Site for wind-power plant explored

Friday, Feb. 9, 2001 | 11:22 a.m.

Wind plans

The BLM will hold public meetings concerning wind power from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at these following places:

A clean breeze could soon provide air conditioning and lights for thousands of homes in the desert southwest thanks to a planned wind-powered generating plant south of Las Vegas

The dream of environmental activists and energy-hungry consumers moved closer to reality Thursday as the federal Bureau of Land Management gave a La Jolla, Calif., company the right to explore construction of a new wind-powered generating plant on Table Mountain between Sandy Valley and Jean.

M&N Windpower will pay the federal government $18,500 for that right, BLM spokesman Phil Guerrero said. The company bid against one other at the Thursday auction.

The proposal is to build the power station on about 4,500 acres on top of Table Mountain, about 10 miles west of Jean.

The rights don't ensure that the company will build a wind-farm to generate power, but lets the BLM move forward with an environmental impact study. The federal agency will hire the contractor to do the study, which the company will pay for, Guerrero said.

"It's not a done deal," said Sebastion Nola, M&N vice president of utility and power marketing.

John Johansen, M&N president, said the company is committed to building the plant in an environmentally sound way.

"The green aspect and environmental friendliness is really important to this project," he said.

The company would lease the land for the plant from the federal government. Nola said the terms of that lease will have to be negotiated.

Nola said Siemens Corp., a worldwide industrial giant, will actually construct the wind farm if the government gives a green light to the project.

M&N already is working on developing a similar wind farm at the Nevada Test Site. That generating plant should generate about 85 megawatts of power by the end of this year with about 100 wind turbines, Nola said.

The wind turbines the company hopes to install at the Table Mountain site would be the same as those at the test site -- three-bladed windmills, about 160 feet across, mounted on 175 foot towers.

The proposal for the Table Mountain wind farm is for about 120 megawatts, but Nola cautioned that the power estimate is very preliminary and could change.

One megawatt provides enough power for about 1,000 homes for one year.

M&N, formed in 1994, is seeking to build wind-farms in Southern Nevada for two reasons: the demand in Southern California and Nevada for power, and the interest in "green," or clean renewable energy.

Nola said one of the champions for green energy has been Sen. Harry Reid, D- Nev., who introduced federal legislation Tuesday that would give tax breaks for renewable energy producers.

"We've had a lot of opportunity from Sen. Reid to develop green resources in the state of Nevada," Nola said.

Johansen said that rate now, the cost of wind power is directly competitive with natural gas, the primary source of fuel for power plants in the United States. But the cost of gas is likely to fall, and tax credits are important to compete down the road, he said.

Eventually, the cost of the wind turbines will drop to the point where the tax credits are no longer needed, Johansen said.

The cost of power from the Table Mountain site would not wildly escalate as power from natural-gas fired plants has in recent months, Johansen said. The wind will always be at the same price: free of charge.

Guerrero said the environmental impact study and permitting process would likely take 6 to 18 months.

"We certainly would prefer six months," Nola said Thursday.

The sooner the plant can get online, the sooner it can begin selling power, especially to electricity-starved Californians. Residents of the Golden State have faced extremely tight energy reserves, sharply escalating power bills and sporadic blackouts over the winter.

Officials have warned that similar blackouts, though unlikely, could happen this summer in Nevada as local residents crank up their air conditioners.