Local cities whip up significant demand for wind

FORT COLLINS – Wind power has yet to generate as much as a gentle breeze in the nation’s electricity marketplace – wind represents less than 1 percent of power consumption in the United States.

Factors are in place that will make wind a significant force in power generation in Colorado over the next 12 years.

State voters recently passed a law that calls for the state’s regulated utilities – primarily Xcel Energy – to generate 10 percent of their power from renewable resources by 2018. Due to its relative affordability, wind is the most likely source to fill that requirement.

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Municipal utilities aren’t subject to the 2018 deadline, but some cities have opted to be even more aggressive in embracing renewable energy sources.

Fort Collins, for instance, which started utilizing wind power in 1998, has set its own renewables goal of 15 percent by 2017. The city draws 2.2 percent of its electricity from renewables, with expectations to reach 6 percent “in the next couple of years,´ said a city spokeswoman.

The city of Longmont has adopted a policy similar to the state’s, with a goal of 10 percent renewables by 2018.

The Fort Collins and Longmont targets have prompted Platte River Power Authority – the power wholesaler owned collectively by the cities of Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont and Estes Park – to reach for wind power providers.

Currently, PRPA distributes about 50,000 megawatt hours of wind power each year to the four cities. By 2018, it will have to distribute about 380,000 megawatt hours of wind power, said John Bleem, a PRPA spokesman.

PRPA owns the Medicine Bow Wind Project site in southeast Wyoming. But the majority of the utility’s wind power comes from the purchase of so-called Renewable Energy Certificates. The certificates allow a utility to take credit for wind power that’s generated outside of its own transmission network.

“Our plan is to continue to purchase the renewable certificates,” Bleem said. “It’s more cost effective” than investing in more wind farm facilities. “We can take advantage of large projects in better locations with transmission available and really get a better price.”