Utah’s first major commercial wind farm could begin development this year on South Mountain near Stockton, according to county and state officials. Tasco Engineering Company, a Lehi firm specializing in wind-power generation, is proposing to construct between 20 and 38 wind turbines in the area. The company could eventually put in up to 180 turbines, which would provide as much as 70 megawatts of power, according to a contract between Tasco and Rocky Mountain Power. Julie Orchard, with the Utah Public Service Commission, said wind power projects consistently produce about one third of their maximum capacity. Even at that rate, the Pioneer Ridge project in Stockton could power approximately 20,000 homes for a year. Tasco Engineering refused to comment on its proposed project.

Utah could be on the verge of a wind energy breakthrough, but it’s lacking one vital resource to make it a reality — political willpower. “If we could convince Gov. (Jon) Huntsman that renewables were as important as Real soccer, we could probably have wind turbines up in a matter of months,” said San Juan County Commissioner Bruce Adams. “I just don’t think that elected and public officials are educated enough to really understand what’s going on in the industry.”

Utah State University wants to know if wind from Logan Canyon can keep campus lights on. The school is collecting wind data near the school's power station. The study could last a year.

Officials in Burbank, Pasadena, Glendale, Riverside and Anaheim have told the Intermountain Power Agency in Utah that they're not renewing their contracts for coal-fired power with the company. They join Los Angeles, which already rejected plans to renew its contract with Intermountain.

The vast open spaces and persistent wind in northern Beaver County have lured a Massachusetts company with plans for a $400 million electricity-generating wind farm. Representatives of UPC Wind Management LLC of Newton, Mass., met last week with the planning and zoning commission of this southwestern Utah county to ask for a conditional land-use permit to build the first phase on 16,000 acres about 8 miles northeast of Milford. Given assurances the project would not close any lands or roads or interfere with grazing rights, the planning commission voted unanimously to grant the permit.

The push is under way to restore a state tax credit for producers of alternative energy, a credit that could make or break a proposed wind farm at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. The 2007 Legislature is still more than two months away, but proponents of restoring the tax credit are trying to get a head start so it doesn’t meet the same fate it did this year, when it was pushed aside in the final hours of a furiously busy session.

The future of a proposed wind farm in Spanish Fork is in jeopardy. Key investors in Wasatch Wind pulled out when Utah lawmakers failed to reinstate a tax credit for renewable energy. Wasatch Wind spokesperson Christine Watson Mikell says Utah is getting a reputation in the energy industry for being quote “not a wind-friendly state.”

There is wind in the hills of Spanish Fork Canyon, but harnessing it for power and money hasn’t been easy. To bring the Wasatch Wind farm to fruition, Spanish Fork may have to give up some of the property tax dollars that made the project attractive to the city, even if the Legislature approves wind renewable energy tax credits next year. Legislators didn’t reauthorize the credits during the 2006 legislative session, and the company was counting on them.

Wind power could be a new cash crop for farmers and ranchers in Utah, say researchers who were awarded a federal grant to promote small, independent wind farms. Utah State University business professors Edwin Stafford and Cathy Hartman released the second of two reports Friday. The first was a general summary of the economic benefits of small-scale wind farms. The second was an examination of hypothetical wind farms in Tooele and Box Elder counties.

At the halfway point between the West Coast energy crisis of 2001 and the next major electricity contract renewal year of 2011, a federal power marketing agency is proposing a policy change that could affect rates in the Pacific Northwest for generations and become a national model for energy development. Northwest hydropower is one of the cheapest energy resources in the nation - about half the current market rate for electricity. The Bonneville Power Administration - which sells power in all of Washington, Oregon and Idaho and parts of California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Montana - announced this summer it wants to change the way it charges utilities for its wholesale power, to keep rates low.

SPANISH FORK — An embattled wind farm development set to begin construction next year in Spanish Fork may serve as a microcosm for the future of wind energy in Utah and across the nation. The farm, a project of Utah-based Wasatch Wind, will be the state's first commercial wind farm. It already has been delayed after citizens in Spanish Fork requested that it be moved farther from homes, to a site at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. Finding investors was difficult, and the looming expiration date on a state tax credit, on which the project depends, promises an arduous battle still ahead as supporters work to get the credit restored. Like the wind power industry as a whole, the Wasatch Wind project has weathered the early storm and is poised to move forward but remains shrouded in lingering questions

The proposed new rules would lay out license requirements for people who install electricity generation systems that use photovoltaic solar panels or small wind turbines.

SPANISH FORK, Utah (AP) -- A proposed wind farm could be in jeopardy because Utah no longer offers a renewable energy tax credit that Wasatch Winds officials say is needed for the project to be successful.

Spanish Fork's City Council approved re-wording its zoning ordinance last week to allow wind farms in industrial areas. However, Wasatch Winds company president Tracy Livingston says he can't have a successful wind farm without renewable energy tax credits, even though all 18.9 megawatts of wind power have been purchased by Rocky Mountain Power, formerly Utah Power. And Utah no longer has the tax credits.

However, if tax credits for renewable energy sources aren't restored in a legislative session by the end of this year, then there will be no wind farm because the company can't afford to build and operate it without the credits.

In addition to having the first full-scale wind farm in Utah, Thomas said the city will benefit from the lease payments and the schools will benefit from the property taxes.

Air conditioning uses a lot more energy. Non-industrial energy use has gone up a solid 1.7 percent a year, but peak load power demand in the heart of the summer is rising at 5 percent annually.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Seven utilities have announced formation of a partnership to advance the Frontier Line, an electric-power transmission grid that would serve Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.

SPANISH FORK — Developers of a proposed wind farm at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon were scrambling Monday to secure the necessary leases to move their project away from a residential neighborhood.

SPANISH FORK — Residents, developers and city officials in Spanish Fork are inching closer to a mutual agreement that would relocate a planned wind farm that has generated the ire of homeowners near the area where it was originally planned to be built.