The long and windy Gorge

The wind that whistles steadily between the high, glacially carved cliffs of the Columbia River Gorge have turned the area into a windsurfers’ paradise. But soon the Gorge may become famous for another wind-driven wonder: thousands of energy-producing wind turbines.

Wind energy development in the Columbia River Gorge is not entirely new. The Stateline Wind Project, still the Pacific Northwest’s largest at 300 megawatts (MW), has been spinning out electricity since 2001. But the pace of prospecting and the size of proposed wind farms are rapidly escalating in the five semi-rural counties running alongside the mighty Columbia River. And while it took most of the past decade to build the first 1,000 MW of wind power in the entire region, in the next two to three years one-and-a-half times that amount is planned for development.

California, an early leader in wind development, has just over 2,300 MW of wind, with about 500 MW on the drawing board. The Golden State was recently eclipsed by Texas in terms of megawatts installed. Both California and Texas easily overshadow the Northwest’s current totals, but wind development is picking up across the United States as the industry matures and larger utilities and developers get involved.

The 10,000-MW mark of installed wind capacity was passed in August. Even investor extraordinaire Warren Buffett — whose MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. has amassed nearly 700 MW of projects — likes wind. A continual rise in energy prices has made wind increasingly cost-competitive, while Congress’ start-and-stop production tax credit, now set to expire at the end of 2007, goads bona fide developers into getting financed projects built quickly [see “Catching the wind,” SIJ, May 2005]. Couple U.S. trends with the Gorge’s combination of good wind, a strong transmission grid and potential renewable portfolio standards in both states, and you’ve got the makings for a powerful wind market.

“I don’t know if boom is the right word,” says Rachel Shimshak, executive director of the nonprofit Renewable Northwest Project in Portland. “But it is true there’s a lot of activity. Let’s just say there’s a positive trajectory.”

In August 2006, the first two arrivals in this new crop of wind projects went online. Leaning Juniper I, a 101 MW project near Arlington, Ore., owned by MidAmerican subsidiary PacifiCorp; and Big Horn, a 200 MW project in Klickitat County, Wash., developed by Scottish Power Co. (NYSE: SPI) subsidiary PPM Energy, together added more than half of the 500-plus MW of capacity the Gorge is expected to add by the end of 2007.