05/30/08 Economic Boost From Wind

Economic Boost From Wind. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. Wind power provides a clean, renewable source of power for many areas around the northwest. One of those major projects is the White Creek Wind Project in Klickitat County, Washington. Bjorn Hedges is the plant manager. HEDGES: We have 89 Siemens 2.3 megawatt turbines so we have a capacity of 204.7 megawatts and there's 4 energy off-takers. There's Cowlitz PUD, Klickitat PUD, Tanner Electric and Lakeview Light and Power. The White Creek Wind Project is a 3 phase project with 2 complete. According to Hedges, once done, only a part of the total power will be available. HEDGES: Our goal is over 600-thousand megawatt hours per year which is about a little over a third of what you could do theoretically if these things ran at full production 24/7. But when you include downtime for lower or no wind, or even winds too high or down time for service or down time for repair, basically we figure about 1/3 of the absolute theoretical maximum capacity  we could produce about 1/3 that. Besides being a good source of energy, wind projects bring an economic boost to ag producers. HEDGES: We don't own any of the property. All the property that was here before is still owned by the previous landowners and we pay them a royalty off of the production times the market rate. From the construction, between roads and turbines and buildings and everything we took a little over 300 acres out of its preexisting use, whether that be grazing or wheat. The up side is that the ag producers can still use that land for is primary use with no impact on crops or livestock and the royalties more than offset the acreage loss. But not only do the farmers reap the benefits of the wind project. HEDGES: You're allowed that one percent growth in the overall county assessment and the size of this project is such that it basically has reduced everybody's levy rate down by about 45 cents per thousand so everybody gets to benefit from anyone that owns property, business, whatever that pays property tax in Klickitat County gets to benefit with lower property taxes. For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org