CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

HARPSWELL — A Harpswell consultant who planned to build a $50 million biomass boiler in the Millinocket area lost his spot on the power grid to a wind farm project and has scrapped plans for the plant — and the 30 jobs he hoped it would bring to the area.

"We can't get the power out, so the project is essentially dead," Jerry Tudan of Peregrine Technologies in Harpswell said. "Nobody's going to commit to building a $50 million project if you can't sell the project."

Tudan planned a biomass plant that would have provided renewable power using sawdust and bark. He also hoped to build a chip mill so the biomass plant could control its own fuel, he said.

"We were looking at 30 to 35 jobs," he said.

Tudan had lined up investors for the 17-megawatt project, which he said Tuesday would more than provide a town of 15,000 people with domestic power.

But during the course of "due dilgence," during which developers worked on issues including environmental permits, First Wind, a Massachusetts wind project developer, registered for the spot on the power grid that Tudan had planned to use.

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