Wind energy and hydropower have a see-saw-like relationship: When one goes up the other goes down. But the Bonneville Power Administration is hoping a small device that looks like a model rocket and weighs a few pounds can help ease the tricky synergy. BPA on Wednesday installed an anemometer to help the power-marketing agency better forecast oncoming wind at the Horse Heaven substation just west of Paterson.

Today DNR has 24 active wind power leases in various stages. Five wind farms with 65 turbines operate on state trust land, all in Eastern Washington. The leases yield $670,000 a year. However, the DNR failed to consider whether allowing wind turbines on state land might conflict with the compact the state made with the federal government in 1997 when it promised to manage its land in a way that would minimize harm to threatened and endangered species. And Sutherland didn't foresee that some uses might not be compatible with the giant spinning turbine blades that feed renewable energy into the power grid.

The Bonneville Power Administration in the Pacific Northwest has run smack into an issue that may well be repeated elsewhere as wind power gains a larger share of the electric power generation mix. The issue is wind integration and, more to the point, how to manage operational and cost allocation issues that arise as wind power projects come into service. It also touches on public perceptions about wind and what role it can and can't play in meeting electricity demand.

A Washington wind farm that its developer calls “one of the premier wind sites in the Pacific Northwest” has been sold to a group of California utilities. ...Why is California buying made-in-Washington wind power? California has much higher electricity rates than Washington, so the wind power premium is proportionately cheaper.

With what brought them together blowing strongly outside, Kittitas County residents had one last chance Monday to public express their views on the proposed Desert Claim wind farm, northwest of here. While the wind blew in one direction throughout a hearing attended by more than 60 people at the Hal Holmes Center, the feelings of residents went both ways.

Monday's formal adjudication hearing in Ellensburg on the proposed Desert Claim Wind Power Project may take less time than other county wind farms that have come before the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC.

Formal adjudicative hearings by the state to examine the proposed Desert Claim Wind Power Project will likely begin the week of July 13 in Ellensburg, according to a tentative scheduled submitted last week. The schedule, including deadlines for pre-filed testimony and rebuttal of that testimony, was suggested to the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC, during the council's day of meetings conducted Thursday in Ellensburg on the Desert Claim project.

A "skinnied-down" bill that would provide a tax break to manufacturers of solar, wind and other renewable energy equipment who locate in Clark County cleared a major hurdle Friday as the Legislature rushed toward adjournment. House Bill 2130, sponsored by Rep. Tim Probst, D-Vancouver, passed the Senate Ways and Means Committee Friday morning in a version far different from that of the original bill.

When it comes to integrating wind generation into the Pacific Northwest power grid, one of the major problems has been the absence of an organized market in the region, according to panelists at a conference. "We have an aversion to markets in the Pacific Northwest," said Robert Kahn of the Northwest and Intermountain Power Producers Coalition, which represents independent producers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah.

Puget Energy, Washington's largest utility, has agreed to sell virtually all the green power produced by its wind farms for the next two years to Southern California Edison. The deal, coming right after Puget was sold to an international investor group, could fuel some grumbling: The Australians are now wholesaling Puget's clean energy to the Californians. "People who believe you can follow the green electron down the line" may bristle at the thought of selling that power out of state, says Robert McCullough, a Portland energy consultant. But in fact,

One of the decisions faced by state officials as they consider the revised Desert Claim Wind Power Project is whether to overrule Kittitas County government's April 2005 rejection of an older version of the wind farm planned for eight miles north of Ellensburg. One could say the Desert Claim project, the state and the county have a "history" in regard to the project.

Representatives from enXco hope their reconfigured Desert Claim Wind Farm, planned for 5,200 acres about 8 miles northwest of Ellensburg will get the go-ahead from the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC). Desert Claim Project Director David Steeb said enXco would submit its revised application for the $330 million, 95-turbine wind farm to EFSEC on Friday.

Renewable energy has muscled its way onto the 2009 Legislature's agenda. As of Wednesday, lawmakers had introduced 16 bills to amend Initiative 937, the voter-approved 2006 measure that requires utilities to ramp up their purchase of solar, wind and geothermal energy beginning in 2012. The reason for the intense interest: This is the first session since its passage that the law can be amended by a simple majority vote.

Picture 400 super-size windmills spinning in a steady, stiff ocean breeze just beyond the horizon off the Washington coast, generating enough electricity to supply the needs of Seattle and Tacoma. Now picture thousands of similar windmills off California, New England, the mid-Atlantic, the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Even as Congress is embroiled in a sharp debate over whether to allow increased offshore oil and gas drilling, others are seriously working to develop a green source of energy along the outer continental shelf.

With Washington's biggest utility about to be bought by foreigners, public power advocates in four counties are hoping to switch their portions of the grid to local control. Voters will decide in November.

Cost issues aside, Avista has no choice but to add new renewable sources of electricity to its portfolio. Initiative 937, approved by Washington voters in 2006, requires utilities to acquire new renewable energy resources or to buy so-called renewable energy "credits" from others so that they supply at least 15 percent of their retail load with renewable energy in 2020. I-937 requires utilities to meet biennial conservation targets beginning in 2012, and because wind-turbine farms take only about six months to build after construction begins, Avista doesn't have to erect its wind turbines right away, Silkworth says. "Our needs don't really start until 2012; so, we're not thinking of building this thing for a few years," he says.

Kittitas County on Wednesday charged a state council that makes decisions on county wind farms with being biased against the county's position and against public testimony from those in opposition to a local project and also alleged the council's chairman violated appearance of fairness rules. Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) and governor-appointee, Jim Luce, prejudged the 65-turbine Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project before final decisions were made, was biased against the county's stance against the project and expressed disdain for public comment on the project. "Those disclosures ... are startling and undermine basic tenants of how we all believe government should operate," Zempel said in the release.

A state council halted Energy Northwest's application to build a $1.5 billion petcoke/ coal gasification plant at the Port Kalama Tuesday, saying the public power giant's plan failed to meet new state requirements for sequestering greenhouse gases. ...The proposed plant would use a new, cleaner technology called Integrated Gasfication Combined Cycle to produce power. Energy Northwest's plans call for gasifying petcoke, a waste product from manufacturing gasoline, though coal could also be gasified. Company officials have argued that state environmental rules prevent them from injecting carbon gases into the ground, and they've made a "good faith" to develop a sequestration plan.

Looking east into Gilliam County and north into Washington, turbines are strung over ridgelines as far as the eye can see. And there are nowhere near enough of them. ...West Coast utilities and independent power producers are locked in a land rush to secure the best wind sites and the power they produce. Coupled with a worldwide shortage of turbines and a falling dollar, the resulting scarcity is driving up the cost of wind power, a burden electricity ratepayers will shoulder.

Chicago-based Invenergy Wind North America applied on Wednesday with Kittitas County to construct a $250 million, 69-turbine wind farm sandwiched between Vantage Highway and Interstate 90 southeast of the existing Wild Horse Wind Power Project on the east end of the county. ...By utilizing the county's pre-identified wind farm zone, the company will likely expedite the approval process. "I'm estimating that public hearings before the county commissioners on the project could come as early as December," Piercy said.