Washington’s Wind Farms
Thanks
to an interactive map created
by the U.S. Geological
Survey, it is now possible to make a virtual visit
to any one of America’s 47,000 ground-based wind turbines. So I decided to take
a trip around Washington state’s facilities. Using the hand-shaped icon in the
left margin, you can access the name and some details about each project, but
if you are like me you will probably keep googling for more.
There are some isolated
turbines in the Puget Sound area, but the only large-scale project is the Coyote Crest Wind
Farm. This was supposed to consist of 50 turbines when they
announced it back 2009, but it is only a nebulous haze on the map. That’s
because the project is still “proposed.”
To see real wind farms, you have to leave the coastal rainforest and
proceed inland along I-90. The 48 turbines in the Kittitas
Valley Wind Power Project outside of Ellensburg
are supposed to generate up to 2.1 MW each (100.8 MW in total). The Wild Horse and
Vantage projects on the other side of town generate up to 149 MW and 90 MW,
respectively. These turbines also cast a definable shadow, which is why I
decided to zero in on the image above. The power from these facilities
primarily goes to Puget Sound Power, though Kittitas also supplies Bonneville
Power.
There
are another two pink clusters in the eastern part of Washington. The 58
turbines of the Palouse
Wind Farm were built to the surrounding communities of the
Washington/Idaho border — they each have up to 1.8 MW of power capacity. The
much larger cluster further down to the left is made up of the Lower
Snake River 1 site (149 2.3-MW turbines totalling 343 MW of
power capacity), Hopkins
Ridge 1 site (87 1.8-MW wind turbines totalling 157 MW of
power capacity), Marengo Wind 1 site (78 1.8-MW wind turbines totalling 140
MW), and 2 other sites using 1.8 MW wind turbines. The first two facilities are
owned by Puget Sound Energy and the Marengo by Portland-based PacifiCorp.
The biggest concentration
of wind farms is found along the Columbia River, which divides Washington from
Oregon.
The
186 turbines of the Stateline Wind Farm straddle
the border. This project, owned by Florida Power & Light (oddly), has been
online since 2001. That date explains why the facility uses 0.66-MW (quite
small) wind turbines for a total installed capacity of 307 MW.
The Nine Canyon site,
across the Columbia (not shown), has 49 1.3-MW wind turbines providing a power
capacity of 96 MW.
Proceeding
west, when you get to the middle of the map, there is an immense concentration
of wind farms sprawling out on both sides of the river. Windy Point/Windy
Hills (500 MW) stretches out for 90 square miles and, along
with the Big Horn
Wind Farm (250 MW), sends its energy to California. The
rest of the wind farms on the Washington side – Juniper
Canyon (250 MW), Harvest Wind (99
MW), White Creek (94
MW), Goodnoe Hills (205
MW), and the Klickitat County wind farm (unknown) – all produce power for local
consumption.
That ends my tour of
Washington, but the interactive map will allow you to visit wind farm locations
anywhere in the US: http://eerscmap.usgs.gov/windfarm/
Originally published on the ECOreport
Courtesy : cleantechnica
