Wind farm work up in the air

CSU project sees permit, other delays; developer says effort remains on track

Two years after CSU announced plans to build a $500 million electricity-generating wind farm north of Fort Collins, the project's private developer says it remains on track despite no obvious signs of progress.

Former Colorado State University President Larry Penley garnered national headlines when he announced the plan March 29, 2007, declaring the CSU Green Power Project would be under construction in two years, providing all of the university's power needs and a valuable teaching tool.

But today, the university's partner in the project has not yet requested the permits necessary to build the facility at Maxwell Ranch north of Fort Collins and is still determining how to get the power to CSU and other customers. The farm would generate more power than CSU consumes, allowing the partner, Wind Holding, to sell the surplus.

Larimer County last fall created a new permitting process to consider the wind farm, and CSU and Wind Holding agreed to wait until that new process was in place before applying. CSU and Wind Holding officials said the delays are relatively minor, were foreseeable and can be overcome.

The wind farm would be Larimer County's first.

"It's simply a matter of the time it takes to put all these pieces together," said Bill Farland, CSU's senior vice president for research and engagement. "Obviously, we want to see this move as quickly as it possibly can."

Farland said CSU initially said the project would begin construction in two years as a way to keep pressure on Wind Holding. Farland himself in late 2007 said he believed the project might be up and running by 2010.

This week, however, Farland said the contract between the CSU Research Foundation and Wind Holding actually permits two one-year extensions, as long as Wind Holding pays CSU a fee each time. He declined to specify the amount, saying the contract is private, but he said it's in the "tens of thousands" of dollars.

The CSU Research Foundation, or CSURF, exists to aid the university in development and land deals and doesn't have to follow the same rules of public disclosure as the university itself. Farland said the university has been "very forthcoming" about the project's details but declined to provide a copy of the contract between CSURF and Wind Holding.

The principals of Wind Holding have completed 27 different wind projects during the past 30 years, including the first commercial wind farm in Wyoming.

In its initial announcement of the project, CSU said Wind Holding had eight years to get the farm up and delivering power.

Larimer County residents who live near the proposed project say CSU's varying explanations about the delays are just one example of the university approaching the project from a "marketing" perspective, rather than as true research tool.

CSU and Wind Holding initially indicated the project might be relatively small - as few as 25 turbines - then raised the estimate to 40, then to the 100 now envisioned.

"It basically boils down to just money," said Nina Jackson, an area resident who helped organize the approximately 50-member Greater Red Mountain Preservation Association. Jackson said she and her neighbors have concerns ranging from habitat fragmentation to the destruction of their scenic views.

Wind Holding CEO Bruce Morley said he understands area residents have concerns about the project and that CSU's participation heightens the community responsibility the company feels. Morley has been working with CSU for more than a decade to develop the project.

"There is some expected and understandable NIM-BY-ism," Morley said. "There's no science that supports any negative environmental or health impacts. The science is on the side of no impacts, except for the issue of visibility, and that's in the eye of the beholder."

Wind Holding plans to erect 100 windmills on CSU's Maxwell Ranch. Each turbine would be mounted on a 292-foot-tall tower and have three 147-foot-long rotor blades for a total height of about 439 feet.

Morley spoke to the Coloradoan from Bend, Ore., near where the company is about two-thirds finished on a 450-megawatt wind farm on the Washington state side of the Columbia River.

Morley said he hopes to apply for the CSU project permits later this spring or early summer, depending on how negotiations with area power companies go. Wind Holding must partner with an existing utility, likely Xcel Energy, to deliver the power from the turbines to the power grid. Morley said he hopes to start construction by the end of next year to take advantage of federal green-power stimulus funds.

Once the project is complete, the turbines will feed power into the grid, permitting a reduction in the amount of power needed from other sources, such as coal or natural gas. While CSU won't directly get the wind power, Morley said the project will mean Xcel will be able to shut down natural gas turbines on the Front Range when the wind is blowing, the annual equivalent of driving 650 million fewer vehicle miles.

"You wouldn't just string a line down to campus and go off the grid," he said.

Surplus energy will then be sold off to Xcel and other utilities, Morley said, with the proceeds paying off the cost of leasing the land from CSU and putting up the turbines.

In general, a megawatt of wind power can serve up to 300 households, and the CSU project will generate about 200 megawatts. At peak times, CSU consumes about 16 megawatts of power, meaning much of the power produced by the project can be sold to Fort Collins and possibly a consortium of other Colorado universities, Morley said.

CSURF will pocket about $33 million over 25 years for renting the land to Wind Holding. Larimer County will receive about $20 million in property-tax revenues over the same period, Morley said.

Area residents, including Jackson, object to the project's size and visual impacts, and they argue that it violates the spirit under which rancher Fred Maxwell willed the land to CSU in 1956. In his will, Maxwell specified that the land was to be used exclusively for research and experimental purposes.

Before proceeding, CSU asked for and received an opinion from the Colorado Attorney General's Office stating that the farm meets the letter of Maxwell's will. CSU plans to use portions of the wind farm for research, teaching and other experimental purposes.

"One of the really unique characteristics here is that the university is committed to providing utility-scale renewable power, but that (the project) also gives us a venue for research that's really unprecedented," Farland said.

Jackson said she could see how a couple of windmills could be termed a research project, but not 100 identical ones. Noting that CSU and Wind Holding still lack a contract to sell the surplus power, she said it seems the university simply decided it would build a wind farm and is now working backward to justify and pay for it.

"It's almost like it's politically incorrect to say anything against wind power," she said. "If they want to really show how renewable energy is beneficial, they should have taken the right steps."

Farland and Morley said CSU and Wind Holding have taken great pains to explain the project to neighbors, from hosting a series of information meetings to creating photorealistic mockups showing what the turbine installations would look like from residents' homes.

Farland said CSU real estate experts are close to completing a study showing how property values are affected by the installation of wind farms.

"We want to be sensitive to the kinds of issues that the neighbors have," Farland said. "We recognize that the community and the neighbors will definitely have a voice in the hearings around permitting. We want to make sure they have the information that is available to us."