Wind power: A success that should be celebrated

PPL’s announcement that it will mothball its 44-year-old Corette coal plant in 2015 has generated a lively conversation this election season. The plant is old, dirty and uncompetitive in today’s market. Yet, little of the coverage has focused on the relative benefits for Montana in this story. I would like to offer a few facts for the reader’s consideration.

First, at least a portion of the energy from Corette is being purchased and consumed by NorthWestern Energy ratepayers at the contracted cost of $53 a megawatt hour.

Meanwhile, NorthWestern ratepayers have just built and purchased the new Spion Kop wind farm in Montana that is estimated by the Public Service Commission to deliver power at a cost of $53 a megawatt hour. The cost ratepayers pay for energy from Corette does not include the total cost of its impact on our air or water quality — pollution costs that are borne by all of us. Spion Kop, on the other hand, will deliver equally affordable energy while avoiding all of Corette’s air and water pollution.

The difference you as a NorthWestern Energy ratepayer pay between coal and wind is even starker if we broaden our outlook beyond Corette. NorthWestern Energy ratepayers pay a whopping $63 a megawatt hour for coal energy from Colstrip for example. Compare that to the cost of wind energy from the Judith Gap wind farm, where NorthWestern Energy ratepayers pay just $47 a megawatt hour. And the rates of Judith Gap and Spion Kop are stable, like a fixed-rate home mortgage, because wind energy is always free, unlike fossil fuels.

The potential loss of the 35 jobs Corette supports in the Billings community is troubling, though far from devastating in a community the size of Billings where the largest employer, the Billings Clinic, has around 3,300 employees based in Billings. We all hope the workers at Corette will be re-employed in one of PPL’s many other energy facilities in the state. But still, if job losses are a concern, the jobs may be being made up elsewhere. Wind energy, for example, has added at least 37 new permanent positions in Montana, directly employed by the wind industry, in 2012 alone.