Touring Washington’s Wind Farms, Courtesy Of The USGS (Interactive Map)
Originally published on the ECOreport
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), I changed my copy to Marengo Wind 1 site (78 1.8-MW wind turbines totalling 140 MW) and 2 site (which also uses 1.8 MW capacity 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 and another 14 2.3-MW wind turbines providing 32.2 MW of capacity.
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/
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