Eugene Water and Electric Board will be annually adding at least 1 percent of its gross electrical load in the form of new renewable energy sources, with a goal to achieve a total of 20 percent renewables by 2020. This amount is equivalent to 9 to12 MW of nameplate wind capacity each year. While this acquisition rate acts as a target, in actuality, some years will see greater amounts and in other years little or none may be added since economies of scale often favor larger projects.
In 1996, Eugene, in partnership with PacifiCorp, purchased the 41.4 MW at the Foote Creek 1 wind facility in Wyoming. The utilities contracted with SeaWest and Tomen Corporation to develop and operate the plant because neither utility had experience in wind power development or wanted additional utility staff in Wyoming. Eugene now receives the energy generated by 6.5 MW of the plant's nameplate capacity.
The utility had initially planned to rate-base the Foote Creek 1 wind production. But with Oregon facing restructuring at the time, Eugene decided to try a green-pricing program to get experience with a differentiated energy product; to recover some of the above market costs of the generation; and because the utility has a very vocal group of residential and commercial customers willing to pay for renewables. Currently about half of Foote Creek 1 is subscribed in the utility's green pricing program; the rest is rate-based.
Eugene used the Renewable Energy Production Incentive in the Foote Creek 1 project to reduce the cost of plant ownership. But the unpredictability of these funds has discouraged the utility from taking an ownership position in more new generation; instead they are favoring power purchase contracts. Eugene now buys roughly 5 MW of wind generation from the Foote Creek 4 project (through the Bonneville Power Administration) and 20 MW from PacifiCorp Power Marketing, which has purchased the entire output of the 300 MW Stateline project on the Washington/Oregon border. Another contract with PacifiCorp provides shaping, transmission and other packaged ancillary services for the output from Stateline.
Contact:
Jim Maloney
Energy Resource Project Manager
Eugene Water and Electric Board
Eugene, Oregon
Telephone: 541-484-2411