Plans for Colton area wind farm scrapped

Wind industry group asks

commissioners to lobby

legislature

A major wind power developer has scrapped its plans for a wind farm south of Colton, citing low wind speeds and diminishing state mandates to develop wind energy.

Iberdrola Renewables, a Spanish wind farm firm, has held lease options on some 10,000 acres of land in the Rimrock area on the Snake River breaks south of Colton for the past five or six years.

Brian Walsh, business developer for Iberdrola’s Portland branch, said measurements from meteorological towers on that land did not warrant an investment in a full-scale wind farm.

“The wind resources we measured there were not on a commercial scale,” Walsh said Monday. “It blows, but not often or hard enough to justify the investment.”

John Audley, deputy director of the Renewable Northwest Project, said legislative efforts to weaken the state’s renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, are partially responsible for keeping projects like Iberdrola’s Rimrock plan from viability.

“The RPS drives demand, especially in Whitman County,” said Walsh.

Renewable Northwest Project is a $1.3 million advocacy group, funded primarily by donations from wind and solar companies with an aim of lobbying public support for renewable energy projects.

The RPS requires utility companies to generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources like wind, solar or biomass by 2020.

Voters approved Initiative 937 in 2006, requiring utilities to have 25 percent renewable sources. That was weakened to 15 percent through the legislature.

Walsh said the reduction of Avista’s mandate was directly connected to Iberdrola’s decision to abandon its Rimrock project.

Such projects, said Audley, have generated more than $40 million in taxes throughout Washington.

Iberdrola’s wind farm in Kittitas County, said Walsh, allowed Bickleton to build a new school. The firm’s farms in Oregon have generated sufficient funding for new fire houses and ambulances - even allowing some jurisdictions to refund taxes to their citizens.

Audley noted the Palouse Wind project currently under construction on Naff Ridge north of Oakesdale will bring dozens of jobs and hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to Whitman County.

Audley and Walsh urged Whitman County commissioners Monday to lobby legislators to keep or strengthen the RPS percentage.

“So, would these projects move forward without a government requiring them to move forward?” asked Commissioner Michael Largent.

Largent asked if the benefit to property owners who lease their land to wind farms would be offset by higher power rates.

“I don’t believe renewable energy costs more than any other source of energy if built from scratch,” said Audley.

Audley said fossil fuel-burning power plants receive 10 times the tax incentives that wind energy receives.

He added power purchase agreements on wind farm electricity are typically long term, giving utilities stable rates. He said Avista got a “competitive” rate on its agreement to buy Palouse Wind’s electricity.

“These are 20-year projects and businesses worthy of public assistance,” said Audley.

Carbon credits could also be a benefit for utilities in the future, Audley said.