Going Green

Going Green. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.

Pendleton, Oregon is known as being the consummate old west town with the highlight being one of the oldest and wildest rodeo’s in the country. But this sleepy little town in north east Oregon has discovered the power of green energy projects according to Bob Patterson, Public Works Director for Pendleton.

PATTERSON: Solar development first started in Pendleton when Honeywell approached the city looking at business energy tax credits that they could take advantage of and there was energy trust payments that they could also take advantage of through Pacific Power and Portland General Electric. That really kicked us off back in 2007.

The first project was the water treatment plant.

PATTERSON: We installed a static system, a roof mount system that produces 100 kilowatts D.C. matched up with our peak load at the water treatment plant. And initially installed without incentives, that system was $1.2 million dollars. THe following year Honeywell approached us again and we did a ground mount tracking system that was double the size down at our waste water treatment plant and as such that system went in at a cost of $2.3 million.

These two projects really got the city to start thinking about solar power and that led to the current Solarize Pendleton residential project.

PATTERSON: So it really kicked off staff bantering around how we could do a solar residential program in the city since folks were aware that we’ve done these projects at a larger scale. And it really came down to financing. The city wanted a program where we could hire the contractor and have a financial component to it and we ended up basically borrowing against a certain fund in our waste water funds and provided zero interest loans.

In addition they are working with micro-turbine technologies for their aquifer storage recovery program. It’s interesting that you always hear about green projects like this in many urban areas but in a rural locale like Pendleton it’s rare.

PATTERSON: I think the credit there goes to our city council along with staff. We’ve had the ability to be very aggressive and somewhat of a risk taker and without a poitical body or policy decision making body that allows that flexibility, we wouldn’t be where we are today in exploring these alternative energies.

For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.???www.harvestcleanenergy.org