In this issue

Western customers make strong competition for annual wind award

The city of Hull, Mass., received the 2006 Wind Power Pioneer Award for engaging the entire community to understand and move forward together on its wind power project.

The judges for the 2007 Wind Power Pioneer Award recognizing public power utilities for innovative wind projects are facing a tough decision, choosing from an impressive field of nominees that happens to include several Western customers.

DOE's Wind Powering America Program and the American Public Power Association sponsor the annual award, now in its fifth year.  The Wind Power Pioneer of 2007 will be announced during the APPA Customer Connections Conference in Seattle, Oct. 28 through 31. Fort Collins Utilities is the only Western customer so far to receive the award, in 2004. The other Wind Power Pioneers were Waverley Light and Power, Austin Energy and last year's winner, the town of Hull, Mass..

This year's nominees include Aspen Municipal Electric Utility, Modesto Irrigation District, Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, City of Palo Alto Utilities, Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Silicon Valley Power. "It's gratifying that Western customers are so strongly represented among this year's nominees," said Western Renewable Energy Program Manager Randy Manion. "Our service territory is rich in renewable resources, and the West is known for its spirit of innovation and opportunity."

Aspen carries on green history

In nominating the city of Aspen, Colo., for the Wind Power Pioneer Award, Randy Udall, director of the Community Office for Resource Efficiency, pointed out that the city's power supply was 100 percent renewable hydropower until 1955. So the municipal utility's embrace of wind power seems only natural—Aspen supplies a full 25 percent of its load from wind energy.

It started with the purchase of one turbine's worth of generation from Medicine Bow, Wyo., in 1998, and increased five years later with 4 million kilowatt-hours from the wind farm at Kimball, Neb. As a MEAN member, the municipal utility strongly supported the power wholesaler in building the $14 million Kimball project.

Concerned about climate change, the Aspen City Council voted unanimously to quadruple its Kimball wind energy purchase to 20,000 kWh, or about four turbines worth of power. The purchase increased the city's avoided greenhouse gas emissions to 40 million pounds annually.

Aspen's 2,600 customers supported wind power from the beginning, accepting a rate-based mix instead of a voluntary green program. Additional funding comes from the city's innovative Renewable Energy Mitigation Program, which taxes very high energy consumption. The program has raised $3 million for green power investments over the last several years.

Modesto takes initiative

Even though California's renewable portfolio standard did not apply to public power utilities when it took effect in 2002, Modesto Irrigation District wasted no time in voluntarily adopting its own RPS.

To reach its goal of increasing retail sales from renewable resources to 20 percent by 2017, MID initially set out to acquire wind power from California-based providers. Wind farms in Solano County, Calif., now supply 75 MW of power through 10-year agreements. A 20-year power purchase from Klickitat County, Wash., through the M-S-R Public Power Agency supplies 25 MW of power. These wind power purchases help MID meet its incremental RPS goals through 2009, and promote and benefit the local economies where the projects are located.

California's complex regulatory environment presented MID with many challenges in negotiating the contracts. PPM Energy, Inc., the utility's wind supplier, helped MID understand and address the issues to secure agreements that protect customers from the volatility of natural gas prices while advancing RPS goals.

As specified in its RPS, MID compares each product's purchase price with the levelized cost of a non-renewable resource of equal term. These purchase agreements have proven beneficial for MID ratepayers. MID currently meets 11 percent of its retail energy needs with wind energy through these contracts, putting it ahead of its 2017 timeline.  

MEAN tailors purchases to member needs

Providing wind power to fit the unique needs of its different member systems requires the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska to be flexible, to say the least. MEAN has bought green tags, owned and operated the Kimball Wind Project and entered into life-of-unit participation agreements totaling almost 18 MW of wind capacity.

Wind comprises almost 3 percent of MEAN's energy portfolio. About 30 MEAN members purchase this wind from the wholesaler's renewable resource pool in amounts of one to about 10 percent of their power needs. MEAN approaches each renewable energy sale to its members with a specific goal, depending on the circumstances of the community.

