PacifiCorp on Thursday announced the purchase of the Leaning Juniper wind farm in the Columbia River Gorge. It is the first acquisition of its kind for the Portland-based multistate utility.
PacifiCorp on Thursday announced the purchase of the Leaning Juniper wind farm in the Columbia River Gorge. It is the first acquisition of its kind for the Portland-based multistate utility.
Neither PacifiCorp nor the seller, Portland's PPM Energy, disclosed a price tag for the 100.5-megawatt facility, under construction in the wheat fields and grasslands southwest of Arlington in Gilliam County. The wind farm is scheduled for completion in mid-August and will be capable of producing energy to power 25,000 to 30,000 homes.
The transaction fulfills one of the conditions of the utility's recent sale to Iowa's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. The deal emphasizes the growing role of investor-owned utilities in the ownership of wind farms, a territory dominated by national developers.
PacifiCorp owns part of a wind farm in Wyoming, but Leaning Juniper will be the first fully owned by the utility.
The utility expects to …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]Neither PacifiCorp nor the seller, Portland's PPM Energy, disclosed a price tag for the 100.5-megawatt facility, under construction in the wheat fields and grasslands southwest of Arlington in Gilliam County. The wind farm is scheduled for completion in mid-August and will be capable of producing energy to power 25,000 to 30,000 homes.
The transaction fulfills one of the conditions of the utility's recent sale to Iowa's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. The deal emphasizes the growing role of investor-owned utilities in the ownership of wind farms, a territory dominated by national developers.
PacifiCorp owns part of a wind farm in Wyoming, but Leaning Juniper will be the first fully owned by the utility.
The utility expects to announce more deals soon.
"It's what I view to be the first of many to come," said Mark Tallman, PacifiCorp's managing director of renewable resource acquisitions. "It clearly demonstrates the seriousness of our commitment."
As part of the MidAmerican-PacifiCorp transaction, the utility agreed to add 100 megawatts of renewable energy to its resource portfolio by March 2007, a year after the sale became final. Leaning Juniper satisfies that condition.
PacifiCorp agreed to acquire another 300 megawatts of renewable energy by the end of 2007.
Jan Mitchell, a PacifiCorp spokeswoman, said the utility was "actively negotiating with other parties on other projects." She declined to disclose details.
Both PacifiCorp and PPM Energy were owned by ScottishPower before the Glasgow, Scotland, company sold the utility to MidAmerican Energy. PPM Energy remains a subsidiary of ScottishPower.
MidAmerican Energy, which touts its renewable energy credentials and owns wind farms in its home state of Iowa, is controlled by billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
Recent purchase activity surrounding wind farms in the Northwest increasingly has involved utilities.
Puget Sound Energy stands at the forefront of the trend. Last year, the utility subsidiary of publicly traded Puget Energy became the first investor-owned utility in the region to buy a wind farm -- the 150-megawatt Hopkins Ridge facility in Washington's Columbia County.
Soon after, Puget Sound Energy bought the 230-megawatt Wild Horse project, located on Whisky Dick Mountain about 17 miles east of Ellensberg, Wash.
Wild Horse is under construction and scheduled for completion by year's end.
When utilities began adding wind power to their portfolios several years ago, they bought the power from developers or other owners, but they didn't buy the facilities outright.
Puget Sound Energy officials said the equation has changed because the industry has matured and improved and come to use turbine technologies that are proven and cost-effective.
"It clearly was more economical for us to own it than to buy the power," said Roger Garrat, the company's director of resource acquisition. Garrat said the utility is eyeing additional purchases.
Utilities also view wind power as a way to diversify their portfolios, cut reliance on fossil fuels and to hedge against the volatile fuel prices associated with natural gas.
Portland General Electric also has jumped into the game. In April, it announced plans to buy the development rights for a wind farm in Oregon's Sherman County that could boast up to a 450-megawatt capacity.
Construction of the Biglow Canyon project hasn't yet begun, but PGE said it hopes to complete the first phase by the end of 2007.
PPM Energy remains a dominate player in wind power. One of the largest developers of wind farms in the country, it currently has 1,700 megawatts of wind power in operation or under construction, much of it in the Northwest.
The deal with PacifiCorp is a twist for PPM Energy, which generally holds onto the wind farms it builds.
"We're always interested in doing whatever is mutually beneficial to us and our customers," said Anita Marks, a spokeswoman for PPM Energy. "This is just another way to participate in the market."
Gail Kinsey Hill: 503-221-8590, gailhill@news.oregonian.com