Montana Wind Working Group Meeting
March 4, 2004
Secretary of State Bob Brown welcomed participants to the meeting. He observed how he impressed he had been with the turnout, content and organization of the Section 9006 Farm Bill Workshops. He thanked everyone involved for their efforts in making the workshops successful.
Dave Ryan indicated he has been invited to address the Montana Environmental Quality Council on March 9th regarding barriers to large wind development in the state. Dave asked anyone with something they want him to say at the meeting to contact him and he will past it along to the Environmental Quality Council members.
Peggy Beltrone reported on her recent trip to Washington, DC to attend the National Association of Counties (NACO) meeting. Peggy is on the Energy, Environment and Land Use Committee of the NACO. Peggy has been asked by the Committee to rewrite the Electricity Policy of NACO. She said she will need help in doing this. She would like to make sure she weighs in on alternative energy matters in particular. Peggy indicated she would appreciate input from members of the Montana Wind Working Group and any suggestions for other resources she might tap. Dave Ryan indicated the DSIRE database, www.dsireusa.org, contains information on state incentives for alternative energy. He has done a spreadsheet on this issue and committed to provide this spreadsheet to the MT WWG Coordinator who will share it with other members. Peggy said Dave Garman from US Department of Energy had given a helpful report on the status of different renewable energy technologies to NACO. She said it was not clear how the Energy Bill will resolve itself.
In Washington, Peggy met with Karen Bridges who works within Senator Baucus’ Office on transmission matters. Peggy queried her about how aggressive Montana has been in communicating positions on transmission issues to our delegation. Cassandra Maidea briefed her on what the Western Transmission Group was doing. Representatives of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) suggested to Peggy that Montana had not been as well represented as AWEA felt it should be in the RMATS process. Peggy reported there will be a March 17th stakeholders meeting on RMATS in Salt Lake City – 8:30 am – 4:00pm at the Hilton Hotel. Peggy reported that she downloaded the minutes from past RMATS meetings and found Mark Lindberg and Ray Bush with Northwestern had attended them. There is an RMATS link on the Wyoming PSC site, http://psc.state.wy.us/htdocs/subregional/home.htm. Paul Williamson suggested that Montana should not just be at the table. We should be participating. He indicated that he gets better information from Wyoming sources than he can from sources within Montana and observed Montana needs a central repository for current energy information. He also suggested we need to have a vision for where want to go on energy matters. Paul said this was more than a wind issue. During the group discussion, members affirmed that energy discussions should not be couched in terms of one fuel versus another, but rather as a matter of Montana’s competitive position compared to other western states relative to all types of generation. The different fuels would benefit collectively from cooperating to address common obstacles to expanded development rather than squabbling amongst themselves. Montana resources must compete with those available in other states and not primarily amongst themselves.
Peggy Beltrone reported on the Exergy Project and Wendy Kleinsasser on the WindPark Solutions Project. The Exergy Project was approved by the Cascade County Planning Board last Tuesday. It consists of 6 towers each accommodating a 1.5 MW turbine. A berm will be constructed at the project site to address a visibility concern. During the review, flicker, alternating sun and shadow, was raised as an issue. Flicker will occur 2 days/year and will be cast on the Sun River. Peggy suggested the project economics on this development might be different than on others since MacIntyre Sand and Gravel has a secondary business interest. His business can benefit in the future from learning about the concrete work associated with anchoring each tower. Wendy said their negotiations with Northwestern seemed to be progressing and they expected to be able to sign a Power Purchase Agreement after the Montana Public Service Commission acts on the utility’s plan. Both said they thought their projects could go forward with or without the Production Tax Credit.
The various local coordinators of the Section 9006 Farm Bill Workshops reported on the results of the workshops held in their area. Timlynn provided a detailed summary of the Havre event including the geographical range and distribution of the workshop participants. In Havre, over 230 people attended the workshop and gathered from as far east as Wolf Point, as far west as Cut Bank and as far south as Stanford.
Each local coordinator emphasized the need to follow this general wind/Farm Bill workshop with a series of very specific workshops addressing the development issues and technologies subsets of participants had. Timlynn suggested follow-up workshops are absolutely essential to maintain the momentum we’ve created and provide hands-on, how-to instruction so we actually get results. Peggy suggested that we might want to consider submitting an application from a group similar to Climate Solutions. One group that was suggested was NARFI and another was Jo Radke and the Rural Sustainability Organization.
