Details of the Wind Farm: Capacity

The Kingdom Community wind farm in Lowell proposed by Green Mountain Power will be 21 wind turbines, each with a generating capacity of 3 MW, for a total of 63 MW. The farm will be on top of a 3.5 mile stretch of a 2600 ft ridge line, and according to this piece, http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/61309/lowell-mountain-wind-turbine-facility-vermont, will generate the equivalent of just under 3% Vermont's annual consumption.

According to Vestas, wind energy costs (per MW) between $1.3 and $1.5 million, so the Lowell project will cost between $81.9 and $94.5 million, which appears to be significantly less than what was mentioned in this piece, which is a by man who seems to be against the wind farm: http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/61309/lowell-mountain-wind-turbine-facility-vermont

He says the wind farm will cost $157.5 million, or $2.5 million per MW.

With regard to the wind turbines being noisy, interestingly, Vestas, the Danish company that designs and sells the wind turbines that GMP has bought for Lowell, actually have put some special software in their 3MW turbines that they call 'noise modes', and that can lessen the noise of these, (whilst sacrificing some power generation, of course). Read the description: "The V90-3MW can be specified with one of five different 'noise modes'. Each mode is set in the turbine software as part of the installation, although may be changed to another mode later. Each different noise mode implies a different power curve, so that for quieter operation, some energy yield is sacrificed. Noise mitigation is managed by adjustments to the blade pitch angle." -Wikipedia page of for Vestas 3MW.

VPIRG made an info sheet about Wind farms in VT and especially Lowell: http://www.vpirg.org/files/windfactsheet.pdf

This is perhaps biased towards the wind farm but sheds a certain light on the health studies done on "Wind turbine syndrome."