Energy imbalance and scheduling issues associated with wind projects are particularly challenging to small, transmission-dependent utilities—many MEAN members. To help its members address these challenges, MEAN has developed an advanced wind project scheduling module with funding from APPA's Demonstration of Energy Efficient Developments. MEAN continues to refine the module and has already improved wind energy scheduling accuracy and reduced energy imbalances.

Local wind feeds successful Palo Alto program

It takes a lot of renewable energy to keep the City of Palo Alto, Calif., Utilities customers satisfied. Like Modesto, CPAU is using its buying power to promote wind energy development.

Since 2005, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Top 10 list ranked CPAU's PaloAltoGreen program as the nation's highest in customer participation—16.9 percent last year. In 2006, Palo Alto became California’s first “Green Power Community” as designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As of September 2007, CPAU has achieved nearly 20 percent enrollment in its Green-e Certified Program.

CPAU specifically uses California wind turbines, thanks to a contract negotiated with PPM Energy. PaloAltoGreen subscribers now receive wind power directly from the new Shiloh I Wind Project in Solano County.

Wind from Shiloh and the High Winds Energy Center are also providing power for CPAU’s renewable portfolio standard goals. Palo Alto set a goal to obtain 33 percent of its electric supply from renewable resources in addition to the PaloAltoGreen program. CPAU’s share of electricity from renewable resources has grown from 5 percent in 2004 to 13 percent in 2007, plus 4 percent for PaloAltoGreen.

The municipal utility currently has 45 MW of wind power under contract: 14 MW for PaloAltoGreen and 31 MW for the renewable portfolio. The annual production of 130,000 MWh from the two wind projects avoids approximately 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year compared to the average power mix in California.

SMUD pioneers turbines, O&M agreement

Achieving a 20-percent renewable energy portfolio by 2011 is an ambitious goal that Sacramento Municipal Utility District is taking bold steps to meet.

In 1993, long before SMUD's board of directors made that commitment, the municipal utility launched the Solano Wind Project, installing 5 MW of wind power in the Collinsville-Montezuma Hills Wind Resource Area. The project continues to be central to meeting SMUD's goals.

Garnering data from the first turbines, SMUD replaced the older units with the first "modern" 660-kW generators in 1999. By May 2006, the project was generating 39 MW, much of which came from eight of North America's largest wind turbines, the Vestas V-90 3-MW model. An additional 63 MW is planned for 2008, putting SMUD on track to install more than 200 MW by 2011.

Risk is a part of pioneering, and SMUD worked with Vestas to protect its investment in the state-of-the-art wind turbines. The utility developed the first five-year, full-service operation and maintenance agreement in the United States, guaranteed by Vestas. To further mitigate the risk, SMUD split the Phase 2 project development contract, installing 24 MW in 2006 and scheduling 63 MW for 2008.

Wind leadership a habit for SVP

Silicon Valley Power prides itself on leading in wind development for more than 20 years. Starting in 1985, Santa Clara, Calif.'s municipal electric utility entered into innovative leases that spurred the construction of a 20-MW wind farm in the Altamont Pass area. The original agreement allowed a third-party developer to receive tax credits and PURPA-related benefits while shouldering the technology and development risks.

A recent 20-year, fixed-price contract through the M-S-R agency will provide SVP with 105 MW from the Big Horn Wind Energy Project. The facility has a 34.5-percent capacity factor, and a price that is competitive with natural gas. A firming contract guarantees the energy can be scheduled into SVP's retail system in peak and off-peak blocks without regard for intermittency.

On the heels of the Big Horn contract, SVP signed a new power purchase agreement for 20 MW with San Diego-based Seawest LLC, a privately-owned wind farm developer and operator. The two contracts boosts SVP's qualified renewable resource portfolio from 22 to more than 34 percent of its resources.

SVP markets green power and RECs to residential customers through its Santa Clara Green Power Program. Using e-mails, mailings, bill inserts and presence at community events, the utility has built the Santa Clara Green subscriber base to more than 5 percent of its customers in two years.

While there can be only one Wind Power Pioneer for 2007, each nominee is a winner. These utilities recognized the need for a more sustainable power supply and saw the opportunity beyond the hurdles. Western congratulates its customers for their pioneering spirit and wishes them good luck.