A San Diego company that owns Southern California utilities is considering building a wind energy park on the western Navajo Nation, near Cameron, and has been in talks with chapter officials there. Sempra Energy has five wind-testing meters installed on Gray Mountain, to study the wind there. "Gray Mountain is a particularly good site and has some of the best wind resources in Arizona," said company spokesman Hanan Eisenman.

Wind power may have as much potential as those ads on television promise, but don't expect to see giant turbines dwarfing saguaros on the skyline of the Sonoran Desert. Experts call the wind in Southern Arizona "marginal", and say Arizona overall has few hot spots for wind power. ...The wind, contrary to how we may feel in the breezy spring or during a monsoon storm, doesn't blow reliably in Arizona. Still, industry leaders say, Arizona has the potential for utility-scale wind generation in selected areas .

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Safford Field Office is continuing to assess the Dry Lake Wind Project in Navajo County. The BLM issued its Environmental Assessment (EA) and unsigned Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) on February 12 and was available for public review through March 28. Many public comments on the 200-page EA were submitted, all of which required careful review and consideration. "The BLM supports renewable energy development on public lands," said BLM Safford Field Manager Scott Cooke. "At the same time we must ensure that all environmental and socioeconomic concerns are addressed in our analysis, and this takes time."

Salt River Project has agreed to purchase electrical energy from Arizona's first wind energy farm to be built about 18 miles northwest of Snowflake. The 20-year contract between SRP and the builder, Oregon-based Iberdrola Renewables, is considered a significant development in the ongoing drive for renewable energy sources in Arizona. Arizona Corporation Commissioner Kris Mayes, who has been critical of SRP as well as Arizona Public Service for using out-of-state renewable electrical power, praised SRP's decision to purchase the first wind-driven energy produced in the Grand Canyon State.

Western Wind Energy Corporation, based out of Vancouver, has purchased 1,128 and leased more than 22,000 acres of land to the southwest of Kingman in anticipation of building Steel Park, a wind turbine farm that, once completed, is expected to generate up to 215 megawatts of electricity annually ...Western Wind has already applied for zoning and permitting to begin construction of the project. The first 15 megawatts of the project is expected to cost approximately $33 million, $6.2 million of which Western Wind has already invested. Salama said the project would begin construction within the next three to five years.

Rancher Dennis Maroney points to one of the sites proposed for anemometers on his ranch in McNeal. Clipper Windpower plans to determine the feasibility of a wind farm by installing the anemometers to measure wind speed and direction. On Wednesday, the Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a work session to discuss the ins and outs of wind farms. "This is a fragile area," said Maroney as he tapped on the second "x." "The higher elevations of the mountains are not a good location for wind turbines." He worries about the environmental damage that could occur if a wind turbine power generating installation goes up in the high slopes. Road construction alone could cause irreparable damage. ...So just what are the regulations concerning the construction of wind turbine power generating projects? That's one of the questions that the Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will be asking at Wednesday's work session on wind power prompted by Clipper Windpower's excursion into the county. And they have asked some leaders in the renewable energy industry to come and talk about the in's and out's of wind turbines.

Chapter residents approved a resolution Sunday supporting Independent Power Projects Inc.'s plan to conduct a feasibility study for a wind farm to be located atop Gray Mountain, and asking the Navajo Nation Council to support the chapter-based effort. "We're just giving them the OK to do the feasibility study. That's it. If there's going to be all those wind turbines that's going to be put up, then we're going to negotiate with that company just like we're doing with IPP," Colorado said. ..."If we're going to do a wind farm out here, we're going to do one that can serve the community," he said. If they're not going to provide power to the community, "they're out of the picture."

