Wind turbine public input to be sought

The meetings will be held in four communities: Barrington, Port LaTour, Woods Harbour and Cape Sable Island.

The framework for discussions will be developed by senior planner, Brad Fulton, in conjunction with other members of the Municipality of Barrington planning advisory committee.

“It’s a very topical issue all around the Province,” says Fulton.

“Many municipalities are wrestling with developing provisions to allow for wind energy. It’s a hot topic for all kinds of good reasons. When you stop to think of it, 85 to 89 per cent of Nova Scotia’s energy is derived from burning coal. That’s a little mind blowing. As Nova Scotians, we probably have the worst carbon footprint in all of North America. We should all be horribly embarrassed.”

The erection and use of the smaller wind turbines will require amendments to the Municipal Planning Strategy and Land Use By-Law.

Bylaws for large windmills that supply all of their energy to Nova Scotia power grids are already in place.

Fulton says in some cases, businesses owning the smaller wind turbines can participate in the Nova Scotia Power program called Net Metering. The program is available to residential and commercial customers that have small renewable energy generating units (100 kilowatts or less).

A meter monitors power created by the renewable energy system and also records conventional electricity consumption from Nova Scotia Power's system.

If the renewable energy system produces more power than consumed, it is then delivered to the provincial grid and the customer receives an energy credit that can be applied against any future usage.

The small wind turbine issue is in the discussion stage with the planning committee now, but action is expected after the municipal election on Oct. 18.

Once the public participation meetings have been completed, regulation will be formulated and then a second public consultation will be held explaining the proposed regulations to the public.

Finalized regulations will be recommended to council, which will then hold their public hearing and adopt or amend the regulations.