A suggestion was made that we might want to explore innovative approaches to having cooperatives acquire wind for their customers. Van Jamison suggested Montana rural electric cooperatives are al requirements customers of Central Montana G & T and that Central Montana G & T has a long-term power supply contract through 2040 with Basin Electric Cooperative. Bob Julian suggested that even under those circumstances there may be opportunities for wind power and implored the group to not get locked into old paradigms.
Rob Hazlewood presented the US fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) guidelines for reviewing project avian and wildlife impacts. Rob emphasized these are voluntary guidelines though their use will be factored into the agency’s exercise of enforcement and prosecutorial discretion. Rob stated USFWS supports wind development and have articulated it in the Secretary of Interior’s Energy Policy. Rob said the guidelines have been noticed and are open for comment for two years. Rob said the American Wind Energy Association has filed a substantial set of comments and he would be in Washington next week working with the industry to resolve their concerns. USFWS guidelines can be found at www.fws.gov.Rob’s Power Point is attached.
Larry Flowers gave a brief presentation on the Wind Powering America Program activities. Larry Flowers suggested we should lean on National Center for Appropriate Technology as a resource when we plan workshops to follow-up on the Farm Bill ones. Larry said NREL will be happy to send speakers from time to time as they might be required. Larry suggested that the ongoing ag outreach effort in Montana has made the difference between Dave Ryan’s experience in finding interested applicants for small wind grants compared to Farm Bill response. Larry told us that the only state for which the NREL financial calculator works is Montana at this time and we should take advantage of it.
Mike Costanti give a presentation on the potential economic development impacts wind development might spawn. Mike’s Power Point is attached.
Chris Christiaens, Montana Farmers’ Union, suggested the MT WWG should be thinking about public policy changes to promote wind power development it might want to take to the next session of the Montana legislature. Van Jamison pointed out the MT WWG is not a lobbying group, but could help to identify different policies that would address existing barriers to wind development in Montana. Others would have to promote them through the legislative process. Chris also suggested the MT WWG might wish to conduct a wind workshop to help incoming legislators to understand wind technology and the public policy framework supporting it. MT WWG members who want to look at potential policy changes for consideration by the legislature should get their names and interests to Van Jamison – background briefing, small wind development and large wind development.
The MT WWG members identified three areas in which follow-up workshops would be helpful.
1. Farm Bill Application Process – I will do this with John Guthmiller
2. “I am interested in a wind turbine how do I get started (Walk through the blueprint as an agenda)”
3. Wind Resource Assessment and the anemometer loan program
The Montana Renewable Energy Association should be brought into the small wind workshops.
Paul Williamson suggested we should attempt to get something aired on public television. He also indicated the alternative technology learning center in Missoula will be somewhere people can kick the tires and also get something done. The center will provide web-based learning which will be followed by hands-on training at different locations across the state. Bob Julian has an open forum on PBS that he would be willing use to get wind energy information out to the public.
Paul Williamson and/or Bob Julian asked whether they could secure copies of the video we made from John Guthmiller’s Farm Bill presentation so they can have the production folks at the Montana Public Broadcast System use them as a basis from which to prepare a show.
Van Jamison was asked to get Bob Julian a back of a business envelop summary of John Guthmiller’s presentation so he could incorporate it into his broadcast.
Timlynn committed to preparing a step-by-step blueprint on small wind development for farmers using the Minnesota document and NCAT materials as a foundation. This blueprint will then serve as the basis for future workshop agendas and presentations.
The MT WWG also committed to develop a web based wind information source people can access to learn what the wind resource in their local area is. This might be as simple as linking the Wind Powering America site to Energize Montana.
Mike Sullivan reported on progress which has been made in planning and hosting the 5th Annual Harvesting Clean Energy Conference. It is scheduled to be held in Great Falls on January 20th and 21st, 2005. Mike handed out a draft conference agenda for th MT WWG members’ consideration.
The minutes from the December 4th MT WWG meeting were approved. The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 pm.