Is small-scale wind power Maines next big thing? [Video]

Maine is taking a first step to establish small-scale wind power as another tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Distributed energy, or on-site, decentralized power generation, accounts for several thousand solar projects in Maine – such as panels on rooftops and in yards. Not so for distributed wind energy projects, which, at 80 to 150 feet in height, are roughly one-third the size of industrial-scale wind projects.

Rhiannon Hampson, the Maine state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said small wind power sites don’t operate in Maine “at this scale that we know of.”

A meeting in Freeport on Aug. 21 drew nearly two dozen federal and state energy and agriculture officials, environmentalists, business owners and others to make introductions and swap ideas about how to launch small-scale wind power.

“The simplest model is selling to a farm or a business,” said Josh Groleau, chief executive …