09/21/07 Energy Projects Support Rural Development

Energy Projects Support Rural Development. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. When it comes to renewable power, there are three names at the top of the list. Solar, hydro and wind. Lately wind generation has been taking off around the country with many projects in the works including White Creek Wind project in Washington's Klickitat County. Robin Rego is the General Manager, Lakeview Light & Power that is overseeing the project and according to Rego, wind farms generate more than electricity. REGO: This is an opportunity for the landowner, for the farmer to work with us and we sign leases with them to place these towers on there. They really look forward to this opportunity because they have seen other places where this has gelled and it's turned out to be an income stream for them. The White Creek Wind project should be completed sometime in November and will be the largest publicly developed wind project so far and will consist of 89 turbines producing a maximum of about 205 megawatts. Rego says that not only do the landowners get paid for the lease of the land but there's other benefits as well. REGO: In addition they can continue to work the land because these machines are so tall. The tip of the blade clears the ground by 110 feet so there's plenty of room for them to work under there. And then they continue to own the property. Typically you are talking about a 30 year lease for a wind project. Landowners can also get a portion of the power making it a big bonus. Rego says that there are many studies done before a wind project is started mainly because they need an area with fairly consistent winds. REGO: There are wind maps for the whole country and that's the start to find out where we have the best wind opportunities and then we hire meteorologists to look at these wind maps. We try to look for a location where we feel it would be accessible because some locations are really hard to get to and you have to look at building roads to take these large pieces of equipment to the desired site. Another determining factor of the site is where the power will actually be used and how you get it from the generating site to a load center. 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