The Bonneville Power Administration has initiated a rate case to set the price for balancing services for wind generation because of the rising expense of integrating increasingly large amounts of the intermittent resource in its control area. ... The agency must also be able to absorb the highest hour of expected generation because it runs the risk that its existing resources cannot absorb the added energy. In the case of hydro or pumped storage, the agency would have to spill water rather than use it to generate power or use it at a less efficient time. Therefore, the agency will have to assess a sink charge.

The collapse of a wind turbine tower last weekend in Eastern Oregon is being blamed on turbine blades turning at excessive speeds. The German company says there does not appear to be any structural problem or design issue. But Siemens has issued additional safety protocols to the workers in its wind turbine division.

Investigators at the Klondike III wind farm east of The Dalles believe the huge blades on a wind turbine that collapsed and killed a man were spinning too fast. ..."While investigation is not yet complete, based on the information we have so far, there are indications that what we call an ‘over speed operation' may have occurred after a sequence of procedures performed during the service inspection," said Siemens spokesperson Melanie Forbrick.

Investigators are just beginning to sort out how one of the hundreds of wind turbines that have been installed in Oregon collapsed this weekend, killing one worker and injuring another. "We don't know a lot more than we did yesterday," said Melanie Forbrick, spokeswoman for Siemens Power Generation, the German company that built the wind turbine... On Monday, Siemens suspended all inspection and maintenance work on its turbines worldwide. "We just wanted to take some precautionary measures," said Forbrick.

OSHA spokesman Kevin Weeks said the regulatory agency will look for possible flaws in the tower's engineering and try to determine whether safety and health rules were violated. ...Siemens, a German company, suspended inspection and maintenance work on its turbines worldwide Monday. "We just wanted to take some precautionary measures,"

A wind turbine on the not-yet-opened Klondike III wind farm east of the town of Wasco snapped in half Saturday, killing a maintenance worker at the top who fell to his death. A second worker inside the 242-foot-tall shaft was injured. The turbine broke about 4 p.m. Saturday a little more than halfway up the nearly hollow tube that holds the blades, said Geremy Shull, a Sherman County sheriff's deputy.

A wind turbine tower crashed to the ground at a wind farm east of The Dalles, killing one worker and injuring another, Sherman County authorities said. Sheriff's Deputy Geremy Shull said the collapse occurred Saturday afternoon. He declined to release the names of the workers, but said the man who died was from Goldendale, Wash. The injured worker was in serious condition at a hospital in The Dalles, Shull said.

A prolonged shortage of wind turbines is pushing up prices for projects in the West and forcing developers to scramble for deals long before construction begins. Record-breaking U.S. demand, tapped out manufacturing capacity and higher materials costs have kept markets tight and costs rising. The supply squeeze is more than three years old and only now is showing some signs of easing, wind developers and consultants say. "It's almost the worst possible world," said Tom Karier, chairman of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which helps shape regional energy policy. The shortage is affecting developers nationwide, but the pinch is particularly acute in windy Western states such as Oregon, Washington and California, which have ambitious plans to increase wind-power production.

Now a Massachusetts company wants to catch the wind that whips across the ridge between Mosier and The Dalles. The Cascade Wind Project proposed by UPC Wind Partners is the first to reach into a rural Oregon community. Predictably, the 389-foot towers have riled the locals. Yet the clash goes deeper than a spat between neighbors and a developer. The northern cluster of Cascade Wind's turbines would brush the boundary of the federally protected Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. That sets up a conflict between Northwest values, pitting a revved-up desire to advance clean, renewable energy against the long-held belief that rural and scenic areas deserve special care.

Parents saving for college, mobile home owners facing eviction, and businesses that generate or use alternative energy are among the beneficiaries of a wide-ranging tax break bill signed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski on Tuesday......The energy initiative, which ranks as the biggest tax break in the bill, will expand the credit for businesses to build wind farms, use solar or otherwise boost the use of clean energy. Now the credit is 35 percent of costs, with a cap of $3.5 million. The new law increases the credit to 50 percent, with a $10 million cap. It's estimated to cost the state at least $6 million a year by 2009-11.

