Alabaster Wind Power Development Corporation (Alabaster Wind Power) has received approval for wind power plant from the Alabaster township trustees. The project has been proposed for the former U.S. Gypsum tramway on Lake Huron and on company property between US-23 and Rempert road. Alabaster Wind Power will need to raise an estimated $500,000 for the initial first phase.
“It has the potential to be a fairly significant project,” said Alabaster Township Supervisor Stephanie Wentworth. “AWPDC will be seeking initial funding from various sources to gather wind data and determine whether wind power generating plants at its potential sites are commercially feasible.”
But the project is at least two years away, according to David Mikelonis of Jackson, a retired Consumers Energy general counsel who is one of three partners in the proposed project. That’s because “you need up to two years of actual wind data,” Mikelonis said, in order to assess whether the project would be commercially feasible.
Mikelonis said that he was partnering with an attorney in a Detroit law firm and HGP, Inc. of Greenville, South Carolina, an engineering/consulting firm, for the proposed project.
“There’s a lot we still have to do,” Mikelonis said. “It’s early in the game.”
Wentworth further continued that the AWPDC was a newly-organized Michigan non-profit corporation designed to “produce tangible economic and financial benefits for Alabaster Township and other public charities in or near Iosco County.”
Mikelonis said that the non-profit status was necessary for Alabaster Wind Power to seek grant funding for gathering wind data at the sites. He added wind turbines and transmission lines are expensive and the project could easily run into the millions of dollars.
While Alabaster stands to benefit economically in the long run, Wentworth said that no funding for gathering wind data was being sought from the township.
“We were looking at it while walking the beach,” Mikelonis said. “As alternative energy started to get more important, we started thinking, ‘Why not put turbines on those platforms?’”
Part of the plan is also to form a partnership with U.S. Gypsum, officials said, for use of the Alabaster Wind Power’s land and platforms. Other requirements include getting permits and working with the state to get a lease for the bottom lands, which was terminated when U.S. Gypsum stopped using the tram line, Wentworth said.
“This is pretty exciting,” Wentworth said, “but it’s very early in the process with many details to be worked out.”