A moratorium on wind-related projects in Mercer County has blocked the construction of a wind farm, making Mercer the second county in central North Dakota to enact anti-wind ordinances. The county's two-year moratorium, designed to block the construction of a proposed Garrison Butte Wind Farm by Alberta-based company Capital Power, was announced at a packed Mercer County Commission meeting July 1 in which both coal industry workers and wind advocates gave passionate pleas for the future of energy in the county.

The Reno County Planning Commission agreed after about a 90-minute public hearing on Thursday to amend county zoning regulations on commercial wind developments. The submitted regulations call for a minimum setback of 10 ½ times the overall height of the turbine from the property line of a nonparticipating landowner that contains a residence, though a property owner can give written permission to build within 1.5 times the height of the turbine. The turbines in the NextEra proposal were just under 300 feet tall, though the blades make the overall height almost 500 feet, so that would make the proposed distance 5,250 feet or just under a mile. The group’s proposal would require setbacks of 2 miles from incorporated cities and schools and 5 miles from airports.

Carbon County Court of Common Pleas Judge Steven R. Serfass has denied a land use appeal filed by Atlantic Wind LLC and the Bethlehem Authority, seeking to erect a wind turbine project in Penn Forest Township.

After hearing a constant barrage of complaints from Logan County residents in the Fleming area about NextEra Energy’s Niyol Wind Farm, the planning commission voted 4-2 to table conditional use permit applications for up to 82 wind turbines in the area west and south of Fleming. The commission did, however, approve a permit for a meteorological tower to measure wind in the area.

The Farmersville Town Board passed a Wind Energy Facilities Law Monday night after nearly an hour of comments during a “virtual public hearing.”...The local law was similar to the one approved on a similar 3-2 vote in January, doubling the setbacks of turbines to 3,000 feet, decreasing the height of turbines to 450 feet from 600 feet and limiting noise from wind energy projects like the proposed 340 megawatt Alle-Catt Wind Farm....Aaron Saykin of Hodson Russ, a law firm representing Invenergy, the parent company of Alle-Catt Wind Farm, said the public hearing was not properly advertised and suggested that Deputy Supervisor Mark Heberling had a conflict of interest in that his wife, Ginger Schroder, an attorney, was representing opponents to the wind farm. The 3-2 vote on the local law was not unexpected. It is the same vote as on the similar local law passed in January.

An appeal of the design for a wind energy project in the hills south of Lompoc was denied Tuesday by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, which previously denied an appeal of the land use permit granted by the County Planning Commission.

State utility regulators have thrown out the application for permission to raise a single industrial-grade wind turbine on a farm field in Holland — ending the last active petition for a major wind project in Vermont.

Members of the Buchanan County Commission say their vote to ban wind farms in the county is based on information received by the Planning and Zoning Commission during several meetings and public hearings. Presiding Commissioner Lee Sawyer says no one testified on behalf of wind energy at the public hearings. Opponents were worried about property values.

The Honolulu City Council Zoning Committee approved the resolution last week banning installation of the windmills within 5 miles of neighboring properties, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Sunday. City officials warned the change would essentially eliminate future development of wind farms anywhere on Oahu. The resolution must be passed by the full city council before going into effect. Councilwoman Heidi Tsuneyoshi introduced the resolution in response to an outcry from residents in Kahuku over the development of the Na Pua Makani wind-power project.

On a 2 to 1 vote, the North Dakota Public Service Commission failed to approve the siting application for a wind farm in Ward and McLean Counties.