Wind power projects’ size worries officials

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Wind power critics say they’re alarmed by the scale of wind power development proposals in Maine.

Maine figures into competition to provide clean energy to Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, with companies submitting bids to build wind farms in Aroostook County and the western mountains.

The projects would more than triple the state’s turbine capacity.

Chris O’Neil, a spokesman for Friends of Maine’s Mountains, told the Portland Press Herald that the projects would turn the state “into a wind plantation.”

But Patrick Woodcock, the governor’s energy director, is tamping down impressions that all of the projects would be built. There were dozens of different proposals, and he says that it’s not possible for all of them to become reality.