Avista will delay building a wind farm south of Reardan, Lincoln County, by at least two years, citing the high cost of wind turbines.

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.

The Grays Harbor PUD last night authorized an estimated $77 million investment in wind power as it looks for a way to satisfy a citizens initiative requiring utilities to use a certain portion of renewable energy. ...The utility district's commissioners unanimously approved increasing their share of the proposed Radar Ridge wind project from 5 to 10 percent to 64 percent.

Wind power's intermittency as an energy resource but minimal contributions toward peak-capacity needs are further evidenced in operational data from three Washington and Montana wind farms. Monthly and even daily energy production vary substantially. Officials from NorthWestern Energy and Puget Sound Energy recently shared these and other wind-power experiences, including reserve requirements (challenging) and wind forecasting (improving). These tales come from the 135 MW-capacity Judith Gap wind farm in central Montana, whose entire output NorthWestern buys from developer Invenergy Wind, and PSE's 150 MW-capacity Hopkins Ridge and 229 MW-capacity Wild Horse wind projects in southeastern and central Washington, respectively. ..."The relationship between load and wind output is almost zero," the former council member told the current council. "That's a real issue for us. We continue to learn almost every day some things about wind operations on our system."

The state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council announced it will conduct a public hearing 7 p.m. Aug. 6 at Central Washington University to examine a request to expand the acreage of the Wild Horse Wind Power Project and add 26 wind turbines to the wind farm located 17 miles east of Ellensburg.

Kittitas County commissioners have selected attorneys with a Wenatchee firm to provide land-use hearings examiner services that will begin when a contract with the firm is signed. ...The hearings examiner will conduct public hearings on subdivisions or plats, rezones when they are connected to a subdivision project, cluster plats, development agreements, planned unit developments, resorts and wind farms when they are proposed within the east-county wind resource zone. These hearings are now conducted by the county Planning Commission. The examiner will then make a recommendation to county commissioners who make the final decision on the proposals. The Planning Commission will continue to make recommendations on changes to the county comprehensive plan and land-use codes and on proposals from the three citizen advisory committees and rezones not connected to a subdivision.

The state Supreme Court is weighing whether it has jurisdiction in Kittitas County's appeal of a wind farm 12 miles northwest of Ellensburg. The court held a hearing Thursday on whether it should weigh in on the case. Last September, Gov. Chris Gregoire approved the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project, as recommended by the state's Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council.

"In its simplest terms, it's about who should make the land-use decisions for Kittitas County residents," said James Carmody, lawyer for the citizen wind farm opposition group Residents Opposed to Kittitas Turbines. "Is it county elected representatives or a group of unelected bureaucrats? We say local government should make that final decision." Assistant Attorney General Kyle Crews said there are debatable issues raised by the county about the EFSEC statute, "but the actions of the governor, the applicant and EFSEC were all done lawfully."

Another wind energy company has jumped into the sweepstakes to build a wind farm along a ridge on state-owned timberland in east Clark County. It marks the latest sign that an already-booming wind industry is starting to trickle west across the Cascade Range. Horizon Wind Energy, which also is proposing a 120-megawatt project currently under court challenge by Kittitas County officials, filed an application to lease 5,400 acres from the state Department of Natural Resources in the Larch Mountain area of Clark County. By meeting a Monday deadline, Horizon will vie for the lease in an auction with a Portland-based subsidiary of enXco Inc.

The Washington state Supreme Court will hear a challenge June 26 to state authorization of a major new wind power project planned in Kittitas County. At issue is approval of Horizon Wind Energy LLC's Kittitas Valley project by Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. A local citizens group called Kittitas County and Residents Opposed to Kittitas Turbines challenged the siting council's and the governor's authority to pre-empt local land use regulations as well as other legal matters.

Southwest Washington is likely to see wind turbines on the horizon thanks to burgeoning demand for renewable energy in the region, according to developers of Clark County's first wind farm proposal. Representatives of a large energy developer eyeing a state-owned ridgeline in east Clark County indicated Wednesday that plenty of wind prospectors are scouring the landscape for potential wind farm locations. The company, enXco Inc., wants to lease state timberland to build as many as 39 skyscraper-high wind turbines near Larch Mountain. ...A west-side wind boom is no sure bet. That's because one of the biggest advantages to building wind farms west of the Cascades also is perhaps the biggest disadvantage: the presence of the majority of the region's population. ..."You get into this looming effect," said Allen Fiksdal, director of the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. "It's a visual resource kind of issue.

The Skamania County prosecutor is asking a judge to throw a wind farm challenge out of court. Earlier, a citizens group filed suit against the county to stop a proposed wind farm near the Columbia Gorge. This is the third wind project to run into opposition in the Northwest recently, despite public votes in favor of more renewable energy. ...Elsewhere in the region, local landowners have not hesitated to file preemptory challenges to nip projects in the bud. On the Oregon side of the gorge by Mosier, a proposal for a 40 turbine wind farm is stuck in the gate as well.

Avista Corporation is looking to rural Lincoln County for their next big power project. But they aren't going to install a big electrical sub-station, or some high tension power lines, they're going to harness the wind. ..."Unfortunately wind is expensive, it's much more expensive than hydro, it is however cheaper than solar," said Hugh Imhof, spokesperson for Avista. But "greener" energy comes at a cost, something that will be reflected in rate increases. "It will be something that will be incorporated into the rate raise and it will probably mean an increase," said Imhof. "None of these things are cheap anymore."

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.

Puget Sound Energy will seek approval to add about 25 turbines to its Wild Horse Wind Power Project, constructing the new towers both inside and outside the existing 127-turbine project. The Bellevue-based private utility announced the planned expansion will include turbine sites on a newly purchased 1,400-acre tract immediately north of the existing wind farm that now takes in 9,150 acres, according to a news release. ...“It’s planned to locate added turbines inside the project as in-fill, and on the new property,” Lenz said Wednesday. “The 25 we’re looking at now is an estimate. It could be more or less.”

But the biggest reason for the growth of wind lies just out of sight from Wild Horse: the Columbia River with its huge hydroelectric generating capacity and the transmission lines that crisscross the state and region. Because of its intermittent nature, wind energy needs a solid base of other sources to sustain delivery of power to homes and businesses. Hydro dams are that base. Other states, principally Montana and North Dakota, have better wind than Washington. But the lack of transmission is stunting development.

Before an audience of about 60 people, the company presented details of the firm's plans for the 69-turbine, $250 million to $300 million Vantage Wind Power Project located seven miles west of Vantage and 15 miles east of Ellensburg, sandwiched between Vantage Highway and Interstate 90. Dave Iadarola, Invenergy's project developer, said the two, closest residents to the project are about three-forths of a mile from proposed turbine sites, and others are a mile or more away. He said the closest neighbors are supportive of the project. A minimum setback of a half mile will be maintained between turbines and any structures, he said.

A newly formed citizens ­organization has filed a ­lawsuit to block a wind farm from ­rising within sight of the Columbia River Gorge. Save Our Scenic Area, a nonprofit organization based in Underwood, filed the lawsuit against Skamania County in Clark County Superior Court earlier this week. The group contends ­Skamania County is violating the state Growth Management Act by failing to adequately protect commercial ­timberland and failing to ­properly zone the area where 44 giant wind turbines would rise. The group's Seattle-based attorney said residents are concerned about a proposal by SDS Lumber Co. to locate a wind farm just outside the boundary of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.