GREAT FALLS – Officials with a renewable energy developer based in Ireland said Wednesday the company has paid $3.5 million to reserve priority position on the Bonneville Power Administration’s interstate transmission system – a move that will allow wind power produced in Montana to be distributed to the West Coast.
Van Jamison, vice president for strategic operations at Gaelectric North America, said the agreement with BPA shows that the company is committed to building wind farms in the Great Falls and Harlowton areas in the next couple of years.
Gaelectric, which has offices in Great Falls, is planning to put $2 billion into wind development projects in Montana over the next six years. Jamison said those efforts will double the state’s current installed capacity of 500 megawatts of wind power.
Wind farms at three sites east of Great Falls, each with an expected combined production of 500 megawatts, are in the early stages of development. The sites are east of Belt along the Highwood Mountains, and near Geyser.
Projects that will provide an additional 460 megawatts are being developed in the Harlowton area.
Gaelectric hopes to begin using the BPA line by 2014, but first needs to build a 100-mile power line from Great Falls to the Garrison area, where it would tie into the BPA interstate transmission grid.
The so-called “Green Line” is being developed by Gaelectric and Toronto-based Tonbridge Power Co.
BPA is a federal agency that provides about half of the electricity used in the Pacific Northwest and operates more than three-fourths of the region’s high-voltage transmission.
Gaelectric officials also said Wednesday the company has secured transmission capacity on Northwestern Energy lines. That will allow Gaelectric to move power from its Harlowton-area developments to the BPA transmission line.