enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Art gallery owner Elaine Crossman happily anticipates lower electric bills, especially with her gallery’s high lighting requirements. Islanders are hopeful that the project will at least stabilize, and ideally reduce, their energy costs.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Bill Haley lives only a couple hundred yards from the wind turbines. He finds the noise bothersome and fears it’s negatively affecting his family’s quality of life.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Three new wind turbines loom over a returning ferry from Vinalhaven. The turbines are expected to generate enough power annually to meet island demand, with excess power sold into the grid. The project is regarded as a model for other Maine islands and coastal communities.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Cheryl Lindgren, who lives less than a mile from the turbines and supported the project, says she finds the noise is greater than she’d been led to expect.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Vinalhaven historically has generated its own power, through hydropower and, at one time, a coal-fueled power plant. Now the local electric cooperative’s turbines will light residents’ homes, like these overlooking lobster and bait rafts in the harbor.

VINALHAVEN — In the distance, the dark, low expanse of the island is punctuated by three white lines jutting through the horizon.

Three giant wind turbines rise from the interior of the island, visible from miles away, above pines, above homes, above Vinalhaven's granite bones.

And on Tuesday, the $14.5 million Fox Islands Wind project officially goes on line with a ribbon-cutting event, marking the completion of Maine's first island wind project. It's also the largest community-owned wind project on the East Coast.

Vinalhaven itself is a step back in time, a small, close community that looks out for its own. Stacks of lobster traps adorn the docks, and the cut granite that has been the island's industry for more than 100 years is everywhere.

The island has long generated its own power. Tidal waters flow under the Tidewater Motel, through the remains of a mill system that once used hydropower to run a granite cutting operation and a blacksmith's bellows with a network of belts. At one time, a coal-fueled power plant operated near where the ferry landing sits today.

But now the island is an outpost for renewable energy, and that's not lost on its residents.

"Personally, I think they're fabulous, wonderful," said Elaine Crossman, owner of the New Era Gallery in downtown Vinalhaven. "I'm so impressed with us – I like that we're on the edge."

Sitting in the back seat of her cousin's SUV on the 8:45 a.m. ferry from Rockland, knitting a prayer shawl, Annette Philbrook said she was "tickled to death" by the wind project.

"I just think it lends a lot of energy to Vinalhaven," said Philbrook, who's lived on the island for 75 years. "We'll be one of the only islands that's got them."

Philbrook meant more than just electrical energy. Since Cianbro Corp. began building the 250-foot towers, the project has become a real attraction. People have been coming to the island just to see the turbines, said Philbrook.

Gov. John Baldacci, a strong proponent of wind power, said he wasn't surprised at the islanders' pride in the new project.

"It's almost like a Statue of Liberty – it represents our community's, and our state's, and our country's energy independence," said Baldacci, who plans to attend Tuesday's event.

Baldacci said Maine is looking to diversify its energy sources, looking at alternatives including solar, tidal, wind, biomass and others. The Fox Islands Wind project is a good template for what could be done in other communities, said Baldacci.

Vinalhaven is the largest of Maine's 15 year-round islands, and sits about a dozen miles off the mainland. Vinalhaven and the adjacent North Haven are connected to the mainland by a power cable that runs under Penobscot Bay. But energy loss from the cable and the high cost of distributing power mean that members of the Fox Islands Electric Cooperative pay roughly twice the state average for power, with rates approaching 30 cents per kilowatt hour.

Last year, members of the Fox Islands Electric Cooperative voted 382-5 in favor of the wind power plan in the hopes the turbines' on-island power would help stabilize or even lower power prices. North Haven and Vinalhaven have roughly 2,000 year-round residents between them. That number swells to more than 5,000 in the summer.

On an annual basis, the 1.5-megawatt turbines are expected to generate more than enough power for island demand. Excess power will be sold into the grid, a transaction that could trim rates by up to 20 percent.

BENEFIT GOES TO RATEPAYERS

The nonprofit Fox Islands Electric Cooperative formed a for-profit subsidiary, Fox Islands Wind LLC, to take advantage of federal tax credits aimed at renewable energy projects. Portland-based Diversified Communications invested $5 million in the project in return for tax credits, and the subsidiary also received a $9.5 million loan from the USDA...