Cowlitz Public Utility District bought out one of its three partners in a Columbia River Gorge wind project, giving the Longview-based utility provider a controlling stake.
While the wind project produces electricity, the main goal of the $4.5 million purchase is to meet legal standards set by Washington’s 2019 clean energy law, senior PUD staff said.
The 43-turbine Harvest Wind Project sits on 15 square miles off the Columbia River in Klickitat County and produces enough power to serve an estimated 14,000 residents each year, its website says.
The Wednesday purchase comes at a time when the region’s energy future is in flux.
Demand is projected to potentially double around the Northwest in the next two decades as tech giants inject power-hungry artificial intelligence into every aspect of life, and electrification of vehicles and home appliances takes off. Even low demand projections still leave the region in a shortfall.
The utility’s general manager, Gary Huhta, said Cowlitz County will see “a little bit of projected demand growth.” The county’s population has also grown consistently, data shows.
Prior to the April 30 purchase, Cowlitz PUD had a 30 percent stake in the Klickitat County-based Harvest Wind Project from when the project came online in 2009.
That original purchase was also to comply with a state environmental law, that time the 2006 Energy Independence Act, Huhta said. That law requires utilities to get a growing share of their energy from renewable sources that aren’t hydropower: 3 percent in 2012, 9 percent in 2016 and 15 percent in 2020.
After the April 30 stake purchase, the utility now owns 60 percent of the wind project, which helps it comply with the 2019 law.
Huhta said the newer law requires the utility to get 80 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030, with renewable credits filling in the remainder. That 80 percent requirement will jump to 100 percent by 2045.
While the shift from getting 15 percent of its power from renewable sources to 80 percent in just one decade sounds dramatic, much of that difference is made up by hydropower now being counted as renewable, Huhta said. But still, the quick, legally mandated transition has forced Cowlitz PUD to move fast.
“We were actually starting to project some shortfalls in our clean energy needs as early as ’28 or ’29,” Huhta said. “So trying to plan for those future requirements, we felt like this opportunity to acquire an additional 30 percent share of harvest was a good step towards meeting those future obligations.”
The utility shared its position and key facts in support of the purchase in a written summary of the Cowlitz PUD board of commissioners’ Feb. 11 meeting.
In addition to enabling legal compliance, the summary also argued that the purchase was savvy because the wind project has been maintained well, and the region faces an overall lack of new power generation and transmission projects.
Huhta said the utility often doesn’t use the power the wind project generates. Instead, it sells that power off to get credits to comply.
Previously, it was buying the credits to meet standards. But with the credits’ prices jumping and their availability shrinking, Huhta said, being able to be on the other end of the transaction became the catalyst for the purchase.
When constructed, the project cost $160 million, with about $60 million of that coming from federal grants.
The comparably low price tag for the 30 percent stake compared with the project at large is because the project is nearing the end of its lifespan, although the routine maintenance may prolong that, Huhta said.
