Arizona came late to the wind development party in the West, with no utility-scale project energized until 2009. But activity is picking up in the northern part of the state, with new facilities on the way, accompanied by a growth spurt in opposition to some wind projects.

A case in point is the 99-MW Perrin Ranch wind farm 13 miles north of Williams, Ariz., which NextEra Energy Resources has proposed. Arizona Public Service has signed a contract for the plant's output, and it would be the utility's first in-state wind facility. The Arizona Corporation Commission is scheduled to vote on the project April 12.

In February, the Coconino County Board of Supervisors approved the project on a 3-2 vote, adding several conditions, including shutting the turbines off during bat migration periods. The county also required the installation of a radar-activated lighting system on the towers, a condition NextEra asked them to reconsider. The county planning and zoning commission will hold a hearing on that issue April 26.

Steve Stengel, a spokesman for NextEra, said in an e-mail the company is asking for a modification of the lighting condition "because we are being asked to install a system that has not been approved for use by the Federal Aviation Administration."

Radar-activated lighting hasn't been done for wind projects in the United States, renewable energy consultant Amanda Ormond of the Ormond Group told Energy Prospects West. "It's kind of exciting to think about a technology that could be used in areas where there are not a lot of night lights, but there are liability, safety and cost issues that need to be addressed," she said. "It's not tried and tested," Ormond added.

In March, the Arizona Power Plant and Line Siting Committee approved building a new substation, transmission line and switchyard interconnection to connect the Perrin Ranch facility to APS' Moenkopi-Yavapai 500-KV transmission line. NextEra hopes to begin construction later this summer, Stengel said.

But the plant has opposition. A group called the Canyon Country Coalition for Responsible Renewable Energy is fighting the project. They think it is a harbinger of a trend toward "industrialization of the Grand Canyon corridor."

On March 29, the Coconino County zoning commission approved conditional use permits for two meteorological wind test towers sought by Torch Renewable Energy of Houston, Texas. Those locations "are closer to the Grand Canyon than the Perrin Ranch project," Ernie Webb, a member of the board of directors of CCCRRE, told Prospects.

Webb called the Perrin Ranch project "a waste of taxpayer money." This area has low wind speeds, and the project "would never be proposed to be built here without federal subsidies," he said. "Wind is not doing much of anything to reduce CO₂ emissions anywhere in the world" because building wind complexes creates emissions, as does "the constant powering up and down of coal or natural gas-fired plants when the wind doesn't blow," according to the CCCRRE web site. The group also says wind energy "destabilizes the power grid."

Foresight Flying M, parented by Foresight Energy of San Francisco, has proposed developing a 500-MW wind project about 22 miles southeast of Flagstaff in Coconino County. The Grapevine Canyon project is on private ranch lands and state trust lands.

Foresight has applied to interconnect the project to the Western Area Power Administration's transmission system, and in July, Western released a draft environmental impact statement for the project. The agency is reviewing comments on the draft and expects to produce a final EIS by this fall, Matt Blevins of Western told Prospects.

Most of the public comments submitted about the project so far have dealt with effects on vegetation and wildlife, especially birds, bats, antelope, deer and elk. Salt River Project said: "Given the challenges that Bonneville Power Administration has encountered with respect to integrating wind resources in its Northwest system," we suggest that in the EIS, "Western address its plan for managing the control area and associated operational challenges that are inherent to dealing with intermittent resource integration."

In Yavapai County south of Coconino, on April 4, the Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected a proposal by Pacific Wind Development, a subsidiary of Oregon-based Iberdrola Renewables, to erect meteorological wind test towers on state land northwest of Prescott. According to the Prescott Daily Courier, Supervisor Tom Thurman said he is "against any kind of wind generation in our mountains" because "they are gorgeous, they are pristine, there's wilderness just north of there."

Over on the eastern side of Arizona, the state's only operating utility-scale wind facility, built by Iberdrola Renewables, recently expanded. The Dry Lake Wind Project, located northwest of Snowflake, Ariz., is now providing 127 MW of electricity to Salt River Project customers.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department has taken advantage of the existence of the big wind facility to launch a two-year study of the effects of wind operations on pronghorn antelope. Iberdrola is helping fund the research. In November, biologists captured 15 pronghorn and put GPS collars on them. The data obtained will allow the department to make recommendations on such topics as optimal corridor spacing between wind towers and the use of strategically-placed waters to guide pronghorn movements, and overall, the research will help with wind project mitigation across the western United States, according to a press release.

Arizona's first combined wind and solar facility is under construction near the city of Kingman. Western Wind Energy, based in Vancouver, B.C., is building the 10.5-MW project, and UniSource Energy Services (UES) has signed a 20-year contract to buy the output.

The first of the five wind turbines will be erected in April, with completion of the $28-million project scheduled in July, according to an article in the Kingman Daily Miner. Photovoltaic panels on 10 acres of the site will produce at least 300 KW of electricity.

Another notable wind project under consideration in the Kingman area is BP Wind Energy's 500-MW Mohave County Wind Farm. The project would spread across 40,298 acres of federal land in the White Hills area about 40 miles northwest of Kingman and 20 miles southeast of Hoover Dam. Transmission lines would connect to Western's system, and power from the project could be sold to utilities in Arizona, Nevada or California. The Bureau of Land Management held scoping meetings in 2009 and 2010 and anticipates putting out a draft EIS for the project this fall, a spokesman told Prospects.

The Navajo Nation is looking for its first wind project in Arizona. Navajo President Ben Shelly identified three possible sites during testimony at a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing April 1.

The first is the Big Boquillas Project, which would be about 80 miles west of Flagstaff on ranch lands owned by the Nation and state trust lands. Leases have been signed, and the project could produce up to 500 MW of electricity, he said. Foresight Wind Energy would develop the project in conjunction with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority. A site at Black Mesa near Kayenta shows the potential for a 200-MW wind project, according to Shelly.

Gray Mountain is another site with a 500-MW potential, he said, adding that it is "likely the best wind site on the Nation." Previous efforts by Sempra to develop a project there didn't pan out, and a Sempra spokesman told Prospects the company is no longer involved.

And southern Arizona's largest utility is jumping on the wind bandwagon, even if it has to be rolled in from New Mexico. Tucson Electric has signed a contract to buy electricity from the 50-MW Macho Springs wind project to be built 20 miles northwest of Deming, N.M., near the Luna natural gas generating station. Element Power, based in Portland, Ore., began construction of the facility in February, and completion is expected in August.

- Susan Whittington

 

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