Published on March 2, 2011
Darrell Cole
Amherst Daily News
AMHERST - A stalled wind project near Amherst has been given a new lease on life with the purchase of the project's assets by an Ontario company.
Sprott Power of Toronto is in the midst of purchasing the Amherst wind project from Acciona that was awarded the contract by Nova Scotia Power in 2008 to generate 30 megawatts of power through a wind farm on the marsh just outside town.
"We're just in the process of getting all the required consents transferred to us," Sprott Power CEO Jeff Jenner said. "It's an attractive project in that it has been worked on over a number of years and in our mind it's a near or ready-to-construct project that was available."
Sprott, headquartered in Toronto, is a relatively new player in the wind energy industry, but its executives bring lots of experience from working with Vestas Energy.
Acciona announced in May 2008 that it was investing $55 million in the wind farm that could include 20 turbines. The project ground to a halt in March 2009 when Acciona said it was not in a position to continue because liquidity for large capital projects was tight and that the Amherst project was extremely capital intensive.
Jenner said his company plans to erect 15 turbines on the marsh with each turbine being about 90 metres in height.
