Task force seeks uniform siting standards for turbines

Responding to counties and towns that are restricting development of small wind farms, one lawmaker plans to introduce a bill that would call for similar standards to be enacted for wind turbines across Wisconsin. The proposed bill was among the initiatives recommended by the state’s Task Force on Global Warming. In a report last week, the panel, composed of utilities, environmental groups and industry, recommended that the state enact the wind-siting changes.

Local ordinances that restrict wind power could make it harder to reach the goal, required by state law, for Wisconsin to generate 10% of its power from renewable energy by 2015, the task force said.

Drafts of the bill were being circulated and revised last week in Madison. A hearing on the bill could take place this week.

“The way things stand now, it’s easier to build a 100-megawatt wind farm in this state than it is to put up two or three turbines,” said Roy Thilly, chairman of the task force and president of Wisconsin Public Power Inc., a consortium of municipally owned utilities.

State law requires state regulators to approve large wind farms but leaves the decision-making on smaller projects to local units of government.