Utah is on the road to developing wind power
Incentives for wind power will now help keep energy dollars in Utah.
The Utah Legislature recently passed Senate Bill 19, providing a tax incentive for wind power development in the state, but “there is still more work to be done,” said Edwin Stafford.
Stafford is a professor of marketing in the business administration department at Utah State University. Working with a fellow professor of marketing Cathy Hartman and State Department of Energy engineer Christine Watson, Stafford crusaded for the bill with a public outreach campaign.
“The theme of our efforts is ‘The Winds of Opportunity for Utah,'” Hartman said.
The goal is to highlight several ideas in attracting wind parks to the state. USU students helped as well.
A group enrolled in a communications class created a media kit with information and facts about the benefits of wind power and Heather Malko, an engineering student, is currently working on a wind impact model which will be distributed to counties across Utah.
The work is not over. Before wind power comes to Utah there are steps that will need to be taken, Stafford said, and it will start with communication between locals and their elected representatives.
“It will take grassroots efforts to get to the next step,” Stafford said.
That next step is a renewal portfolio standard, or RPS, which would mandate a percentage of electricity to be generated by renewable sources. Other states have instituted RPSs, Stafford added, but it will take community involvement to have one passed in Utah.
RPSs force states to get diversified, he said. Once Utah can get an RPS it will show a balance of electronic sources to interested companies and residents.
“Only two out of 104 legislators voted against the tax incentive bill,” Stafford said. “They see the possibilities.”
Tax incentives have made it possible for Utah to be on a level playing field with surrounding states that have already passed tax incentive bills for wind power. As mentioned in a previous Utah Statesman article, currently the state of Utah purchases power from PacifiCorp, which buys electricity from the wind facility in Evanston, Wyo.
“The wind doesn’t stop at the border,” Hartman said.
Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and many other states in the western half of the country have passed legislation for wind power development. The benefits of wind power are numerous, she said, but an important concept is the competition Utah needs to be a part of.
“This puts us on a more even playing field with Wyoming,” Watson said. “We’re now able to compete.”
Along with the economic competition, “The Winds of Opportunity for Utah” focuses on the funding it could provide for education and rural farmers.
“We knew the idea of wind power is not interesting to most people,” Hartman said. “So, we tried to come up with ideas that let people know the possibilities and benefits of wind power.”
A billboard on I-15 just by the Smith and Edwards reminds Utah residents of the possibilities brought by wind power facilities. Hartman said the public outreach campaign made bumper stickers and Post-It notes as well. It’s about getting that information to Utah residents, she added.
Stafford said he and environmentally sound residents see the dark side of Senate Bill 19, which allows the same tax provision for waste-burning facilities in Utah.
“The word is, that the economics aren’t there for a facility to be built,” Stafford said.
He added that community outrage over the coal ash and pollution will not allow for facilities to be built either. Watson added that Utah already has a surplus of coal energy – 94 percent of Utah’s electricity is coal-fed, and no one is in the market to purchase the excess right now.
“Environmentalists are worried, but uglier things were able to be taken out of the bill before it was passed,” Watson said.
The success of wind-powered electricity is seen in Texas, where in 1999, then-Governor George W. Bush signed a mandate for renewable energy. Today, Texas is the second-largest producer of renewable energy in the country.
Stafford said the economic benefits, job opportunities and education funding are a plus to many residents and legislators in Utah, now that the state is on a level plane with Wyoming. Funds spent on power coming from 10 miles over the border can eventually be saved, he said.
“This bill will keep the energy dollars in the state,” Stafford said.
-ireneh@cc.usu.edu