Wind project on hold
Published 4:00 am Tuesday, January 15, 2013
A 104-megawatt wind project planned for 20 miles east of Bend would have between 34 and 52 wind turbines, enough to power about 35,000 homes. The project is on hold, however, after the companies planning it had a falling out. Now one of the companies is looking to sell and says a ”major developer” is interested.
A shuffle of the companies behind a proposed wind power project near Bend has put federal permits for the development on hold.
Two California-based energy businesses, Pacific Wind Power and R-Squared Energy, started planning the West Butte wind project as a joint venture about five and a half years ago, said Aaron Rachlin, a managing member of R-Squared.
Together they established West Butte Wind Power and formalized plans for a 104-megawatt project about 20 miles east of Bend, which he said would be enough to supply electricity to about 35,000 homes. But in the last year the leaders of Pacific Wind Power and R-Squared had a falling out, said Rachlin, who now lives in Connecticut.
“The partnership wasn’t running as smoothly as one would hope it would,” he said.
While a lawsuit was possible, Rachlin said Pacific Wind Power and R-Squared settled the disagreement out of court. R-Squared is now leading the project. Pacific Wind Power still has an economic stake in the project, but is no longer a managing partner.
Now R-Squared, which Rachlin said only intended to start the project but not build it, is looking to sell it.
John Stahl, owner of Pacific Wind Power, said if R-Squared successfully sells the project, it will have to pay him for his share.
“If they can find a buyer it is fine with me,” he said.
Rachlin said a “major developer” is interested in buying the West Butte wind project, although he declined to name the company.
He also declined to elaborate on the sale price of the project.
Constructing the project will take a significant investment. Rachlin said wind projects cost roughly $2 million per megawatt to build.
“So if you are building a 100-megawatt project, it would be $200 million,” he said.
The West Butte project could have up to 52 turbines on 5,900 acres of private land in Crook County and a small portion of Deschutes County. While Crook and Deschutes counties have approved the project, federal permits are needed to connect the wind turbines to the grid and allow for operation.
Feds wait with permits
While the ownership of West Butte Wind Power is being sorted out, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are waiting to finalize their permits for the project.
In July 2011, the BLM approved a permit for a power line crossing about 4 1/2 miles of public land, as well as an access road leading from U.S. Highway 20 to the turbines.
Although the BLM had initially approved a permit for the road and power line across public land, the agency still needs to work out details — such as rent payment — with the project developer, said Janet Hutchinson, a realty specialist for the state BLM office in Prineville.
“We’ve had discussions,” she said.
Last year the project was also set to earn a first-of-its-kind permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowing for the unintentional killing of golden eagles. The agency is working with the project developers on the permit. Golden eagles are found near the project site and may fly into turbine blades, said Mike Green, a migratory bird biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Portland.
The plan had been for the project’s owners to offset the deaths of eagles by revamping old power poles, the old design of which poses an electrocution risk to the birds, within 10 miles of the project.
Golden eagles are not a federally listed species under the Endangered Species Act, but they do have protections under the Bald and Golden Eagle Act as well as the Migratory Bird Act. Agency rule changes in 2009 created the possibility for bird kill permits for ongoing projects, and Green said it is still being determined how they will be applied to existing wind projects.
While the Fish and Wildlife Service has issued permits allowing for their accidental deaths for construction projects before, Green said the permit being crafted for West Butte would have been the first for the ongoing operation of a wind project.
Now a permit for a new wind project elsewhere in the U.S. will likely earn that distinction.
“I don’t think this is going to be the first one anymore,” Green said.