Utilities plans to buy more wind power

The ceaseless wind on the eastern El Paso County prairie will someday power light switches in Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs Utilities intends to buy 50 megawatts of wind power from Clipper Windpower, a California company building a wind farm near Calhan.

Utilities officials updated the Colorado Springs Utilities Board on the purchase Wednesday.

Clipper's bid was chosen out of 14 submitted, in part because the proximity of its wind farm to Colorado Springs allowed it to offer the most competitive price, said Tom Black, Utilities chief energy services officer.

Clipper wants to build 103 wind turbines, a maintenance facility, a substation and transmission lines on thousands of acres east and southeast of Calhan. The exact locations have not been set, Utilities officials said.

"It's the right thing to do. There are requirements around the state, but we also have customers that want access to wind and wind products," Black said.

Many details of the purchase have yet to be completed, and a contract will be finalized within three months, but officials said it will cost $273 million over 20 years.

The company will begin delivering electricity by January 2011.

Colorado municipal utilities are under state requirements to derive 1 percent of power from renewable sources annually from 2008 to 2010, 3 percent from 2011 to 2014, 6 percent from 2015 to 2019 and 10 percent by 2020.

Federal legislation under consideration could increase the requirement to 15 percent or 20 percent.

Utilities currently buys 1 megawatt of wind power, a tiny fraction of its 863-megawatt system. The program to allow customers to buy wind energy in 100 kilowatt-hour blocks, at $2.45 each, has been sold out since 2005. About 100 customers are on a waiting list.

More than 800 have informally offered to buy the new wind power, though it will cost them $17 to $23 extra a month.

Black said officials don't know when customers will be able to sign up to get power from the new wind farm.

"There certainly is a lot of interest in wind from customers in Colorado Springs. The military is interested in this. The universities have a desire to go green," Black said.

Depending on how much of the 50 megawatts is sold, some wind power could also be put into Utilities' electric system, at a cost of 80 cents to $1 a month for all residential customers, $8 to $9 for businesses and $500 to $600 for industry.

Said Black: "Our intent is to sell all of this as a premium product, and what we can't sell we will have to integrate into our portfolio."

As recently as two years ago, Utilities was considering a new coal-fired power plant to meet future energy needs, but that has been abandoned in favor of wind and other renewable energy resources, including hydroelectric plants, biomass and the purchase of renewable energy credits.