Monthly Archives: September 2011

Montana governor challenges investors to solve wind energy issues

By Taylor Anderson Assistant Editor, Big Sky Weekly

As the governor delivered an opening, keynote speech at the Wind Energy and Transmit Summit in Big Sky, he touched upon three things.

Montana has coal and should be competitive with coal; it has oil and gas and should compete in oil and gas production; and it has wind, and it should certainly become a national competitor in wind energy exportation.

“The amount of wind electricity they say we can produce from wind in Montana would be enough to produce all the electricity we need to run every car, light truck and SUV in America, plus 20 percent,” the governor said during opening remarks on the first day of the conference.

Montana created its first megawatt of wind electricity in 2005, the year after Schweitzer’s election to office. It was the same year the Montana Legislature passed the Renewable Portfolio Standard – a mandate that said 15 percent of the state’s consumed energy must come from renewables.

The state now produces nearly 400 MW annually, or 20 percent of the state’s total consumed electricity of 2,000 MW.

Northwestern Energy, the utilities company that services roughly two-thirds of the state with electricity, is on track to meet its mandate before deadline. Electricity cooperative companies service the remaining one-third of mostly rural Montanans with electricity, but don’t apply to the standard, according to Kyla Wiens of the Montana Environmental Information Center.

The state’s energy production has slowed since 2009, and only 11 MW have been added since then.

Projects that would add hundreds of megawatts to the state’s production sit in limbo of construction today. A main reason for the near standstill remains in transferring energy from new projects to a grid system into homes and out of state.

“Montana is an energy exporter, we always have been,” Schweitzer said. “We export our coal, we export our oil and gas, we’ve exported electricity that comes from our hydroelectric dams, and we are exporting wind energy as well.”

Gov. Schweitzer delivered his 15-minute speech to members of wind and energy groups and ultimately challenged those in attendance to lead the way in developing wind.

The state, he says, must work to create jobs in the renewable energy sector, but must not forget its abundance of traditional resources.

He said during an exclusive interview with the Big Sky Weekly that companies like Northwest Energy won’t necessarily call it quits after reaching the renewable energy standard.

“If they won’t lead in Washington DC, then you can lead. You – the private investors – you will lead,” Schweitzer said during his speech. “In spite of the inactivity in Washington DC, we can create a new energy system in the United States.”

Montana hopes to generate interest in wind with conference in Big Sky

By Taylor Anderson Big Sky Weekly editor

Alternative energy production in Montana has yet to catch wind. But that’s not to say the state isn’t breaking some sort of ground in the matter.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer announced in early September that a Western Wind Transmission Leadership Summit will be held at Big Sky Resort Sept. 25-28, an attempt at generating interest and feasibility to connecting Montana’s wind farms to electricity grids as it struggles to harness its massive wind energy potential.

A major aspect of the upcoming summit in Big Sky is to generate ideas on how to solve the problem of transmitting the power from the farms to a power grid and, eventually, out of state.

After generating its first megawatt of wind power in 2005, Montana’s production has since increased to 386 MW, 3.1 percent of the state’s power, according to American Wind Energy Association stats.

The numbers hardly compare to states that have been pioneering the field. Texas, for instance, has the capacity to produce 10,185 MW annually, 26 times more than Montana. Iowa is the nation’s next-largest producer at 3,675 MW. California, once the nation’s leader in wind production, has since fallen behind; at 3,179 MW it produces roughly twice as much as it did in 1999.

The nation as a whole creates 42,432 MW of wind energy. The top five states (Texas, Iowa, California, Minnesota and Washington) create more than 50 percent of that total.

That’s not to say Montana is neglecting the idea.

The state is currently 18th in actual wind energy generation. The AWEA estimates Montana’s total wind resources at 944,004 potential megawatts, or third most in the U.S., but several complications have dampened its ability to increase quickly.

Creating grids to transmit the electricity is expensive and may take up sensitive areas, says Ken Dragoon, senior resource analyst for the Oregon faction of Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

“Building transmissions is tough. That’s the nut to crack in Montana,” Dragoon said.

“Oregon and Washington wind development was due to renewable energy standards that those states have,” Dragoon said. “Montana has one too, but the standards are based on percent of demand and it doesn’t have the population of the other states.”

Until that problem is answered, Montana will continue to underperform. The state has 2,327 MW additional wind projects waiting to be created, the AWEA says.

Wind production slowed in 2010, and only 11 MW were added in that year.

Montana set a renewable energy standard for its utilities companies to use 15 percent renewables by 2015. Northwestern Energy, the company that services roughly two-thirds of the state with electricity, is on track to meet this standard by the end of 2012, says Kyla Wiens, energy advocate with the Montana Environmental Information Center. About 98 percent of that company’s renewables come from wind.

The other one-third of the state’s utilities companies, which are rural electric cooperatives, don’t have to comply with the renewable energy standard.

“Significant environmental and economic opportunities are missed because electric cooperatives serve nearly a third of the electricity load in Montana and are exempt from complying with Montana’s renewable energy standard,” Wiens said.

Hydroelectricity remains by far the largest renewable energy source in the world today, creating more than five times that of wind energy.

The U.S. currently generates more wind electricity than any other nation, according to a World Wind Energy Association estimate from 2010. China is close behind, and has several projects in place that will ultimately make it the largest wind energy producer in the world.