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Area solar activity heats up: Energy companies eye sites near Christmas Valley [The Bulletin, Bend, Ore.](Bulletin (Bend, OR) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 28--WASHINGTON While government bureaucracy continues to hold up a proposed solar facility at a former military radar base in Christmas Valley, the proposal has attracted two developers to try and cash in on the solar power potential on other sites just south of the Deschutes County line, according to state and local officials. About seven companies are interested in the radar site, state officials have said. But those companies, which the state won t name, have been waiting for more than a year for the military land to become available for development. So this May, a California company filed an application with the Department of State Lands to build a solar energy farm on a separate parcel 640 acres of state land on the northern border of Lake County. Additionally, a Portland investment firm has received land use approval to develop 80 acres for solar energy on private land nearby. The proposal to develop renewable energy at the former radar site put Christmas Valley, located about 95 miles southeast of Bend, on developers maps, said Lake County Commissioner Brad Winters. I think a lot of it began because of the backscatter (radar) site and all the media from it, but we re starting to see quite a bit of interest in the renewable energy side, Winters said. Infrastructure GreenWing Energy America Corp., based in Morgan, Calif., proposed building a utility-scale solar energy farm of between 50 megawatts and 104 megawatts, on the state land in northern Lake County, according to its application. The plant would use photovoltaic solar panels mounted on tracking mechanisms which follow the path of the sun throughout the day, the application says. The site location was chosen based on solar exposure, proximity to an existing large transmission line and compatible land use. The transmission lines are what first drew the attention of U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, and Lake County and state officials to the former military base. Those lines can transmit up to 200 megawatts of energy at a time, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The 2,622-acre site once held an Air Force radar complex designed to watch for threats across the Pacific Ocean. But the radar was shuttered in 1990, only a few months after it was finished. Since the Air Force announced it would close the radar station in 2005, the military, BLM and the state have envisioned developing the site for solar or wind power. Now that the radar site has been decommissioned, the federal General Services Administration is in the process of transferring ownership to the state. The state is eying a portion of the site for National Guard training, and another as a possible camp for people displaced in a natural disaster. Problems negotiating the details of the land transfer have held up the renewable energy development there, said Winter, who is a co-chairman of the joint county-state team working on the project. That hasn t stopped development from going ahead nearby. In the works GreenWing is the first company to apply for solar development rights on state lands, said Nancy Pustis, eastern region manager for the Department of State Lands. GreenWing officials couldn t be reached for comment Thursday. The company needs to submit a more detailed proposal before the state can process the application, Pustis said. GreenWing also has purchased 6,000 acres of easements for wind energy development in the county, Winters said. A second firm, Portland s Obsidian Finance Group LLC., received a conditional-use permit for solar development on an 80-acre parcel in the Christmas Valley area, Winters said. A copy of the permit was not immediately available from the Lake County Planning Department. The Christmas Valley radar site once sported 216 antennae that varied in height from 35 to 135 feet, according to earlier reports in The Bulletin. Several empty buildings and a lot of empty space are all that remain. In 2007, Gov. Ted Kulongoski designated the property as an Oregon Solutions project, which brings together state and local officials on economic development issues. Keith Chu can be reached at 202-662-7456 or at [email protected]. ARTICLE ACCESS: This article is among those available to all readers. Many more articles are available only to E-Edition members. Sign up today! To see more of The Bulletin or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.bendbulletin.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Bulletin, Bend, Ore. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |