Wind power picks up

About this time last year, the recession made big news, first on Wall Street, and then on Main Street. Turns out that economists think the recession really started in December 2007, but the big earthquake in the stock market that hit last fall was when most of us felt the financial ground move under our feet.

The earthquake was felt in many sectors of the economy, with areas like automobiles, technology and housing being some of the bigger attention grabbers. However, one area that you might not have guessed was also hit pretty hard: the wind power business. Across the country, many big wind projects slowed or got cancelled completely as the economy tanked.

Now, though, it looks like many wind power projects are, ahem, getting their second wind, with some good news beginning to hit the front pages of the business section. It's early days yet to be talking about a recovery, but money is beginning to flow back into the wind power business, as well as solar and other renewable sectors.

Interestingly, 2008 and 2009 were full-speed ahead years for PSE in wind power and renewables, with the economy not having a significant effect on our plans to build more wind facilities. We have two right now, with a combined capacity of 386 MW, about what the American Wind Energy Association says is equal to the energy needs of 100,000 average U.S. homes. One facility, our Wild Horse site near Ellensburg, is adding 44 MW of capacity right now (the photo shows a new turbine blade being trucked in).

Our newest project in development, the Lower Snake River Wind Energy Project, will be much larger, with a capacity of about 350,000 homes, according to AWEA's guidelines.

Why did we keep going when other projects slowed?

First, our ownership structure gave us a more secure financial footing to proceed than some other project developers.

Second, Washington state has a renewable energy standard requiring utilities to have 15 percent of the power used by their customers come from wind, solar or other renewable sources by the year 2020. (Existing hydro doesn't count, as the law is intended to spur new energy sources).

Third, our customers are asking for it. PSE operates in a pretty green area, and our customers want to see more renewable energy.