Five entities, including Kittitas County government, have filed with a state energy council to have a formal say in the coming hearings to review the Desert Claim Wind Power Project planned for eight miles northwest of Ellensburg. ...The status gives parties the opportunity to support, oppose or propose modifications to the proposed 95-turbine wind farm sought by enXco Inc.

Three agencies, including Kittitas County, want to intervene and affect the future of the Desert Claim wind power project north of Ellensburg. The Washington state Energy Facilities Site Evaluation Council will consider the requests during a council meeting scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

Kittitas County commissioners on Monday agreed to become an intervenor in the state's formal process to review the 95-turbine Desert Claim wind farm planned for eight miles northwest of Ellensburg. Gaining intervenor status from the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC, means the county wants the right to cross examine expert witnesses and give its own expert testimony.

Wind turbines may supply power without pollution but they are also generating complaints about noise and even possible health effects for people who live near them. Dan Williams says the 240-foot-tall turbines he can see from his hilltop home near Boardman in Eastern Oregon make so much noise they keep him awake at night.

Preliminary steps have begun in the state's formal evaluation of the Desert Claim Wind Power Project, a 95-turbine wind farm proposed for eight miles northwest of Ellensburg. The state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC, announced it has set April 17 as the deadline for interested parties to file petitions to have EFSEC formally recognize them as "intervenors" in the coming adjudication proceedings.

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.

A Bingen-based company that hopes to build a 70-megawatt wind farm on a backcountry ridge near Underwood has asked the state to explore the expansion of the project north onto 2,560 acres of state trust land. The Saddleback Wind Project would rise on logged-over industrial lands behind Underwood Mountain, just outside the north boundary of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

Local residents this year won't see wind farm towers going into the sky 12 miles northwest of Ellensburg, although site preparation work on the ground for the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project may start this fall. ...Horizon also is seeking from Kittitas County right-of-way use for power lines from the wind farm.

Jewell's idea on establishing a wind-power royalty payment program, discussed in a separate meeting on Jan. 5, is on hold pending more research. The concept was a possible fee on electricity produced by wind farms in the county.

A Native American tribe in northeastern Washington is partnering with a California company to explore the potential for wind energy there. Clipper Windpower of Carpinteria, Calif, placed three wind gauges on the Confederated Tribes of the Colville reservation in July. Peter Stricker, a Clipper vice president, said Thursday that wind testing would continue until about midyear.

Kittitas County commissioners approved an agreement on Tuesday with a wind energy company that has the firm paying Kittitas County for the staff work required to deal with the development of its wind farm. Invenergy Wind North America LLC, through its subsidiary Vantage Wind Energy LLC, will pay the county $110,000 for handling county requirements for the planned 69-turbine wind farm proposed.

Avista Corp. will delay building a wind farm south of Reardan by at least two years, citing the high cost of the wind turbines. "This stuff is really expensive," said Hugh Imhof, a spokesman for the Spokane-based utility. "Why build a $125 million wind farm if we don't need it for another two years?"

Longview realtor Bill Hallanger has been pressing the committee to draft a policy so he can put up an $8,000 windmill he bought from an Arizona company earlier this year. ...County officials say they must review proposals like Hallanger's to protect neighbors from noise and other impacts.

The unanimous decision by the state's highest court that upheld the governor's approval of the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project has stirred both disappointment and jubilation, depending on how one views the role of state and local government. Those opposed to the site of the 65-turbine wind farm 12 miles north of Ellensburg say the decision bodes ill for local governments.

Wind power advocates won a convincing battle in the Washington Supreme Court, which ruled Thursday that local county commissioners can't block the way for wind power turbine farms. In a unanimous verdict (one justice didn't participate), the court ruled that Kittitas County commissioners couldn't stop the construction of a wind power farm on Highway 97 about halfway between Cle Elum and Ellensburg.

The state Supreme Court has upheld Gov. Chris Gregoire's approval of a wind farm in Kittitas County, despite the objections of local officials.