Wind turbines have become a familiar sight in the Columbia Gorge, where strong breezes and high-voltage transmission lines offer developers a tempting combination or renewable resource and customer access. The amount of wind power in the Northwest could quadruple in the next five years. ...While the tally shows a whole-hearted embrace of clean, renewable energy, it also exposes the limits of the transmission network, or grid. Unless more power lines are added, the Northwest won't be able to handle so much wind so quickly, BPA officials said. BPA says it has only enough space on the grid for just one-third of the anticipated 4,716 megawatts. ...These are not pie-in-the-sky proposals. Developers had to back up their request requests for transmission access with cash -- $1.56 million for every 100 megawatts they wanted to put on the grid. "Those who sign and pay, stay in the game," Mainzer said. "The rest are dropped from the queue."

The Umatilla County Planning Commission has approved the Echo-area project. Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a land-use permit for the wind farm's transmission line along Highway 207. The line will carry the project's electricity to a PacifiCorp substation at Hinkle. For the project's investors, the land-use permit was the final step before going to work. ...

A surge of wind last week jumped far beyond levels forecast by operators of Oregon's burgeoning wind-farm industry, sending more power into the regional grid than it could accommodate. For the first time, Bonneville Power Administration power managers began calling operators with orders to curtail power generation. ...The agency can sanction wind companies that disobey pullback orders. In this case, penalties were unnecessary, Silverstein said.

Columbia Basin river managers had a close call this week when they were forced to cut back on hydropower after a surge in wind energy blasted through the system. The surge forced them to spill more water over dams, risking the health of migrating fish. For the first time, it also exposed serious kinks in a plan that was supposed to deal smoothly with just such emergencies. ...Problems began Monday afternoon when wind speeds jumped far beyond levels forecast by wind-farm operators. BPA, responsible for adjusting hydro generation to accommodate the wind, realized by evening that it could no longer handle the sustained surge without increasing spills to dangerous levels.

But a doubling of wind-power supplies and an unusually concentrated surge in water levels have challenged this season's power operations like never before. ...The result: wasted power generation, excessive spill through the dams and a sometimes frenzied juggling of dam and transmission schedules. Several weeks ago, when an unexpected wind surge hit, Bart McManus, a BPA power manager, said he came close to telling wind developers he couldn't take the generation that exceeded the forecast. "So far, we haven't had to do that." McManus is part of an effort to improve the way wind power joins the system. Dramatic changes must be made within several years, he said. "If normal operations continue, we'll have a hard time meeting (electricity) reliability standards," he said. "We're busting our tails. We don't have a lot of time."

In a public hearing Wednesday, the Morrow County Court approved of a special tax schedule for the Willow Creek Wind Farm, which is building 48 wind turbines in Morrow and Gilliam counties. The program, known as a Strategic Investment Program (SIP), allows the energy company to pay the majority of its property taxes spread out over 15 years rather than the first six, which is the norm under tax schedules. Paul Woodin, the executive director of the community renewable energy association, said that without the SIP, Oregon would be one of the most expensive places to site a wind farm.

The Umatilla County Planning Commission gave the green light to an Oregon wind farm project in Echo Thursday night. The commissioners voted unanimously to approve a land-use permit for the wind farm's transmission line along Highway 207. The line will carry the project's electricity to a PacifiCorp substation at Hinkle. ...Commissioner Tammie Williams said she sympathized with those who live near the line, but Umatilla County needed the money the wind farm would bring. "It would be a disadvantage to this community not to have that money generated," she said.

Oregon officials and Siemens Power Generation Inc. have reached settlement over safety issues in a wind turbine tower collapse that killed one worker and injured another near Wasco last year. Oregon's Occupational Safety and Health Division initially fined the company $10,500 for safety violations that led to the collapse. The company appealed the decision. On Monday, both sides reached a settlement that reduced the fine to $10,275 over technical issues.

A proposed wind farm development Washington is creating some controversy. While the plan is still in the very early stages, the designers envision placing wind turbines on a ridge near Larch Mountain, east of Battle Ground. ...A proposed wind farm development Washington is creating some controversy. While the plan is still in the very early stages, the designers envision placing wind turbines on a ridge near Larch Mountain, east of Battle Ground.

Matt Thomas is a car dealer who co-owns several Thomas Sales & Service dealerships in Central Oregon. He's also a wind-power advocate, with hopes of erecting four small windmills on the 320 acres he owns between Bend and Tumalo where he plans to build a home. He's prepared a site and purchased his first turbine. But due to Deschutes County code, his turbine plans are coming up short. ...The minimum height Thomas' turbine can operate at and still generate electricity (wind speed increases farther from the ground) is 33 feet. That's 3 feet over the county's height restriction for structures ...Wind farms, with their giant turbines, are the most visible signs of the growth of wind power, but the fastest-growing sector in wind power is the much smaller, residential-scale market, Stimmel said. Residential-scale windmills produce 2 to 10 kilowatts of energy.

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.

