EWEB signs up to buy power from Washington wind plant.

Byline: SCOTT MABEN The Register-Guard

The Eugene Water & Electric Board has signed a deal to buy up to 25 megawatts of power annually for the next 25 years from a new wind farm on the Oregon-Washington border southwest of Walla Walla.

It's the utility's largest purchase of wind energy to date - enough to run 4,800 homes. EWEB also generates an average of three to four megawatts a year at a Wyoming wind project it co-owns.

EWEB officials on Friday signed a contract with PacifiCorp Power Marketing Inc., a subsidiary of Scottish Power, for a share of the output from the Stateline Wind Energy Center.

The wind farm, built on ridges overlooking the Columbia River, has 399 turbines capable of producing 263 megawatts of power when the wind is blowing strong. Later this year, Stateline will grow to 450 turbines with a maximum output of 300 megawatts, making it the largest wind generation project in the world.

The energy yield varies with the amount of wind available, so EWEB's actual take from Stateline is expected to be about eight or nine megawatts a year, spokesman Lance Robertson said.

The utility will pay between $40 and $45 a megawatt-hour for the power, plus transmission costs for any power that EWEB actually consumes. Most of the wind power, however, will be resold to other wholesale buyers, Robertson said.

"A lot of it will probably be sold back into the market, so someone else will end up paying the delivery charge," he said. "If we don't need it for our own use, we'll sell it."

That's similar to EWEB's practice for its hydroelectric projects. But as power demands rise in the Eugene area, more of the wind energy could be claimed by local consumers.

"I think as time goes on we'll be using more and more of it," Robertson said. "And there will be times when we use all of it."

Stateline was built under a federal tax credit for wind plants that reduces the price of power from the project by 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour, making it competitive with natural-gas fired combustion turbine plants.

EWEB commissioners backed away from striking a deal with Stateline a year ago, citing the costs and complexity of a proposed agreement. At that time, the utility was considering signing up for 75 megawatts at nearly $80 a megawatt- hour.

In the largest domestic public utility wind power contract ever, Seattle City Light has signed a 20-year contract with PacifiCorp Power Marketing. The utility is buying 50 megawatts and will increase to 100 megawatts in August, 150 megawatts in January 2004 and 175 megawatts in August 2004.

The Bonneville Power Administration has signed a 25-year contract for 90 megawatts of Stateline's wind power.

"We purchased the entire output of Stateline with the expectation there is customer demand for this," said Jan Johnson, spokeswoman for PacifiCorp Power Marketing. "Wind power is a very good way for utilities of all types to diversify their energy portfolios."

Stateline is EWEB's second wind investment. The utility and Portland-based PacifiCorp built the $60 million Foote Creek Rim wind project in Wyoming in the late 1990s.

It was the first commercial wind-generation plant owned by a Northwest utility.

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Eugene Water & Electric Board Nearly 400 turbines produce electricity at the Stateline plant.