Final Pieces Falling into Place for Wind Farm

Jun 22 - Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

A proposed wind farm at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon made crucial strides toward becoming a reality this week as some of the project's final pieces fell into place.

Representatives for wind-farm developer Wasatch Wind on Tuesday signed a 20-year deal with PacifiCorp to sell all the power produced by the 18.9-megawatt farm. The contract now goes to the Utah Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, for ratification.

The wind farm is projected to produce 60,000 megawatt hours of power annually, enough to power approximately 5,700 homes, based on U.S. Department of Energy statistics for the average household's energy consumption in 2001. Construction is planned to start sometime next year, with completion planned for December.

Utah Power, which is owned by PacifiCorp, will pay 5 to 6 cents on the average per kilowatt hour it purchases from the wind farm.

Wasatch Wind President Tracy Livingston said the price Utah Power will pay is below the market value of energy purchased from other sources.

"What it will mean in the long term is lower energy rates," Livingston said. "It will also help clean the air and reduce the demand on fossil fuels. That demand is what drives prices up. So in its own small way, this deal will help keep the cost of energy from fossil fuels down."

Dave Eskelsen, a spokesman for Utah Power, said federal subsidies make wind power a viable energy source.

"With federal tax credits that are available, wind power can be very competitive with some other energy sources," he said.

Eskelsen said the price Utah Power pays will fluctuate slightly each year, based on the "avoided cost" rate. The rate is a formula used in each state to determine a reasonable price when large utilities purchase energy from smaller providers. It is re- evaluated each year.

"The price is based on the concept of avoided cost, which is if the utility were to replace this (energy source) with something else, how much that would cost," he said.

Eskelsen said Utah Power has a goal to acquire 400 megawatt hours of wind power in the near future and a plan to expand that figure to as much as 1,000 megawatt hours in the next 15 years. Utah Power owns facilities that produce 122 megawatt hours of wind power and has purchasing agreements with several providers throughout the West to provide more.

"The bottom line is we're interested in acquiring a lot more wind," he said.

Another key development came Tuesday night when the Spanish Fork City Council gave the green light to begin the process of annexing a portion of the site where the wind farm will be built.

The 107-acre site, located on an old gravel pit leased from Staker Parsons, will combine with two other parcels, one of which is owned by the city, to house the project.

Construction on the wind farm was set to begin earlier this year but residents objected to the site because of its proximity to homes and asked that the farm be relocated.

"This has been slow," Livingston said. "We expected this (relocation process) to take no more than a month or two. It has been a difficult process, but I think it has been a worthwhile one."

E-mail: jtwitchell@desnews.com