Dems introduce bill to give 'green light to green energy'
By MIKE DENNISON
Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - Legislative Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a bill they said will enable a pair of small wind-power projects in Eastern Montana to get off the ground, through a "green energy" cooperative.

They also said many more such projects could be on the drawing board, providing extra income for rural Montana landowners whose property would serve as sites for windmills.

"This bill gives the green light to green energy in Montana," said Sen. Dave Wanzenried, D-Missoula, the sponsor of Senate Bill 337.

SB337 would allow an electricity-buying cooperative to own and operate power-generating equipment, such as windmills, and to own power lines to transport its electricity to the system that serves utility customers in Montana.

The bill is needed to enable the Green Energy Buying Cooperative of Billings to finance two 10-megawatt wind-power projects - one near Molt and one south of Fort Peck.

The $31.7 million projects would provide enough power for about 6,000 residential customers, as well as dozen or so jobs during the construction of each project.

The bill also authorizes the cooperative to sell bonds to finance the construction. Members of the co-op would buy the electricity generated by the windmills.

More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers showed up at a news conference promoting the bill Tuesday at the Capitol, and the bill has nearly 40 co-sponsors, all of them Democrats.

When asked why no Republicans had signed on as co-sponsors, Wanzenried said he had invited them to do so but had no takers so far.

"I'd be thrilled to have some Republican sponsors," he said. "This isn't going to be a partisan issue at all."

Rep. Alan Olson of Roundup, the Republican chairman of the House Federal Relations, Telecommunications and Energy Committee, said Tuesday he suspects that Republicans want to know more about the program before supporting it.

The program, authorized by Congress, gives bonding authority to local governments and co-ops to finance renewable, or "green," energy projects. In Montana, two co-ops and dozens of local governments won authorization late last year.

The Green Energy Buying Co-op in Billings is in the process of signing up members, who agree to buy power produced by the wind projects.

Members must be electricity customers of NorthWestern Energy or Montana-Dakota Utilities. Once the wind-power projects start generating power, the electricity would feed into the system controlled by the two private utilities.

Co-op members then would pay for this power, paying from 15 percent to 30 percent more than current rates charged by the utilities.

Russ Doty, executive director of the Billings-based co-op, said that difference is almost certain to decline over time, as the price of fossil-fuel-based power is expected to rise over time, while the price for wind power will stay the same.

Doty said the co-op can't start selling bonds to finance the projects until SB337 becomes law. If all goes as planned, the projects could be up and running in about two years, he said.

However, with the huge demand for wind power worldwide, it may be difficult to obtain wind turbines, he said. Each project would need four or five turbines.

Steve Corrick, vice president of the co-op, said its emphasis will be to build small projects that can provide additional income for farmers and ranchers. On this first round of projects, landowners would be paid $1,900 per megawatt of power capacity each year until the bonds are paid off and $6,000 per megawatt annually after that.

Rep. Bob Bergren, D-Havre, also has a bill that would give authority to local governments to own small power projects and sell bonds to finance the projects. It's being heard today in Olson's committee.

Published on Wednesday, January 24, 2007.