The Groton Wind project, 24 wind turbines total, is very, very, very visible from the Route 25-Tenney Mountain Highway in Plymouth, at Exit 26-Route 93. About eight of the 400-ft high, wind turbines can be seen from Route 93 just before and after Exit 25 as one goes north, when the leaves are off the trees. About four of the 24 wind turbines which were installed from July to December 2012, are up on the ridgeline on top of the no longer operating Tenney Mountain ski area.
The newly installed powerline which has huge wood utility poles runs down the Tenney Mountain Hgwy in Plymouth, a busy commercial road.
So, who benefits from the Groton wind farm being there and creating electricity that gets sold to N-Star in Boston?
Iberdrola Electric Utility of Spain, the owner and builder in 2012, must maybe benefit because they try to make money out of it.
The Town of Groton, NH,
www.town-of-groton.com (has a small link to Groton Wind) gets about $22,500/year for each of the 24-wind turbines from Iberdrola and enough of the voters in Groton voted yes to the Groton wind project a couple years earlier to let it get built, along with the NH state agencies that also approved it.
About maybe seven miles to the east, abutting the Plymouth town line, and very close to Route 93, in Bridgewater, NH, there's the Bridgewater Power Co., which creates electricity by burning up wood chips. Tractor trailers of wood chips get hoisted way up into the air on a large truck lift and the wood chips are used to fuel up the power plant. This Bridgewater Power plant has been there for maybe 20-years, and it has one tall single stack that emittes a stream of white hot emissions from the burning of the wood chips.
For maybe 20-years, the Bridgewater Power plant has been making electricity and it has received no-where near the negative local reactions like what the Groton Wind project has received. People in Bridgewater probably tend to like the Bridgewater Power plant because it is, by far, the largest property tax payer in town, plus it was built on an unpopulated corner of Bridgewater that abutts the neighboring Town of Plymouth. After seeing the Groton Wind wind turbines, there's plenty of local residents who do not want similar wind turbines cluttering up their view, as seen from their homes.......and for good reason......just go take a look-see for yourself.
Similarly, the Town of Ashland has a very unattractive cell phone tower in their waste water treatment facility, next to the Pemigewisett River, that hugely impacts the people just across the river in Bridgewater, but is not really too visible to any residents in Ashland. The Town of Ashland receives maybe $1800/month in rent for letting the cell tower to be built on its property.
And, who else benefits from the Groton Wind farm of 24 towers........I dunno.......anybody?
By getting to watch the large mountain top windmills spin around as you drive down Tenney Mountain Hgwy.......is that a benefit....maybe it is at first sight....but after a while they start to get old you know......hmmmmm? Now, if I were getting $22,500/year/wind turbine, then they would definately be very attractive to look at to me.....but all things considered.....without personally getting the money payout.....they do not look too nice!