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Introduction Rhode Island Renewable Energy Siting Partnership
Potential drawbacks to renewable energy While renewable energy is of interest to many stakeholders because of the benefits cited
above, it should be noted that no energy source is entirely free of consequences. While renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower may avoid many of the downsides
associated with the burning of fossil fuels, they may nonetheless have negative impacts that communities should consider. Previous experience around the world suggests that renewable
energy facilities, when not sited appropriately, can on occasion have deleterious effects on local quality of life and wildlife populations. In contrast to conventional energy sources, which tend to
have negative externalities that are spread over large regions e.g., air pollution or the entire globe e.g., climate change, the externalities of renewable energy sources may be highly
localized e.g., acoustic impacts of wind turbines, leading affected residents to feel that they are disproportionately affected.
For these reasons, the RESP does not take a one-sided stance in favor of renewable energy promotion. Instead, the RESP adopts a neutral stance and strives to shed light on both the
opportunities and negative consequences associated with development of this new industry in Rhode Island, so that municipalities in the state can make informed decisions tailored to their
own unique local circumstances and preferences. Above all, the intent of the RESP is to promote careful siting and planning as tools to help municipalities attain the benefits of renewable energy
without causing inadvertent impacts on local residents and wildlife.
2. O
BJECTIVES OF THE
RESP
URI’s Coastal Resources Center CRCR.I. Sea Grant and the URI Outreach Center formally initiated the RESP process in August 2011 and concluded it in December 2012. The
goal of the RESP was not to promote renewable energy or to determine the best spots in the state to site renewable energy projects. Rather, in light of
Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Standard mandate
to obtain 16 of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2019, and the growing interest in renewable energy around the state as a route to economic development and
environmental protection, the RESP set out to collect and synthesize information that would serve local decision makers and stakeholders as they make siting and permitting decisions in
their own communities. The focus of the RESP was limited to potential onshore wind energy projects between
100 kW and 1.5 MW, low-head hydroelectric power on existing dams in the state, and solar power facilities of at least 1 MW located on closed landfills. These categories were selected
because they represented the most common types of onshore renewable energy projects under consideration at the time by municipalities, state agencies, and other private and public entities
with an interest in renewable energy. Residential wind energy projects typically less than 100 kW may also have potential to help satisfy renewable energy goals, and are actively being
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pursued around the state; however, since the impacts of residential wind projects on the environment and surrounding community are generally less significant, they do not call for
evaluation through an extensive scientific and stakeholder process like that represented by the RESP.
As part of the RESP process, the CRCR.I. Sea Grant and URI Outreach Center distributed funds among research teams at URI to gather, interpret, and analyze existing and
original data on renewable energy potential and impacts in Rhode Island and elsewhere. These projects included the following:
Wind resource assessment and facility siting methodology Dr. Annette Grilli and Malcolm Spaulding, URI Graduate School of Oceanography
Acquisition and analysis of wind profile data at selected sites Dr. John Merrill, URI Graduate School of Oceanography
Development of a model to predict acoustic and flicker fields associated with wind turbine operation Dr. Gopu Potty and Dr. Jim Miller, URI Graduate School of
Oceanography Analysis of potential electromagnetic interference with communication systems from
wind turbines Dr. Gopu Potty and Dr. Jim Miller, URI Graduate School of Oceanography
Assessment of regulatory and scientific information on the ecology of birds and bats using terrestrial areas of Rhode Island Dr. Peter Paton, URI Department of Natural
Resources Provision of geographic information systems support and construction of a web-based
decision support tool for renewable energy siting Chris Damon, URI Environmental Data Center
Assessment of the potential for landfill solar power in Rhode Island URI Outreach Center
Assessment of the potential for hydropower facilities at existing dams URI Outreach Center
Development of the RIEnergy.org
website URI Outreach Center Assessment of the financial feasibility and economic impacts of renewable energy
projects Dr. James Opaluch, URI Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
The results of these projects are available in their entirety in Volume 2 Technical Reports of the present report; they also form much of the basis for Volume 1 Summary Document.
In addition, the CRCR.I. Sea Grant and URI Outreach Center conducted an integrated stakeholder outreach and engagement process to incorporate public knowledge and preferences
for siting and permitting of renewable energy in the state. As part of this effort, the RESP hosted monthly general stakeholder meetings, field trips to current renewable energy sites, a traveling
library lectures series, two targeted hydropower stakeholder workshops, a Renewable Energy Day, a series of Municipal Working Group meetings, and a series of Wind Energy Siting
Working Group meetings. The RESP stakeholder process helped inform both the RESP research
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and production of the RESP findings document, and is described in detail in Chapter 6 of this volume.
3. A
