American Electric Power may have pulled the plug on a multi-million dollar wind farm in southern Jay and northern Randolph counties.

While local officials were waiting for a call this week announcing that a developer had been chosen for the Bluff Point wind farm in Jay and Randolph counties, the call that came in was something else.

“We got some rather unfortunate news (Monday) about the wind farm situation,” Jay County Development Corp. executive director Bill Bradley said Tuesday. “AEP has decided to proceed with a project over in Grant, Howard and Madison counties where they’re putting in a new wind farm over there.”

Pike Township farmer Bob Lyons, who has spearheaded efforts to develop a local wind farm almost since the beginning, said Tuesday he is upset that the decision was made so late in the process — even while conceding it makes good business sense for AEP.

“It just breaks my heart, because we worked our ass off trying to get this done,” Lyons said. “At this point, if nothing else happens, there won’t be a wind farm. The day before yesterday, I would have bet 10-to-1, 100-to-1 there would. I just can’t believe it.”AEP had originally planned to develop a 120-megawatt wind farm locally comprised of 87 turbines, but bid the project earlier this year as a 100-megawatt farm with 67 turbines.

While AEP had proposed paying 50 percent of the $180 million in development costs for the Bluff Point project, E.ON Climate and Renewables North America has agreed to pay all upfront costs for the project in Grant, Howard, Madison and Tipton counties, Bradley and Lyons said Tuesday.

Since AEP will be proceeding with the E.ON project, it will look to shop the shovel-ready Bluff Point project to other interested developers, Lyons and Bradley said.

“It’s going to save them over $100 million in new capital investment and provide them with the extra energy and the extra power that they need,” Bradley said of AEP and the E.ON project. “From what they told us, they’re going to actively market this site down here to other developers who … would market the power to other energy companies.”

Although the testing and permitting are all completed and the farm is essentially ready for construction, one hitch in the process is that a developer coming in will need to find another company willing to buy the energy generated as AEP is the dominant energy provider in the region.

“They’re trying to market this to somebody who just wants to build a wind farm, but that guy’s got one problem, he’s got to find a buyer for the power,” Lyons said. “If there was a buyer for the power, I think that would make it a whole lot easier to make this happen.”

Another factor in the potential sale of the wind farm plans is that land leases for sites in Jay County expire Feb. 14, Lyons said. AEP could choose to renew those leases if the project does not sell.

“I’m not willing to just junk it, but come Feb. 14, if they don’t have this done and they don’t ask us for a renewal of our lease, then it is dead in the water,” Lyons said.

Although AEP appears to have passed on the project at the last minute, Bradley and Lyons remain optimistic that the plans could be picked up by another developer.

“It’s shovel ready,” Bradley said. “The permits are in place. We have our wind ordinance in place. We’ve been working very closely with Randolph County and have a very good working relationship with them. … There are a lot of things in place.”

“I have to say I’m optimistic, I’m always optimistic. The pieces of the puzzle are in place,” Bradley said. “The due diligence has been done. It’s not like it’s a green space right now that’s saying ‘We think we want it.’ We know we’ve got wind, we know we’ve got the raw materials that the companies need, now it’s just a matter of finding the right match.”

“We’ve got the transmission lines. We’ve got the option to expand the (Bluff Point) substation back there,” Lyons said. “We’ve got everything in place plus both counties are real acceptable to this — contrary to Mercer County (Ohio), for example, which was fighting it.”
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