Platte River Power Authority, a joint action agency, is the sole wholesale electricity provider serving four Colorado municipalities: Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland and Estes Park. The agency owns and operates ten wind turbines at Medicine Bow, Wyoming, with a total rating of 6 MW that produce energy sold in the green-pricing programs of its four owner-utilities. Some wind energy is also sold to Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association.
Customer surveys in the early 1990s showed customers' interest in and willingness to pay for renewable energy. Platte River initially planned to add wind power to its wholesale supply mix in 1996 through an ownership position in a large wind project planned for the Foote Creek Rim area in Wyoming. Kenetech, the developer of the Foote Creek project at the time, discovered serious design problems with their turbines and fell into financial problems about the time construction was to start for the project. After this experience, Fort Collins Utilities continued to have interest in wind energy, but preferred a "green pricing" approach, via a pilot program. Platte River solicited bids from suppliers and developers and in 1997, began working with a developer to purchase wind power output from a site near the town of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Over time, this developer also faced financial challenges and was unable to meet its wind energy delivery schedule, so Platte River took ownership of the wind generation assets in 1998. This consisted of three turbines with a total output of about 1 MW, the bulk of which was sold to Fort Collins.
In 1999, Platte River's other members became interested in green pricing and requested wind energy supply. Two other utilities, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska were also interested in purchasing wind energy from Platte River. To meet this demand, Platte River installed five turbines in fall 1999. Further increases in demand for wind energy in Platte River's member cities stimulated the construction of two additional turbines in summer 2000.
The decision to take over ownership and operation of the Medicine Bow facility conforms to Platte River's philosophy and policy of owning generation assets to ensure reliability of supply, to reduce exposure to power market risks and to sell surplus generation to non-member utilities to help reduce member costs. The costs of the wind power coming out of this facility have been attractive since the first units were built because: the site was cash financed; the site was originally a DOE wind testing facility and so had existing roads, meteorological towers and other wind related assets; transmission and control area charges were low; and the site has very good wind resources (approximately 20 mph average wind speed).
Platte River had planned to add additional turbines at Medicine Bow again in 2002 to meet increasing demand. However, due to transmission and control area issues regarding the intermittent operation of wind turbines, construction has been postponed. Balancing and regulation costs (i.e. the costs associated with integrating the variable output of wind facilities into the control area) may be significant for the control area in which Platte River's turbines are located. These costs may be large enough to increase the price of delivered wind energy to current and future customers, although Platte River and its owners are reluctant to do this unless absolutely necessary. As of October 2002, they were studying the balancing and regulation issue, and planning a cost study in conjunction with the control area operator.
Once the control area issues have been resolved, Platte River hopes to meet future green power needs by adding turbines to its Medicine Bow facility, but is also exploring options for purchasing wind energy from other suppliers in the area. Initial feedback from customers of the green-pricing programs indicated that at least some of them prefer locally generated renewable energy, because of its benefits for regional air quality. If the results of the control area cost studies do not favor future capacity additions in the control area, Platte River and its member utilities may need to gather more information from customers regarding their interest in purchased wind energy vs. wind energy produced by future expansion of the Medicine Bow Wind Project.
Contact:
John Bleem
Manager of Customer Services
Platte River Power Authority
Fort Collins, Colorado
Telephone: 970-222-3958