The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced Thursday that it has approved a $161 million loan to the company building the Montana Alberta Tie Line between Great Falls and Lethbridge. The Western Area Power Administration will loan Toronto-based Tonbridge Power Inc. - the project's developer - money with funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, also known as the federal stimulus bill.

Canadian and Irish companies announced plans Friday to build a 100-mile-long power line in Montana that could prompt construction of wind farms in the Great Falls area by giving developers access to large out-of-state markets hungry for renewable energy. ...Construction of the transmission line would spur the construction of wind projects near it, Jamison said. Gaelectric is studying wind farm construction at several sites across the state, including near Fort Benton and Havre.

A Canadian transmission company and an Irish wind developer said Friday they are teaming up to pursue a central Montana power project that could result in at least $1 billion worth of new wind energy in the Great Falls area. If the project succeeds, it would give Montana's burgeoning wind energy industry room to grow - an expansion that to date has been limited by a lack of lines to move power out of the state.

The developer of a $213 million transmission line being eagerly awaited by wind developers said construction is set to begin following the decision Thursday by the Supreme Court of Canada to refuse to hear an appeal of the project's permit. With the court's decision, all avenues for legal challenges have been exhausted and Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. will now be able to begin construction on both sides of the border by December.

A Canadian company is seeking wind power developers to move electricity along a pair of $3 billion transmission lines in Montana and Wyoming -- potentially spurring a major increase in renewable power exported from the Rockies to the Southwest. The two lines would move 3,000 megawatts of power from each state. That's more than three times as much wind power as Wyoming currently produces and eight times what Montana has.

Blade repairs are tricky, Moya said, because the weight and thickness of the repair materials have to be perfectly matched to the blade. Otherwise, a blade ends up lighter or heavier than the others on the windmill, causing the entire apparatus to wobble like an unbalanced tire and ultimately fall apart. "We send images of the damage to our engineers in Houston. They send detailed blueprints back about what needs to be replaced," Moya said.

Lightning knocked out two wind turbines and sent a massive tower blade crashing to the ground at the Judith Gap Wind Farm last month, the company said Wednesday. Repairs began earlier this month and will continue into September, said Susan Dennison, an Invenergy spokeswoman.

As a safety precaution, residential wind towers would be banned within 1,000 feet of schools under new zoning rules proposed in Cascade County. ...Different setback rules - the height of a wind tower in addition to the blade length plus 20 feet - are proposed when wind towers are proposed in the vicinity of private property.

A federal ruling that went against NorthWestern Energy on a proposed power line shouldn't change basic plans for the 430-mile line to export homegrown power to out-of-state markets, company officials say. But the recent order has piqued the attention of state regulators, who say they're wondering whether NorthWestern's Montana electric customers could end up paying for part of the line.

Molnar, R-Laurel, says the proposed 430-mile power line into southern Idaho is nothing more than a way to drain inexpensive Montana-produced power out of the state and into lucrative California markets. ...If PPL, which supplies about half the power for NorthWestern's customers, could move more power to California markets, it could demand a much higher price from Montanans, Molnar says.

Cascade County is considering creating setbacks to protect properties from wind development, including schools. But should schools be exempt from the rules? That's the question Cascade County commissioners must decide, Planning Director Brian Clifton said.

A Canadian energy company and an arm of the U.S. Energy Department are working on a deal to complete financing for a proposed Montana-Alberta power line that would span 214 miles and carry power from the region's emerging wind industry, officials said Tuesday.

Federal officials are again delaying whether to list sage grouse in 11 Western states as threatened or endangered -- leaving in limbo until at least 2010 a spate of industries that could face sweeping restrictions if the bird is protected. The chicken-sized grouse ranges from Montana to California alongside livestock grazing, oil and gas drilling and an increasing number of wind power turbines.

Next week, state utility regulators will give NorthWestern Energy the green light to build a new natural gas-fired power plant near Anaconda - a plant estimated to raise the average homeowner's electric rates by $35 to $50 a year in 2011. ...Electric utilities need a source of power they can draw on to keep their system in electrical balance, to fill in gaps caused by fluctuating demand for power or intermittent power sources such as wind.

Despite a recent judicial victory for a big wind-power line between Montana and Canada, developers remain cautious about the project's prospects. At the same time, there's a huge unmet demand for electrical transmission lines to get wind-generated power from resource-rich Montana to the rest of power-parched America. "We're currently monitoring as many as 50 projects ...," said Chantel McCormick, senior energy development specialist for the Montana Department of Commerce.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Friday vetoed three bills - one to provide a capital-gains tax credits as an incentive for businesses and two bills to deal with renewable energy.

At the center of conflicts over the bill stands an esoteric commodity known as a renewable energy credit. These certificates - often called RECs or 'wrecks' - are granted to developers for each megawatt hour of clean power generated. ...the utility has argued the measure is only intended to address what is essentially a double requirement for renewable purchases that results in higher bills for its customers.

A group of southern Alberta landowners has lost its fight to block a proposed power line that would run from Lethbridge into Montana. The Alberta Court of Appeal has ruled that the province's energy regulator was right when it said it didn't have the power to re-examine the location of the line's corridor, which had already been approved by the National Energy Board.

The state has approved the construction of up to 15 wind turbines on 3,080 acres of school-trust land as part of a 300-megawatt wind farm five miles northeast of Martinsdale. ...The 58-megawatt first phase will cost an estimated $200 million, and include the seven to 15 turbines on state land plus additional turbines on adjacent private land.

Jim Hicks summed up the sentiment of everyone in a crowd of nearly 200 people who packed a meeting Thursday evening in Butte to hear about a proposed power line that might come close to their homes. "It would basically make half of my ranch worthless," Hicks said, with his comments drawing loud applause. "What benefits would this provide to southwestern Montana?"