Spanish Fork Wind Park

Spanish Fork City and Community Cooperation

Spanish Fork City has cooperated in providing the land for 5 of the turbines under a royalty program.   The city is already gaining the reputation of being pro active in creating and preserving a clean environment.  Needless to say, large corporations that operate and market on a regional, national or multi-national basis may find relocation to Spanish Fork attractive due to the progressive attitude of the local government in supporting renewable energy.   A wind turbine project located next to such a corporation, could “brand” that corporation with an environmentally positive image or as a steward to the environment.  This “branding” of both the city and the corporate users of surrounding properties are already setting the city apart.

Locating wind turbines on any property does not destroy the use of that property.  Specifically for this project, the City continues to use the property for culinary water collection and the gravel pit continues its commercial operations.   Wind turbines only require the use of property the size of the foundation to support the turbine base.  The land under the turbines can be used for any other approved purpose simultaneously with the operation of the turbine.  Multi-use is a unique characteristic of the property surrounding a wind farm.

Gravel Pit Considerations

The Gravel Pit operator is actively mining aggregate from the site and may continue to do so. Four of the turbines will be located at the base of the berm. Benefits to the Pit owner include a significant public relations benefit that may be useful after the aggregate is exhausted.

Renewable Energy Certificates

The site is anticipated to generate 55,000 MW hours per year of renewable energy credits (REC’s); commonly called green tags. Green tags allow customers to purchase the renewable attributes of a specific quantity of renewable energy. Green tags are sold separately from electricity and can be purchased for a location anywhere in the U.S. In this way, a customer can choose green power even if the local utility does not buy the electricity from the local wind farm. One green tag typically represents the renewable attributes associated with one megawatt hour of green power. When a utility purchases these tags it can claim the right that all the green energy and pollution saving attributes of the megawatt hour purchased belong to that utility and can be sold to rate payers desiring to purchase wind energy. As a measure of good faith and community participation, Spanish Fork Power, the local utility, is being offered the opportunity to purchase a portion of these green tags for its rate payers. For example, Spanish Fork Power can offer a green pricing option that allows its customers to participate in renewable energy technologies. Through green pricing programs, customers may volunteer on their electric bill to receive the renewable benefits of the energy. This idea has already been implemented by Rocky Mountain Power through its Blue Sky program. Rocky Mountain Power has contracted to purchase most of the REC’s from the project over the first five years which gives it the distinction of being the first utility in the state to offer green tags from a project in Utah. Thus local citizens can then claim the renewable attributes from the wind power located in the community. Wasatch Wind anticipates that after the public becomes aware of this local project, interest in making voluntary contributions on power bills to buy green tags will be significant. By making these available locally, this provides a unique opportunity for local citizens to directly participate in a clean, renewable project and a healthier Utah.

Tax Revenue Benefits

The wind turbines are taxed by their value just as a building or manufacturing facility would be taxed. Spanish Fork City, Utah County, and the Nebo school district will receive ongoing property tax revenues on each of the turbines. Considering the lifetime of the turbines is in excess of 20 years and the wind farm is being developed as a perpetual asset i.e. turbines will be replaced with new turbines every 20 years, the tax base for the city is substantial. During the first 40 years of operation the total revenue to the Nebo School District alone is estimated to exceed $4.95 million adjusted to today’s dollar and $3.6m during every 20 year project phase thereafter. This revenue is completely incremental to Nebo as the there are no additional tax burdens on the District associated with the project.

Total Economic Benefit

An extensive independant report was completed for Utah County to ascertain the total economic benefit of various size wind farms in the county. To quote the report: “The purpose of this report is to provide information for decision-makers by quantifying the likely economic impact of wind development on Utah County in the state of Utah using an input-output economic model developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) called the “Jobs and Economic Development Impact Model,” hereafter referred to as the JEDI Model (Goldberg, Sinclair, and Milligan 2004). Using basic information about a wind project (e.g., size of facility, etc.) and county-level multipliers and personal expenditure patterns, JEDI calculates the project cost (i.e., specific expenditures) as well as the number of jobs, income (i.e., wages and salary), and total related economic activity that a wind project will stimulate (Goldberg, Sinclair, and Milligan 2004). The economic analysis for Utah County was conducted for five wind project size scenarios by their capacity in megawatts (MW): (1) 5 MW, (2) 10 MW, (3) 14.7 MW, (4) 20 MW, and (5) 25 MW. This analysis may interest city, county, and state government officials; wind developers; renewable energy advocates; and other interested stakeholders contemplating decisions about Utah’s energy and economic future” According to this report the direct, indirect, and induced benefits for a 20 MW wind project in Utah County is $4.78 million not to mention the annual increases to the tax base.

Environmental Benefits

Utah ranks 4th in the nation for pollutants emitted for every kilowatt hour of electricity produced. This is because 94% of all electricity generated in the state comes from coal plants. Since energy cannot be stored on the grid, anytime the turbines are producting electricity a mix of other fossil fuel generators are cut back. Therefore, the amount of pollutants that each wind turbine on the project offsets is significant. The project will provide over 55,000,000 kwh annually of electricity to the local grid equivalent to powering over 6500 homes on average. When the project is providing peak output which typically happens in the mornings, the output is sufficient to power over 19,000 homes. According to the EPA’s Emissions and Generation Resource Integrated Database http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/egrid/index.htm the following pollutants are the offsets from the project on an annual basis:

• 87,994 lbs of sulfur dioxide
• 241,996 lbs - nitrogen oxides
• 115,886,452 lbs of carbon dioxide

These pollutants are equivalent to the following:

• 11,377 cars not driven
• 705 tanker trucks of gasoline not used.
• 122,240 barrels of oil not used
• 6,746 households not using electricity
• 1,347,826 seedlings planted and grown into trees.
• 431 acres of forest preserved from deforestation

Turbine Safety

Nine 2.1 MW Suzlon turbines are on the project and have been certified to international standards of safety and performance. These are designated IEC Class 2 turbines designed for sustained winds of 98 mph with peak gusts of 135 mph. Rotors are parked and blades feathered when wind speeds exceed 58 mph for additional safety. More than 4500 MW class turbines have been installed worldwide. The IEC standard is recognized in the U.S and is similar to standards for factors of safety and good engineering practices in maximum wind events for cell towers, radio towers, utility poles, and transmission towers found commonly along rights of ways through urban areas.

1. An Analysis of the Economic Impact on Utah County, Utah from the Development of Wind Power Plants, Nikhil Mongha, Edwin Stafford, PHD., Carth Hartman, Ph.D., May 2006, prepared under grant from the US Department of Energy. http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/
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