Wind turbine maker Siemens Power Generation will try to convince Oregon regulators today that adequate safety measures were in place when a 230-foot tower collapsed and crashed to the ground in a Sherman County wheat field last summer. Technician Chadd Mitchell, who was working high in the nacelle, the structure that houses the turbine's generating components, died in the Aug. 25 incident at the Klondike III wind farm. Another technician, William Trossen, was injured. A third employee, Dustin Ervin, sitting in a truck nearby, gunned the engine to avoid the falling wreckage and escaped unharmed, according to a state report. ...Siemens hasn't refuted the sequence of events that led to the collapse, but it objects to the division's findings of safety violations. "The employees demonstrated they could do the work they were trained to do safely," Siemens spokeswoman Melanie Forbrick said. "The actions that led to the incident were not actions that were related to the work they were performing." Siemens appealed the findings March 21.

A wind turbine manufacturer has appealed the $10,500 fine the state of Oregon issued for safety violations related to an Aug. 25, 2007, wind turbine tower collapse that killed one worker and injured another. The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division - Oregon OSHA - fined Germany-based Siemens Power Generation Feb. 26 after finding several safety violations related to the death and injury.

Siemens Power Generation Inc. has appealed a fine by Oregon's Occupational Safety and Health Division over a wind turbine tower collapse. In February, the Oregon agency fined the company more than $10,000 for safety violations that led to the collapse that killed one worker and injured another last year. Siemens says in its filing with the state that it was fully committed to the safety of its employees but disagreed with the agency's findings.

Plans for a controversial wind farm on the hills above Mosier may be faltering. Almost a year has passed since developer UPC Wind first asked state regulators to review the 40-turbine project, which lies within the windy stretches of the Columbia River Gorge. Revisions to the proposal, promised more than six months ago, have yet to materialize. The delays underscore the difficulties UPC Wind faces as it tries to rearrange the turbines so that they're less visible from a federally protected scenic area, but still in breezy enough spots to produce a moneymaking venture. The Massachusetts-based company also is struggling to appease an outpouring of anger from residents near the proposed site, on Sevenmile Hill. So far, opposition remains organized and strong.

A Massachusetts-based energy company is running into roadblocks as it tries to develop a wind farm on the hills above this Columbia Gorge town. It has been nearly a year since UPC Wind first asked state regulators to review the 40-turbine project in the windy stretches of the gorge. Revisions promised more than six months ago, have yet to materialize. UPC is faced with problems trying to rearrange the turbines to make them less visible from a federally protected scenic area, but still in breezy enough spots to produce a moneymaking venture. The company also is also trying to mollify angry residents near the proposed site, on Sevenmile Hill. It is organized and strong.

Almost a year has passed since developer UPC Wind first asked state regulators to review the 40-turbine project, which lies within the windy stretches of the Columbia River Gorge. Revisions to the proposal, promised more than six months ago, have yet to materialize. The delays underscore the difficulties UPC Wind faces as it tries to re-arrange the turbines so that they're less visible from a federally protected scenic area, but still in breezy enough spots to produce a money-making venture. The Massachusetts-based company also is struggling to appease an outpouring of anger from residents near the proposed site, on Sevenmile Hill. So far, opposition remains organized and strong. "When virtually everyone for miles around says this is a terrible location for a wind farm, you'd think they'd take the hint," said Jim Yuhas, a nearby homeowner.

For more than a year, the Bonneville Power Administration has tried to put a pricetag on the flightiness of wind. Earlier this week, the federal power marketer settled on a figure: 68 cents a kilowatt month or $2.82 a megawatt hour. Those are numbers only energy wonks could love. But, they're significant because they identify for the first time the so-called "integration" costs of wind and because, eventually, they'll work their way onto the monthly bills of electric utility customers. The price-setting also speaks to the rapid growth of wind energy in the Northwest and the challenges tied to a clean but quirky resource. ...Until now, BPA's customers -- the public utilities in the Northwest -- have paid for these blending costs. But most of the wind-power goes elsewhere, to investor-owned utilities PGE, Pacific and Puget Sound Energy and south, into California. Now that so much wind is coming onto the system, the costs need to be apportioned fairly, BPA's Mainzer said.

Residents of Sevenmile Hill have claimed what they call "a major victory" in their bid to oppose construction of a six-mile-long chain of 390-foot wind turbines on the hills above Mosier. Members of the Families for Sevenmile Hill circulated a memo this week from Adam Bless of the Oregon Department of Energy, outlining the results of a Feb. 28 meeting between Oregon Department of Energy and two representatives from UPC. According to Bless: • UPC is considering changes to the project layout. These changes could involve moving some of the turbines from their originally proposed locations, and adding some turbines at new locations instead. • UPC's reason for moving some of the turbine locations is to try and address the public comments.

Tax breaks and cash rebates have done what the most gung-ho green talk has not: ignited a solar power boom in Oregon. Oregon officials expect the amount of solar power in the state to jump more than eightfold this year as businesses, nonprofits and government agencies install rooftop and ground-mounted photovoltaic systems at record rates. The surge is courtesy of the taxpayer, who foots the bill in this effort to go green. ...Skeptics don't like the size of the subsidies, which are expected to reduce the state budget by almost $96 million annually by 2013 -- money that otherwise would be available for schools, health care and other government-funded services. Besides, they note, even such furious development isn't going to make solar energy a significant part of the state's overall power supplies anytime soon. "It's window dressing," said Jeff King, a senior resource analyst with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council who tracks the region's power supplies and finds solar just a blip.