Palouse Wind Farm To Be Built By First Wind

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A major wind power farm will be built in the Palouse this summer, Boston-based First Wind announced Tuesday.

The company will build 58 giant windmills between the town of Oakesdale, Wash. and US 195. Each can produce 1.8 megawatts of electricity, for a total of 105 megawatts of power. Officials said Palouse Wind will produce enough power to serve 30,000 customers.

The Palouse is a farming region encompassing parts of Washington state and Idaho.

Construction will cost $210 million, First Wind said.

"We are also making a major investment in the economic future of the region with $30 million of direct (local) spending planned during construction and an additional $1.5 million each year once the project achieves commercial operations," said Paul Gaynor, chief executive officer of First Wind.

The company has a 30-year agreement to sell the power to Avista, the Spokane-based utility that serves eastern Washington and northern Idaho.

"Palouse Wind will help Avista meet its goal of providing reliable energy to our customers at a reasonable cost, while meeting renewable portfolio standards," said Avista Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Morris.

First Wind said the windmills will only occasionally be visible from US 195.

Ben Fairbanks, director of business development in the Northwest for First Wind, said this is the first wind power facility in Whitman County.

The rolling hills of the Palouse allow the windmills to be placed at the top of ridges and oriented to most effectively capture the southwesterly winds, Fairbanks said.

"It's a unique location and a great wind resource," he said.

Construction is expected to be completed by November and the windmills will be online and operating by the end of the year.

Avista will take delivery of the power through its Benewah-to-Shawnee transmission line. This will be the first wind project built in Avista's service territory.

During construction, it is estimated that the project will create about 150 jobs. Once Palouse Wind is operational, Whitman County will receive approximately $12 million over the next 20 years in property tax revenues, or approximately $700,000 per year.

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Comments

[NorthEasternEE]

08:16 AM on 05/10/2012

MIT conducted a Symposium on Managing Large Scale Integration of Intermittent Renewables, where some 75 experts attended. Here are a couple of excerpts from the findings.

“In addition, fuel efficiencies will decrease when thermal generation plants are operated at partial load. Lower fuel efficiencies increase emissions rates and total costs, potentially diminishing the benefits of renewable generation. Continuously altering plant output also increases the need for operation outside of normal, steady-state procedures and the likelihood of operator error.”
“…when thermal generation plants are operated at partial load, fuel efficiencies will decrease, emissions will increase, and total system costs will be raised, thus diminishing the benefits of renewable generation.”

Unfortunately, it looks like the more intermittent renewables we add to the grid the less effective they are. We need to look for something that works more effectively!

[greenjobsguru]

04:25 PM on 05/04/2012

This is great news, with many good green jobs created. This will put some wind in Vestas' wings, after its dismal 1st quarter performance. Vestas is now actually hiring; they have about 30 open jobs.

[OkieMon]

03:14 PM on 05/03/2012

do people even realize that at this price you can build a 2 GW wind farm for 2 billion dollars or a 2 GW nuclear power plant for 20 billion dollars plus huge overhead costs to say nothing of the inability to get rid of the waste properly....why do we even have nuclear or for that matter coal power plants anymore ????

[Scott Howes]

09:00 AM on 05/03/2012

This is Great news environmentally sound to the the solution for Green Power, with a deep passion to have a workforce that is Green as well. We need more programs that is central to growing our Power to Green with innovation and state of the art industry standards. This is clear clean methods of technology to empower workers access in this emergence skill Wind Power. This will give stability to the power grid with the resource that is free Wind. Yes I have Video online training in this are www.isoclasses.com

[Kenz300]

04:02 PM on 05/02/2012

It is time to transition to safe, clean alternative energy sources.

Wind, solar, wave energy, geothermal and second generation biofuels made from algae, cellulose and waste are the future.

The disaster at Fukishima continues today with no end in sight. Alternative energy sources are cheaper and safer.

[artleads]

11:15 AM on 05/02/2012

There go wilderness and wildlife.