Driving Force in Wind Energy

By Hagadone, Zach

If a proposed wind farm in the Jarbidge Foothills of southwest Twin Falls County gets through the permitting process it could be producing enough energy to power more than 120,000 homes by 2011. But it’s likely none would be in Idaho.

Developed by international wind farm company Renewable Energy Systems Americas (RES), the $1 billion, 185-turbine project would ultimately produce 425 megawatts of power and sit on 30,700 acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management, state and private land – 4,700 of which reaches into Nevada, offering connection to the state’s power grid.

Because of that, RES has partnered with Sierra Pacific’s Nevada Power to develop and operate the site, with an agreement that the first 200 MW produced by its $500 million phase one component be sold to the utility.

RES Vice President of Development Scott Piscitello said the reason for the partnership is that while Nevada public utilities are required to buy at least 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2015, Nevada Power was having a hard time acquiring in- state developers.

“The way the rules are drafted, there are some real size limits on projects that are out of state or are not able to connect to the grid within the boundaries of the state of Nevada,” he said. “If you look at it from Nevada Power’s perspective, the renewable resources have to come from within state or have this unique ability to be out of state and somehow connect with the grid, as in the case of China Mountain.”

Piscitello added that the partnership also provides RES with some peace of mind.

“From our perspective we were sort of thinking, ‘Well gosh, do we want to go down that road on this lengthy and expensive permitting process if we aren’t sure we have a deal with the utility on the back end of it?’ So by working together with Nevada Power … this at least gives us some assurance that if we get the permit we have a deal,” he said.

Idaho Power, which isn’t bound by a renewable portfolio standard, wasn’t interested in the initial contract, in large part, according to spokesman Dennis Lopez, because the utility is already committed to a large amount of wind energy projects.

“We have quite a bit of wind potentially on our grid system,” he said, “almost 400 megawatts, roughly a twelfth of our generating package.”

Nearly all of those projects generate less than 10 MW each though, and if they qualify as small-power producers under the Public Utility Regulatory Practices Act (PURPA) the utility is required to buy from them, albeit at a lower-than-market rate.

Piscitello said RES wants to work with Idaho Power, but PURPA may be standing in the way.

“If they’ve already made commitments to take power from those smaller projects it’s very difficult to make commitments to larger projects,” he said. “[But] it’s sort of frustrating for the larger developers – at least this larger developer – to sit back and have to wait to see how these smaller projects play out, and sort of be held hostage to that.

“We’d love to bring in Idaho Power as a partner or a stakeholder in this project,” he added. “I just think the circumstances of supply and demand, when you rope in PURPA, don’t leave Idaho Power with much demand.”

Lopez wouldn’t speculate on whether Idaho Power had any interest in buying from China Mountain once Nevada Power purchases its 200 MW, but Idaho Public Utilities Commission spokesman Gene Fadness said state utility users will probably still see a benefit from the project.

“Transmission lines are like superhighways, there are on-ramps and off-ramps and different companies use them all the time,” he said. “It’s never a bad thing to have transmission that provides added reliability and a potential source for Idaho utilities to buy from down the road.”

Fadness went on to say that China Mountain’s addition of another 15 miles of power lines would probably be good for the entire region.

“You can overbuild, but that’s not our problem. Our problem throughout the entire western United States is a transmission shortage, and this can maybe benefit us all,” he said.

Piscitello said construction of the China Mountain project would employ about 200 workers, taken largely from Twin Falls County. Sub- contractors will be used for things like preparing foundations, providing rock or cement, erecting the 200-250 foot tall turbines, installing cable, building substations and constructing overhead lines. The company is preparing an economic impact study to document exactly how many local jobs the project will create and how much money it will bring to the area.

“For a project in the northwest it’s going to be very competitive,” Piscitello said. “It’s competitive on the wind speed side of things. In terms of constructability and difficulty of terrain and those sorts of things, it’s very doable.”

The Bureau of Land Management is currently preparing a draft Environmental Impact Study which it hopes to complete by January 2010. As a first step in the process, Twin Falls County residents got an opportunity to view the project details at a scoping meeting on June 26, but reaction from the meeting was unavailable before press time. BLM will take comments until July 21.

Credit: Zach Hagadone

(Copyright 2008 Dolan Media Newswires)

(c) 2008 Idaho Business Review, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.