Though big wind-energy projects have yet to be proposed in Spokane County, a flurry of such development activity elsewhere in the Inland Northwest is bringing revenue here, and more projects are being eyed.


Spokane-based Taylor Engineering Inc. says its providing surveying and civil-engineering services to clients putting in close to $1 billion worth of wind farms along a breezy portion of the Columbia River Gorge that separates Washington and Oregon. It hopes to secure other such work as well.


If some of these other wind projects take off also, I could see us working on it for another five years, easily, and maybe longer, says Dustin Conroy, project engineer in Taylors seven-person Goldendale, Wash., office, which is handling most of the wind-farm work.


Its probably making up half of our work right now, he says of that office.


Meanwhile, Energy Northwest, a Richland-based joint operating agency that serves 19 public power utilities and cities throughout the state, is seeking a permit from Lincoln County that would allow it to develop a sizable wind-energy project near Reardan, about 20 miles west of Spokane.


Energy Northwest spokesman Brad Peck says Spokane companies already have inquired about that project, but the agencys board hasnt approved the project yet, so such inquiries are premature.


The size of the envisioned project hasnt been determined, but theres about 50 megawatts of available capacity on nearby high-voltage power lines, owned by Spokane-based Avista Corp., that the plant would use, Peck says.


That presumably would allow for up to about 30 1.5-megawatt turbines. Development costs for current wind farms have averaged around $1 million a turbine, so the cost of the proposed project near Reardan potentially could range well into the tens of millions of dollars. A 1-megawatt turbine generates enough electricity to supply the needs of 250 to 350 homes.


Peck says Energy Northwest has secured leases with owners of the land near Reardan where it would like to build the wind farm, and has completed environmental studies, but still would need to pre-sell the wind-farm powerin addition to getting board approvalbefore moving ahead with the project.


Noting one other potential delay to such a project, he says, There is significant demand worldwide for wind turbines right now, and if you went out to order one today, you might find out that theyre not available until 2007.


The four projects that Taylor Engineering either currently is or recently has been working on are the 50-turbine Klondike II, near Wasco, Ore.; the 167-turbine Big Horn Wind Project, near Bickleton, Wash.; the 134-turbine Leaning Juniper Wind Project, near Arlington, Ore.; and the 133-turbine White Creek Wind Project, also near Bickleton. Bickleton is southwest of the Tri-Cities, in Klickitat County.


Portland-based PPM Energy is developing the Klondike II, Big Horn, and Leaning Juniper projects, and the Goldendale-based Klickitat County Public Utility District is developing the White Creek project. Construction on Klondike II is mostly finished, but road work is just starting at Big Horn, and the installation of towers at Big Horn, Leaning Juniper, and White Creek likely wont begin until next year, Conroy says.


All of those project sites are located in an area near the Columbia where natural prevailing wind patterns and the venturi effect of the gorge create ideal conditions for large arrays of wind turbines, Conroy says. A venturi effect, in this context, refers to accelerated air movement through a constriction due to higher pressure on the upwind side of the constriction and lower pressure on the downwind side.


In a description of the projects circulated internally, Conroy said Taylor Engineering has gone from zero to full speed to assist their clients in getting the infrastructure for these enormous and wide-ranging systems sited, constructed.


Huge towers


To place the turbines and connect them to the Bonneville Power Administration grid requires a lot of engineering and surveying support, he says. It includes dealing with buried power cables, control lines, and service roads required to maintain the rows of wind generators.


The 1.5-megawatt towers themselves are about 250 feet tall, and their three variable-pitch blades each are more than 200 feet long, creating a wind-capture area of more than 400 feet in diameter. Each tower has a massive concrete base to anchor the unit securely against strong winds.


All of that requires topographic mapping, boundary and as-built surveys, and roadway engineering, as well as project coordination with regulatory agencies, Conroy says. Taylor Engineering provides legal descriptions and records of surveys for the operating facilities, he says. Its Goldendale staff is doing most of the work, but the Spokane office is assisting.


