Winds Of Change | American Pro Wind's founder, Maurizio Caparrotta is getting closer to transforming Douglas with a $75 million wind turbine project.
Photo/Edd Cote
Photo/Edd Cote
AIR SUPPLY: Members of the Douglas board of selectmen, Jeffrey Laporte (left) and Paula Brouillette (second from right), meet with Maurizio Caparrotta (second from left) and Rod JanÃ&Copy; (left) from American Pro Wind.
For years, officials in Douglas have been trying to lure the right developer to build something on an almost 300-acre parcel off Route 16 adjacent to Douglas State Forest.
But with limited highway access and no installed water or sewer capacity, the right developer just never got very far.
Douglas Town Engineer William Cundiff, however, is confident officials have found the right use for the property now.
If built as proposed, the site would host the state’s largest onshore wind farm.
American Pro Wind of Weymouth has proposed to construct an 11-turbine, $75 million wind farm on the land bordering Webster.
The project is only a couple of state and town approvals short of construction. And if workers begin laying the ground work for the project before year’s end, it would qualify for a nearly $19 million rebate from the federal government.
“I’ve been here 10 years and I’ve never seen a project get such support,” Cundiff said.
From Thin Air
American Pro Wind was founded by Maurizio Caparrotta, a former executive at State Street Bank in Boston who later worked on commercial and residential development projects for Seven Hills Corp., a Weymouth-based development organization.
Caparrotta began studying sites to place wind turbines after he saw them being installed in his hometown of Hull. He and his partners reviewed possible development sites based on available space and wind speeds and eventually found the Douglas property, which is located just south of Route 16.
Rod Jané, president of the Westborough-based project management firm New England Expansion Strategies, which is working with American Pro Wind on the Douglas project, said Caparrotta hopes to develop other wind farm projects around the state and New England in future years as well.
Thanks to a tax-increment financing deal, the Douglas Woods Wind Farm project will not have to pay full taxes for the first 15 years. The town estimates it will collect $2.5 million from the project over that 15-year period.
American Pro Wind officials first met with town representatives in late 2008 to review the idea with the town’s economic development commission.
A wind tower has been on the Douglas site for 12 months, establishing that the wind speeds are sufficient to make the project a go.
One issue the project ran into in the early stages was that zoning rules in Douglas did not specifically allow wind turbines to be built, but it didn’t restrict them either. Like many communities across Massachusetts, zoning laws simply do not address the renewable energy source.
So, the town’s zoning board of appeals handled the case like any other variance to the town’s bylaws. By May 2009 the ZBA approved the project and in a November town meeting, voters unanimously approved a measure to allow the project to pay a discounted tax rate during the first 15 years, known as a TIF.
Meanwhile, the town had also received a $250,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to develop rules and regulations for wind turbine construction, which town voters eventually adopted.
The newly passed bylaws restricted how large a turbine can be and its distance from the nearest structure. The Douglas Woods Wind Farm project, as proposed, did not meet those regulations.
So, in mid-June, American Pro Wind developers went back to town voters to exempt the project from having to comply with the town’s new wind turbine bylaws.
The 101-1 vote cleared the project to move forward and marked what the developers and town officials see as likely the last major hurdle before construction can start.
If built as proposed, the wind farm would produce a total of about 27.5 megawatts of electricity, or about 60 to 64 million kilowatt hours per year. That’s enough to power the complete needs of the towns of Webster and Douglas combined.
Each of the towers will be 100 meters tall, with a 50-meter blade, for a total height of 150 meters. The project must gain three permits from local baords and must be reveiwed by the state.
American Pro Wind is set to finalize financing for the project within the coming weeks after all approvals are gained. The project also recently secured a contract with NStar to be a purchaser of power.
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