IPSWICH — The town is out more than $25,000 after the company that was going to build a wind turbine on Town Line Road went bankrupt.
Ipswich had paid a deposit to AAER Inc., a company in Bromont, Quebec, but in late spring, the firm declared bankruptcy, selectmen Chairman Charles Surpitski said. Earlier this month, a court in Quebec ruled against including Ipswich among the company's creditors.
Though some of AAER's assets were bought by Pioneer Power Solutions, a technology firm in Fort Lee, N.J., in June, the purchase did not include contracts, such as Ipswich's.
The town's loss represents 1 percent of the project's $2.5 million expense, which Tim Henry, director of the Ipswich Utilities Department, described as "a joint project between the electric department and the schools" that would eventually provide energy for use in school buildings.
"Enthusiasm for the project is still there," Surpitski said, pointing out that designs for a turbine base were still valid. The town has issued a request for proposals to build a turbine for that base and another RFP for "qualifications for firms to potentially develop a second site," Henry said.
"Larger companies, like GE, are not interested in building single turbines," Henry said, to partly explain how AAER had been approached for the project.
Wind Power Monthly reported in March that AAER had reduced its staff to six people, from an initial 72, after failing to secure a contract with Hydro-Quebec electricity company.
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