Because the projects are spread over thousands of acres, the Goldendale team thats working on the projects had to buy two all-terrain vehicles just to keep up with preliminary surveying demands in that rugged terrain, Conroy says.


He says other wind-energy projects are in the planning stages in that area, but adds, We dont know yet what our role is going to be in any of them.


Mike Taylor, Spokane-based president of Taylor Engineering, says the companys contracts on the wind-power projects have a combined value of well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.


While that provides a welcome supplement to the companys revenues, he says he doesnt expect the company will seek out additional work on wind-power projects aggressively, due partly to the volatile nature of that industry.


Taylor Engineerings main focus will continue to be on taking care of current and referral clients, he says. That doesnt mean, though, that he doesnt expect the companyand particularly its Goldendale officeto pick up additional wind-power project work.


I think theres potential for a lot more than they have now, at least over the short term, he says.


Growing capacity


The American Wind Energy Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, says up to 2,500 megawatts of wind-energy capacity are scheduled to come on line in the U.S. this year. That would bring new power to the equivalent of 700,000 homes and inject more than $3 billion of investment into the power-generation sector, it says.


The association estimates that an additional 2,000 megawatts or more of new capacity will be installed per year in 2006 and 2007, bolstered heavily by Congress extension this summer of the wind energy production tax credit (PTC) through the end of 2007. The PTC, which had been scheduled to expire at the end of this year, provides a 1.9 cent-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit for electricity generation with wind turbines over the first 10 years of a projects operations, andthe association assertsis a critical factor in financing new wind farms.


AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher hailed the congressional action in a press release issued in late July.


This is the first time that an extension of the production tax credit for wind energy has been approved before the credit expires, and, following the past six years of boom-and-bust cycles caused by successive expirations, this is very good news for the industry, he said.


Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the federal research lab located in Richland, Wash., has estimated that wind energy eventually could supply up to about 20 percent of the nations electricity, compared with less than 1 percent now. An assessment that the lab released 14 years ago listed Montana and Idaho as being among the top 20 states for wind-energy potential.


Predictions about the markets growth these days, though, are tempered by the industrys erratic ups and downs of the past, the wind-dependent limitations on where such generating capacity can be developed, and the costs of developing it.


The reality is that renewable energyincluding wind projectsis not the cheapest source of electricity, and customers expect reliability and low cost, so potential projects have to be approached with those factors in mind, Peck says. Also, some proposed wind farms, including in the Ellensburg, Wash., area, have encountered opposition from area residents, he says.


Nevertheless, there is strong interest among the environmental community for conservation and renewable-energy projects, and Energy Northwest absolutely agrees with them, so its continuing to evaluate potential wind-energy development sites in the region, he says.


With oil prices continuing to rise, there are signs that interest in renewable energy is intensifying also. In a new 20-year planning document filed recently, Avista says it wants to add 400 megawatts of wind power by 2016 and 650 megawatts by 2026. Those figures are up sharply from two years ago, when the company said it intended to add 75 megawatts of wind energy over the next 20 years. In the latest planning document, it also said it plans to add about 180 megawatts of power from biomass, such as through the burning of wood or manure or harnessing methane gas given off by landfills, by 2026.


Separately, Safeway Inc., the big Pleasanton, Calif.-based supermarket chain, announced earlier this month that it will buy 100 percent renewable energyspecifically, wind powerto meet the needs of its 270 fuel stations in the U.S., its 15 stores in San Francisco, and its corporate offices. The biggest share of the fuel stations are located in its Seattle Division region, which encompasses Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska. It operates 71 fuel stations in this region now, and expects that number to grow to 76 by year-end.


Through a Green Power Partnership program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Safeway has agreed to buy 78 million kilowatt hours of wind power, which the EPA said makes it one of the nations largest commercial buyers of green energy.


The EPA estimates that Safewayby reducing its energy needs from sources such as fossil fuel-fired power plantsis removing the equivalent of 85 million pounds of carbon dioxide from the environment, comparable to planting more than 10,500 acres of trees.