A backer of a $70-million wind farm on Digby Neck says the ill winds blowing through Wall Street won’t delay the project, even though one of the major players is affiliated with the troubled global investment bank Lehman Bros.
SkyPower, a 50 per cent partner in the Digby project, is identified on its website as a Lehman Bros. company. In news releases the renewable energy developer says it has been affiliated with the investment bank since 2007.
Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy protection this week, sparking a financial crisis that sent the markets into a tailspin.
Barry Zwicker, president of Scotian WindFields, the other major player in the 1,100-hectare wind park, said Tuesday he had been in touch with SkyPower representatives and has been assured it is business as usual.
"It’s unfortunate and it will cause some confusion for a while, but SkyPower is working away," he said.
Vikaas Rao-Aourpally, a principal with the Toronto firm, answered his office phone Tuesday but referred requests for information to media spokesman Aaron Peters. Mr. Peters didn’t return repeated calls Tuesday.
The wind park is to feature 20 General Electric wind turbines and generate enough energy to power 10,000 homes. The 1.5-megawatt units are to be installed during the summer of 2009 on either side of Highway 217 in the Rossway-Gullivers Cove area of Digby Neck, some 12 to 15 kilometres west of Digby.
The partnership has a 20-year purchase agreement with Nova Scotia Power for the wind-generated electricity
Mr. Zwicker said that as a result of SkyPower’s relationship with Lehman Bros. the group had been looking to the investment bank to play a lead role in financing, but now he doesn’t expect that to happen.
"We always had a fallback position," he said in a telephone interview. "We were never reliant on Lehman Bros. We always said we would make the best deal for the project."
He said the group would be looking for additional financing options, but aside from that the normal development activity was taking place. That work includes submitting an environmental assessment application to the federal and provincial governments over the next 10 days and finalizing the layout of the turbines on the site.
Terry Thibodeau, the economic development officer responsible for renewable energy with the Annapolis Digby Economic Development Agency, said he had no concerns about the future of the project.
"This project’s going forward. SkyPower is not totally funded by Lehman Bros.," he said. "As far as I understand, it’s still a go."
1 comment:
Erin Baerwald, the grad student studying bats and wind turbines, was interviewed on Quirks and Quarks yesterday.
She said that bat mortality had not been a problem until the newest generation of taller turbines were installed. The mortality with taller turbines is about 30 bats per turbine per year. These are not local bats but tree dwelling bats participating in long range migrations. Theses bats prefer to fly on nights with low wind speeds. These bat species have not been widely studied, so noone knows much about numbers, threats to populations or migratory patterns.
Solutions are being tested. For the turbines already installed ( and proposed) in Nova Scotia nothing need be done. Taller turbines than these can be shut off when winds are light at night during bat migration season. With this simple solution , the bats will be fine and electrical production will be minimally impacted during short spring and fall periods.
John McManus
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