Nevada Power to buy wind energy

Malcolm Hall

Friday, March 1, 2002 | 11 a.m.

Nevada Power Co. announced its first major green energy contract Thursday, saying it will buy all the output of an 85 megawatt MNS Wind Power station to be built at the Nevada Test Site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

MNS Wind and Nevada Power agreed to a 17-year contract beginning Dec. 1, 2003, and renewable for another eight years. The wind farm would deliver enough energy to power 85,000 homes each month. Construction is expected to begin this summer.

"I think it's tremendous," said Sen. Harry Reid Thursday from Washington, D.C. "We have a little work to do back here to give tax credits to wind developers, but this is a time to embrace new forms of clean energy and Nevada is the right location, so it's good for the state and sets a positive example for the nation."

MNS Wind is a 50-50 joint venture between Global Renewable Energy Partners, a subsidiary of wind generator manufacturer NEG Micon, and Siemens Energy and Automation, the project's building contractor.

Reid and Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson signed an agreement a year ago between the test site Development Authority and MNS Wind to make available 664 acres of the test site for the wind farm.

The contract signed Tuesday and submitted Wednesday to the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada would satisfy in part conditions under Senate Bill 372 passed last year by the state Legislature that requires 5 percent of electric utilities' portfolios include renewable resources such as wind, solar and geothermal by 2005 and 15 percent by 2013.

Andrea Smith, spokeswoman for Nevada Power, said future projections of how much electricity will be needed in 2005 are difficult to measure because they must be weighed by such factors as delivery methods, load capacity at the time and the source of the power, "but if it was delivered today, this arrangement would be about 25 percent of the requirement."

In late December, Nevada Power and sister Sierra Pacific Power of Reno said they had received proposals for more than 4,000 megawatts of green energy from companies that produce renewable power. More than 3,000 megawatts of those would be generated by wind, another 385 megawatts would be from solar and 784 would be geothermal and biomass.

State projections indicate 4,000 megawatts would be three times what the state would need from renewable resources by 2013. Nevada Consumer Advocate Tim Hay said in December the state in 2013 would need about 8,600 megawatts, with 1,275 megawatts generated from renewable resources.

Tim Carlson of Carlson & Associates, which consults MNS Wind in Southern Nevada, said when one considers the costs of drilling and mining to deliver fossil fuel, the cost to produce wind power today is "equal or better" than natural gas or coal-fired production.

"Nevada Power has gone to great lengths to evaluate renewable resources and through the signing of this contract proves that the economics will be beneficial to their customers," he said.

Said Nevada Power President Mark Ruell: "This initial effort is another step in our attempts to diversify our generation base with clean sources of energy and is consistent with our goal of providing safe and reliable service to our customers."

The first phase of the project consists of 57 wind turbines rated at 1,500 kilowatts each. The electricity would be delivered through existing transmission lines to Nevada Power's Mercury and Jackass Flats substations.

The project, the largest wind farm to date in Nevada, eventually will include 325 wind turbines capable of producing up to 260 megawatts of electricity and more than 200 jobs. It will resemble wind farms near Palm Springs, Calif., and employ a three-bladed, horizontal axis design with an 80-foot radius mounted on 175-foot steel towers.

MNS Wind also wants to build a 120-megawatt wind farm on Bureau of Land Management property in Sandy Valley.