Residents of Sevenmile Hill got a chance to tell their story directly to members of the Energy Facilities Siting Council of the Oregon Department of Energy Thursday night, and they made the most of it. Of the 35 people who spoke about UPCs proposed Cascade Wind project, 31 expressed their disapproval in various shades of firmness.

Pacific Power has asked regulators in Wyoming for approval to install 66 wind turbines capable of generating 99 megawatts of electricity at a former coal mine. The Glenrock Wind Energy Project would be constructed at Pacific Power's former Dave Johnston Coal Mine, a surface coal mine that operated for 40 years until it shut down in 2000. The nine-mile site has since been restored to its original appearance.

A growing number of wind-energy companies are establishing themselves in downtown Portland, drawn by a rapidly expanding market for renewable power, a skilled labor pool and the city's green welcome mat. The influx of wind-energy investment and white-collar professionals is realizing the burgeoning hopes of state economic leaders who see alternative energy development as a new leg of a state economy in transition. Many firms boast international connections, ample financial resources and a nose for opportunity.

PORTLAND Oregon Wind Corp. and Portland State University are testing four 40- watt vertical axis wind turbines at the school's campus this summer. The 40-inch-tall Helyx wind turbines built by Portland-based Oregon Wind Corp. can generate electricity for about $1.50 per watt, according to the company's co-founder, Toby Kinkaid. "That's pretty close to what the big boys can achieve," he says. Kincaid plans to sell the machines for $60 each by the end of 2007. One Helyx operating at full capacity can only illuminate one light bulb, but a shelving unit dubbed the WindWall can pool the energy generated from up to 36 turbines, according to Kinkaid. Oregon Wind Corp. says it needs $500,000 in equipment to enable mass production of the fiberglass blades.

A proposal by Massachusetts-based UPC Wind to locate the 40-tower, 60-megawatt Cascade Wind Farm on Sevenmile would certainly change the landscape of that area. Scads of residents have, over the months, expressed disapproval over issues such as how 40 wind turbines, each nearly 400-feet-tall would damage the scenery around the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Others are troubled over the reported health hazards the turbines may pose to people in homes situated around them.

The most expensive of the tax breaks would reimburse businesses for half the cost of wind farms, biofuel plants and other renewable energy plants or equipment. Deckert said that break will create good jobs and make Oregon more prosperous.

An application to site a 40-tower, 60-megawatt wind farm on Sevenmile Hill, west of The Dalles, was deemed incomplete last week by the Oregon Department of Energy (ODE) and returned to its authors with a request for supplemental information in key areas of concern. In a letter mailed June 7, ODE informed UPC Wind Development, LLC, the company behind the proposed Cascade Wind Project, that it had until June 20 to submit a date by which a complete application would be submitted. According to ODE's Adam Bless, "no one has ever submitted a complete application on the first try," so this wrinkle doesn't come as a great shock to those close to the process.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law one of the nation's toughest renewable energy standards Wednesday, requiring large utilities to generate 25 percent of the state's electricity from renewable resources such as wind, sunlight and biomass by 2025.

As the Oregon Renewable Energy Act made its way through the Legislature last month, lawmakers emphasized its potential to create homegrown, clean sources of electricity. Yet, even as Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed the bill into law Wednesday, the emerging reality defied the vision of a lone state moving toward energy self-sufficiency. Oregon wind farms, expected to dominate the state's renewable power expansion, are in the sights of utilities throughout the West. Electricity buyers in California are showing interest in power generated by a wind farm under construction in Sherman County, and already California utilities have snagged power from a Washington project. And the electricity from a project under development in Oregon's Union County is headed for Idaho.

A fortified Oregon business energy tax credit (BETC), which raises the maximum write-off for renewables from 35 percent on $10 million projects to 50 percent on $20 million projects, is all but certain to pass into law as HB 2811 before legislators head home from Salem. But a new BETC won't do businesses much good unless lawmakers also close a loophole that devalues tax credits in years such as 2007, when the state will pay out a business tax kicker. As things stand, the kicker lessens corporate tax burdens and, in turn, eats into the value of the credits for would-be buyers - costly both in millions of dollars to the economy and megawatts gone undeveloped.