07/21/05 Producers sing praises of wind energy

The Idaho PUC will listen to Idaho Power and Avista Corporation tomorrow. Those two utilities want to suspend their obligation to buy electricity from small producers. Leroy Jarolimek of Burley is one of them. He's already built one wind turbine machine and is involved with a Montana company that just announced plans to build seven more windmills on his farm. Jarolimek has been a pioneer in Idaho wind energy development and will receive a US Department of Energy award today. He plans to be in Boise tomorrow at the PUC hearing. JAROLIMEK "Our House and Senate they worked so hard to pass a sales tax exemption for renewable energy projects because they see how it will help their counties individually and then Idaho Power says 'no we don't want these projects.'" Jarolimek says there's another problem on the horizon for the wind energy producers. It's hard to get the equipment because of overwhelming demand. JAROLIMEK "It threw the market into imbalance is really what happened. There were no projects put in in 2004 and then all of a sudden when that tax credit got finally passed then all of a sudden all of these projects came on line or tried to come on line." Avista and Idaho Power say the moratorium will give the PUC time to see how these small wind projects impact their overall power costs and eventually how that affects their customers. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott