SUWA (Utah)to Buy Wind-Generated Power from Wyoming

SUWA — the most vocal opponent of fossil fuel development in
potential wilderness areas in Utah — will buy 11 "blocks" of wind power
per month from windmill farms in Wyoming.

BY BRENT ISRAELSEN
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

The 100-kilowatt-hour blocks will cost SUWA about $110, or about
42 percent more than the group would pay for electricity generated by
coal, Utah Power’s primary fuel source.

SUWA attorney Heidi McIntosh said her organization’s decision to
purchase the wind power was "a no-brainer."
"We want to demonstrate that we can help generate energy without
harming our public lands through drilling and mining."
SUWA’s wind power purchases will satisfy half of the organization’s
electricity demand at its 1,800-square-foot headquarters in Salt Lake
City. McIntosh said SUWA will eventually purchase all of its power from
wind.

The purchases are part of Utah Power’s "Blue Sky" program, in which
power users are encouraged to sign up for blocks of wind power. For
each 100 kilowatt-hours of wind power, an equivalent amount of power
is reduced at the coal-fired plants. Each 100-kilowatt-hour block cuts
carbon-dioxide emissions by 9.24 tons per year, Utah Power says.
Carbon-dioxide is a "greenhouse gas" believed responsible for global
warming.

Utah Power also owns 33 megawatts of wind power from Wyoming
Wind Development and 50 megawatts from the Rock River I facility,
both in Wyoming. That capacity meets just over 2 percent of Utah
Power’s total customer demand of 3,500 megawatts during summer, said
Utah Power spokesman Kimball Hansen.
Customers signing up for wind power under Blue Sky have allowed
Utah Power to purchase an additional 3 megawatts of capacity from
Wyoming Wind.

Among those customers are Kinko’s, which gets 10 percent of its
power from wind; Uinta Brewing Co., which gets 100 percent; Kerman
Design, 100 percent; and the Unitarian Church, 25 percent.
SUWA joins the Utah Rivers Council and the Land and Water Fund
of the Rockies as the only environmental groups to sign up for wind
power.

Blue Sky is a market-based "green-pricing" program that helps
encourage more investment in wind power, whose capital costs are about
$1 million per megawatt, compared to about $1.4 million per megawatt
for coal. Coal-fired plants, however, see a quicker return on investment
because windmills are online about one-third as often.

Sarah Wright, director of the Utah Wind Power Campaign, which
helps publicize Blue Sky, said her organization is trying to persuade Utah
lawmakers to require power companies to obtain 20 percent of their
electricity from renewable sources, such as wind and geothermal. A
handful of states have passed so-called "renewable portfolio standards"
for utilities. They range from about 5 percent in Nevada to 30 percent in
Maine.

http://www.sltrib.com/06262002/business/748504.htm