Mar 6, 2011 By The 5 min read

Fay-Penn Economic Development Council announced Friday that it has been working with Iberdrola Renewables and Hudson Energy to provide local businesses and organizations the opportunity to purchase local wind energy generated in Fayette County.

Iberdrola Renewables is the second-largest wind operator in the U.S. It has the world’s largest renewable energy asset base, with projects in over 23 countries.

The company is constructing a new 46-megawatt wind farm on Chestnut Ridge, south of Uniontown. “The project, which will interconnect with the Allegheny Power transmission system, is expected to produce 133,000 megawatts an hour per year, is currently under construction, and is scheduled to be generating electricity by the end of the year,” according to George Drosdowich, director of de-regulated markets for Iberdrola Renewables.

“Since the project is being built here, we contacted Iberdrola Renewables to see if the local community could be offered the first opportunity to purchase the power,” said Mike Krajovic, Fay-Penn president.

Potential customers will have to wait until the facility goes online.

“We expect project construction to be done by end of year and that means the product won’t be available until it is up and running. We expect that to be early in 2012,” said Paul Copleman of Iberdrola Renewables.

When asked how much the facility will cost, Copleman said Iberdrola doesn’t discuss what it invests in specific projects. “But the industry average of what it costs to build and install projects like this is about $2 million per megawatt. This is a 46-megawatt project so that puts it in the neighborhood of $90 to $100 million.”

Krajovic explained that the power is usually sold to large electric companies on the national grid and is not directly available to local electric users. “When looking at the turbines, it would be nice if we could tell our children that is where some of our energy comes from,” Krajovic said.

He added that high energy users such as school districts, county government and sewage and water authorities have already been contacted, but now the company is willing to offer the wind power to local businesses thanks to partnering with Hudson Energy, a licensed retail electric supplier in Pennsylvania, which will collect and total individual users into one large block of power. Hudson Energy and its parent, JustEnergy, are one of the largest retail suppliers of electric power and natural gas in the country, with a special focus on renewable, green energy.

“This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in purchasing renewable energy and supporting business expansion in the local community,” Drosdowich said.

Any company interested in learning more about how to purchase local wind energy can do so by going online to the Chestnut Ridge Renewable Wind Energy Project website at www.crwindenergy.com.

To receive a no-obligation personalized cost proposal, download the form from the website and send it to Hudson Energy.

Krajovic said qualified commercial, institutional and industrial customers will be able to lock in a portion of their energy costs for up to 10 years. This will provide security in their electric costs, especially in light of the real potential for significant commodity inflation and the daily volatility of the global energy markets.

Wind is not a limited resource, and is immune to the wild price swings that occur in the fossil fuel energy markets, Krajovic said. Wind is an inexhaustible source of energy, which is why Iberdrola Renewables is able to provide fixed electric prices at competitive rates for a long period of time. Although not currently available at this time, plans are underway to offer a similar opportunity for residential consumers in the near future.

Drosdowich said Iberdrola Renewables has put forth every effort to make sure that as much of the project as possible was made in Pennsylvania. The Gamesa wind turbines are produced in nearby Cambria County, and many local contractors are being hired to construct the wind turbines.

“We like the idea of making this a local project to support the local community,” Drosdowich said.

“It is estimated that over the course of a year, the turbines should be able to provide 30-to-60 percent of the power, depending upon the type of customer. The balance of the electric power will be provided by conventional generation, such as coal,” Krajovic said.

He explained that while coal will still be needed as an energy source, it is a limited resource. The depletion of coal and the closing of the mines is what caused the great economic collapse of Fayette County 60 years ago. “It is good to diversify, and using wind energy to supplement coal-generated energy is a smart thing to do,” he said.

“The more people that participate in the project, the more we put Fayette County on the map for being a community that also supports renewable energy,” said Jessica Steimer, the sustainability specialist for Fay-Penn.

For more information, go online to www.crwindenergy.com.