A piece of New York state’s renewable energy history disappeared on Wednesday, Sept. 17, when the state’s first commercial wind farm was demolished just miles from Colgate University, raising questions about how the Central New York region will meet ambitious climate goals set by state law. Seven turbines at the Madison Wind Farm in Madison, N.Y. came down in controlled explosions last month, though a larger replacement project is already in development.
The turbines were blown up in about half a minute as controlled blasts were fired. Twenty-five years ago, these historic windmills made up the first commercial wind farm in the state. Royce Cook was involved in the demolition project and spoke with CNYCentral about the demolition method.
“It’s more cost-efficient by blowing the bases and having them tip over versus bringing in a top-off crane and building roadways and cubage because it is heavy equipment,” Cook said.
It was a timely end to the project, which was estimated to have an operational lifespan of 20 to 25 years. Madison Wind Farm’s owner and operator, EDP Global, issued a press release discussing the rationale behind its demolition.
“As of 2025, the project has come to the end of that lifespan and is no longer considered economically viable, primarily due to the current turbines being out of production, making repairs and obtaining replacement parts increasingly difficult and costly,” the EDP statement said.
Wind energy production in the U.S. has come a long way since 2000. In 2024, the net generation of wind energy in the U.S. was 453,454 gigawatt-hours (GWh) compared to 6,737 GWh in 2001. And the production has grown tremendously in New York as well, with a growth from just 21 GWh in 2001 to 5,991 GWh across all sectors in 2024.
Madison Wind Farm was built at the beginning of a period in which increasing attention was given to wind energy in the U.S. After a period of low energy supplies in the 1990s, increasing costs after the turn of the century led to an increase in focus on whether the U.S. is dependent on foreign nations for its energy. As the U.S. developed renewable energy policy targets and innovation decreased implementation costs, wind energy was among the renewable energy sources that started to become more appealing.
Madison County was a useful location for the development of wind energy, according to Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Andrew Pattison.
“We live in a part of the country where it makes good sense to have some wind in the mix. There’s also a lot of [hydroelectric power] here in Upstate New York, so we have a fairly clean mix too,” Pattison said. “We also are the place where they’re going to generate a lot of energy to ship down state to the biggest city in the United States.”
For students like junior Robert Vanderhoef, president of Students for Environmental Action, the region has significance as a place for students to affect national policies.
“All students should think about Madison County energy policy, but also national energy policy,” Vanderhoef said. “By caring about energy usage and policy, you set the precedent for what is allowed in our country. In other words, in order to get rid of fossil fuels completely, students must pay attention to the energy policy in places whether that is in Madison County, their hometown or somewhere else in the U.S. It will take all of us to completely phase in renewable energy.”
Along with being a source of clean energy for New York’s power grid, the farm also boasted paying millions to local groups — $1.6 million to local landowners and $1.7 million to local governments.
“As for the payment to the local landowners and to the local government, it’s sometimes called a PILOT, a payment in lieu of taxes,” Pattison said. “A lot of times, these wind farm companies will be given a lease for a very affordable price on the land that they’re going to build the turbine. … And instead of paying taxes — because they don’t own the land, they’re not going to pay property taxes — they pay the local government basically a hosting fee.”
Madison Wind Farm’s demolition does not mark the end of wind power in Central New York. EDP Renewables is also currently developing a new wind farm in Madison County, adjacent to the plot where Madison Wind Farm was placed. The project is expected to be commissioned in December 2028.
What’s next for New York’s energy transition? Adding clean energy from wind farms is one way to meet the state’s goals set by the 2019 signing into law of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The act — one of the most ambitious in the nation — calls for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050 from 1990 levels.
Onshore wind farms like the Madison Wind Farm aren’t the only way to meet this goal. A 2022 scoping plan, intended to provide a framework for ensuring a clean energy transition, calls for 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035.
While natural gas is the largest source of energy for New York’s electricity (at one point, it was rivaled by nuclear energy), the state still has a significant source of energy coming from renewable sources — in 2022, the amount was close to one-third, primarily from hydroelectric sources. And although the state turned on its first offshore wind farm in 2024, it has struggled to implement other offshore wind projects.
A clear way forward is to make stable, long-term commitments for reforming the means of energy production.
“There was a tax credit to increase the amount of wind energy that was generated nationally, and it had to do with making it cheaper to build wind energy and to build wind transmission. And it worked tremendously well … wind energy grew like gangbusters from 2000 to 2020,” Pattison said. “What you’ll find is that every time the wind energy credit was about to expire, investment dipped for a moment until it was re-set up, and then the same thing happens each time. So, in other words, companies would like consistency, and companies would like understanding and trust in the system. And whipsawing back and forth between political agendas on this is not a good idea for long-term building of wind.”
