A Washington state utility questions continued use of wind farms for electric power generation. Eastern Washington landscapes are dotted with wind farms, each with dozens of three-bladed turbines across ridge tops and slowly turning as they generate electricity. Renewables will help “de-carbonize” the region’s generating portfolio of coal and natural gas, leading eventually to an “all-green” electric grid. That measn a lot more solar panel farms and wind turbine farms.
Benton Public Utility District, based in Kennewick, has about 55,000 residential, commercial and industrial connections. Most of its electricity supply comes from the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal marketing agency for dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers and for one nuclear plant.
Eighty percent of Benton PUD’s total supply comes from hydro; about 5 percent is generated by wind, purchased from operators of two wind projects in the state. Benton PUD says it’s aware of “a resurgence in proposed wind power development activity in the Pacific Northwest, including projects proposed for eastern Washington and Benton County specifically.”
But in a recently released report, “Wind Power and Clean Energy Policy Perspectives,” the utility’s commissioners say they “do not support further wind power development in the Northwest.”
More large-scale wind farms will “contribute very little to keeping the regional power grid reliable and will not help Benton PUD solve our seasonal energy deficit problems” (power purchased for winter and summer peaks), will drive up customer rates, won’t make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, will hurt revenues that utilities like Benton receive from the sale of surplus hydropower and will needlessly clutter up the “scenic hillsides, canyons and desert vistas in our region for little if any net environmental benefit.”
“We are continuing to sound the alarm regarding the unacceptably high risk of power grid blackouts in the Pacific Northwest being precipitated by overly aggressive clean energy policies and deepening dependence on wind power to replace retiring coal plants,” , from a press release. “Benton PUD is calling on Governor Inslee and our state legislators to learn from California’s experience and to believe what utilities in Washington State are telling them. Rolling blackouts jeopardize the health, safety and well-being of all citizens and cannot be accepted in a region that, thanks to hydropower, is the envy of the nation when it comes to clean and low-cost electricity ...
Benton PUD is advocating for is using natural gas as a bridge fuel to accommodate growth and “firm up” the regional grid, while transitioning to the technology of small modular nuclear reactors. The Benton PUD position paper says more investment in wind energy will hinder the development of next-generation nuclear.