Windy Plans

At the NW ED Course this past week in Ellensburg, WA I spoke with several economic developers who have major projects underway in the rapidly developing wind energy field. From my perspective it’s a technology that is rapidly developing, is renewable and can act as an economic catalyst for economic development.

“This spring rural Klickitat County, WA put into place the country’s first energy overlay zone specifically aimed at a coordinated wind farm development plan for the county. It is a broad based zoning plan that has all of the preliminary testing and permitting completed for such things as biological, environmental and archeological studies,” was how Wayne Wooster, ED Specialist for the county, explained it to me. This county of just under 20,000 which borders the Columbia River, set out about two-thirds of the county as appropriate for wind farms, excluding areas with low wind speeds, bird migration patterns and where local opposition existed.

Now five major projects are planned for the county, totaling 900 MW or enough generating capacity to power 80% of the households in Seattle.

Debbie Strand, Ex. Director of the ED Group of Kittitas County, WA (Ellensburg), told me of their plans for wind power, “We have been working for four years on a 300 MW project (cost $350 million) in the Whiskey Dick area of the county. It should be built in the next year.” I asked her how the name Whiskey Dick came about but was disappointed that she didn’t know or I would have had another blog that I could have done on the naming of the area.

Another project discussed at the conference is a 450 MW project planned for Rufus, OR. This 225 turbine project is awaiting state approval to begin construction in 2007.

As an emerging technology there will be hic-ups along the way. Last month I read of a $540 million ‘oops’, that will raise the windmills on an early project near Livermore, CA so that they would be out of the fly zone of migrating birds.

Wind is here to stay. With proper planning and marshalling of resources it will become a model for economic development in many rural areas.