Wind-farm project set for Campo reservation
160 megawatts to power 104,000 homes at peak
Subcontractor Keith Phillips walked out of a giant turbine tower on the Campo Indian Reservation. (2006 file photo / Union-Tribune) -
An Indian tribe, an energy company and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. are announcing today that they are partnering to build California's second-largest wind-power project in the mountains east of San Diego.
When completed in two years, the 160-megawatt wind farm on the Campo Indian Reservation would produce more than three times the power generated by a similar project on the same reservation 60 miles east of San Diego.
That 25-turbine project, visible to motorists on Interstate 8 since its completion in 2005, is the only wind farm on an Indian reservation in the country, although more are in the works.
The location of as many as 100 new windmills on the reservation depends on the results of tests involving meteorological towers and an environmental review.
Chicago-based Invenergy will build and run the $300 million project and SDG&E will buy the power, enough for 104,000 homes at peak production. Energy production will depend on how often and how hard the wind blows.
The tribe will have an equity stake and hopes to eventually own the project, tribal Chairwoman Monique La Chappa said.
SDG&E's participation beyond buying the power is undetermined.
“We're still negotiating the final details of the terms,” spokesman Brian Brokowski said.
The project will provide revenue for the tribal government at a time when the economic slump has hit its Golden Acorn Casino & Travel Center, La Chappa said.
“I'm just thankful we have the opportunity to expand and to utilize the environment to provide a service to not only our community, but also to the outside community and the state of California,” she said.
Invenergy will help the tribe build two turbines to power the casino, La Chappa said. Other projects on the reservation have been delayed, including a hotel and a landfill.
Because the energy project is on a reservation, it will require approval from federal and tribal governments, but not state officials.
“We anticipate a very thorough permitting process where the public will be able to comment on the project,” La Chappa said. “We look forward to a dialogue with the community.”
Experts say the county could produce 1,000 to 2,000 megawatts from wind, but many of the windiest areas have not been developed for energy production because they are protected as parks, forests or wilderness, or because the transmission lines don't exist.
Wind developers are now looking to put turbines on ridge tops — primarily on federal or tribal land — to capture steady breezes and cash in on a movement toward green energy production.
“Development in the region will be on tribal land first,” said Scott Debenham, a Lakeside businessman whose company develops wind projects. On reservations, miles of ridges are under the same ownership and the permit process is more streamlined.
Federal land, including vast tracts owned by the Bureau of Land Management, will be next, Debenham said.
The Obama administration is supporting wind projects on reservations and is holding Campo up as an example.
“Indian country offers some of the premier wind-energy sites in the United States,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told Indian leaders in March, when he announced that his department has identified 77 reservations that could support “wind-based economies.”
Activists in East County's backcountry have warned that big wind projects threaten to industrialize a rural and sparsely populated part of the county.
Donna Tisdale, who heads a local planning advisory group, has complained that the wind turbines are ugly and noisy, and could cause fires. She has long worried about an expansion on the Campo reservation.
“It would be pretty devastating to property values,” Tisdale said in an interview a few months ago. She couldn't be reached for comment last night.
Tisdale's fear is that the area would replicate the landscape in Riverside County's San Gorgonio Pass, where developers have built electric windmills that stretch seemingly to the horizon.
That and two other regions — the Tehachapi Pass north of Los Angeles and the Altamont Pass east of San Francisco — dominate the state's wind production, which totals 2.6 gigawatts. Texas and Iowa produce more power from wind.
The largest wind project in California is in Solano County.
Invenergy Vice President Mick Baird said the effects of wind turbines have to be looked at in context.
“It's in the eye of the beholder,” he said when told that some people find windmills ugly.
The company will work with tribal and federal officials to place the windmills where they will affect the fewest people and limit the possibilities of fires and injuries to wildlife, Baird said.
He said an increase in wind energy will mean less electricity produced from burning natural gas or coal — helping SDG&E meet its goal of providing more than one-third of its power from renewable sources by 2020.
State law requires investor-owned utilities to get 20 percent of their power from non-fossil-fuel plants. SDG&E won't meet that goal, but it said yesterday that it has contracts to get 26 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2012 and is seeking more.
Right now, it buys the production from the 50-megawatt Kumeyaay wind farm on the Campo reservation. It also gets power from two projects in Los Angeles and Riverside counties that total 88 megawatts of capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
SDG&E says it plans to seek more power from wind in East County. A sister company, Sempra Generation, is building a 150- to 200-megawatt wind farm just across the border in Mexico that it says will be the first phase of up to 1,000 megawatts from the wind there.
Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280;
Union-Tribune
In the Union-Tribune on Page A1
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment