agreement] might enable the parties to move forward with the evaluation of the opportunity without making any irrevocable commitments, except that Iberdrola would be guaranteed that during the due diligence/evaluation phase, LDA would not negotiate with any of its competitors in the wind generation business,” explained LDA President and CEO Carl Flora.
While the lack of a transmission line remains an issue — energy produced in Aroostook County has no where to go without a transmission line to connect that energy with the larger New England grid unless arrangements are made to send the energy to New Brunswick — one Loring company is looking solve that problem; Loring Bio Energy representatives are looking to use the Searsport-Loring corridor to drop their own private transmission line, financed by consumers who buy the energy in ISO New England.
Hayes Gahagan of Loring Bio Energy attended the meeting with new president of Shaw Capital, LBE and affiliated companies Craig Pierce.
During his president’s report, Flora updated the board on another potential energy technology looking to establish operations at Loring: Laser Power Systems/Red Hawk Metals. Because of the company uses new energy technology based on thorium and lasers, Flora visited founder Dr. Charles Stephens in Connecticut in early May to view production of the technology and presented his findings to the Board during their last meeting. His report included an estimated that a commercial demonstration of the proposed unit is still three to six months away.
Another energy project looking to root at Loring, Flora gave a status update of The Power Company, a firm looking to utilize otherwise undevelopable land as a site for a solar farm. According to Flora, The Power Comnany is nearing the completion of its feasibility study of the site and project managers are optimistic of their findings, though funding remains an issue.