The hills of the Mule Mountains may become a test site for the first wind turbine generating plant in the county. Clipper Windpower has confirmed that negotiations are under way for land in the development of a small test site of around six propeller-style wind turbines. The company hopes to lease an unspecified number of acres that are owned by the State Land Department in the area of Davis Road and High Lonesome Road. Company officials also are talking to one landowner in the area hoping to secure a portion of that land as well. ...[Jim] Alexander has formed Save the Mule Mountains to mount opposition to the wind project. "Since that time we have been very busy trying to obtain all the information we can on wind power facilities," Alexander said. "The wind maps and studies indicate that for Cochise County the only viable locations for wind generating facilities are the ridge lines of the mountains.

The Arizona Republic reported that the windmills, standing 400 feet tall, would be erected as part of an agreement between the Navajo Nation and Citizens Energy, a Boston company. The Dine Wind Project would be the first commercial wind farm in the Grand Canyon State, the newspaper said. The agreement resulted from negotiations among Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., other key tribal officials and Citizens Energy Chairman Joseph Kennedy II, a former member of Congress.

WASHINGTON - The House rejected a resolution Wednesday that would block government plans to spur construction of major new power lines in many states regardless of local opposition. The issue has been contentious in parts of the East Coast and in the Southwest, where two high priority transmission corridors for power lines were proposed. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., warned colleagues that unwanted power lines could come to their district.

A new federal proposal to help electricity flow more freely could help the energy-choked East Coast. But it could also infuriate landowners, who have traditionally gotten their way in fights against utilities in Delaware. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman last week named Delaware as part of his proposed eastern National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. It would run from New York to Virginia, and west to Ohio. A second corridor would run through California, Arizona and Nevada.

Operations for the Western Wind Energy project just outside Kingman were initially supposed to begin at the end of March. Problems, however, have pushed back the start date for the first wind energy farm in Arizona. “(The project) is in a little bit of a holding pattern until we can iron out a few issues,” said Mike Boyd, Western Wind Energy Corporation executive. Western Wind Energy, developer for the project, has full expectations of seeing this plan come to life, Boyd said. It currently holds the deed to 1,100 acres behind the Nucor Steel plant, with zoning in place to build the project. It hit a snag, Boyd said, in regards to transmission. Boyd said the company faces issues getting on line for a price it thought was reasonable.

After all the years of lip service about the potential for alternative-energy production in Arizona, especially solar, it's now down to brass tacks. Arizona Corporation Commission members Bill Mundell, Barry Wong, Kris Mayes and Jeff Hatch-Miller voted Tuesday for a measure, and Mike Gleason against, to require that 15 percent of the state's total energy production be from renewable-energy sources by 2025. A significant amount of that 15 percent - about one-third - by 2011 will come from so-called distributed energy, which is electricity produced by residential or non-utility-owned firms. In other words, commissioners opened the door for creative technologies in the fields of solar, wind, biomass and possibly geothermal to show they can produce substantial quantities of energy.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A publicly owned Arizona utility is on the hunt for investors who will share its dream of restarting a shuttered coal-fired power plant in the Nevada desert that was abandoned by its other owners. Phoenix-based Salt River Project is working to build a new ownership group to buy and upgrade the 1,580-megawatt Mohave Generating Station. The plant, in Laughlin, Nev. near the Arizona border, was shut in December because its owners hadn't installed pollution control equipment required under a court-approved consent decree. The plant also faced other problems, including expiring coal and water supply contracts. To resolve a lawsuit by environmentalists concerned about the harmful effects of pollution from Mohave on wildlife at the nearby Grand Canyon National Park, the plant's owners agreed to either install pollution-control equipment or shut the plant by the end of 2005.

Issues such as transmission and sale of the energy produced by the wind farm are still being resolved, and PPM has been actively marketing to potential customers.

KINGMAN – Construction of the area’s first wind farm is set for October, planting 15 200-foot turbines at a site behind the Nucor Steel plant.

KINGMAN, Ariz. A proposed wind energy facility near Kingman received approvals from Mohave County planners.

Arizona may not be the windiest state in the nation, but several projects are in the works to add wind-generated power to the state's electricity mix.

The city of Flagstaff's purchase of a water ranch 35 miles to the east means a wind energy farm on the property can go forward.