Oct 7 2010
Portland General Electric Company drew back its appeal submitted for the one time waiver of competitive bidding guidelines set by Oregon Public Utility Commission for new energy resources.
The company made its appeal on 2nd September 2010 mentioning the need to accomplish a time-sensitive accord with Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc for attaining developmental rights assets for the Rock Creek Wind Farm Rock Creek Wind Farm located in Gilliam County, Oregon.
Jim Lobdell, power operations and resource strategy’s vice president at PGE, said that though the initial evaluations showed the tremendous wind energy potential of the location but the new regulatory processes has made it difficult for the company to accomplish the deal within the time-frame anticipated by PGE and RES America which made the company to withdraw the time waiver request.
More over the recently issued guidelines of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services made it mandatory for the wind energy developers to further undertake additional studies and propose plans in such a way as to reduce the impact of the wind farm on certain types of birds. This virtually increased the time to appraise the impacts and develop wind projects in locations that have the probability to include the endangered species. PGE and RES America proposed Rock Creek project areas occupied the leased sites included in the new guidelines.
Lobdell said that his company always buys resources that will be advantageous for its clients. He added that the Rock Creek project may conform to the presently issued bill at some point of time but considering the impact, the new guidelines could bring into the project it becomes unnecessary for the company to move away from the established attainment process or achieve an ultimate accord with RES America to buy the rights of the project immediately.
Source: http://www.portlandgeneral.com/