Delivery of the turbines and initial construction, after all approvals are received, is slated for mid-2009, with entry into commercial service by late 2009. The turbine order accounts for the major portion of the proposed $100 million project.

"We're pleased to be in a position to move forward with the Vestas turbine order," said Kimberly Harris, executive vice president and chief resource officer for PSE.

"The turbines have proven themselves at our Wild Horse and Hopkins Ridge facilities in providing a reliable source of clean, renewable energy. Building on the success of Wild Horse makes sense for our customers, and for the economy of the Kittitas Valley."

Vestas, a leading turbine manufacturer, is the current supplier to Wild Horse, located east of Ellensburg in Kittitas County, and the utility's Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility in Dayton, Columbia County.

In addition to the turbine order, the Kittitas County Board of Commissioners voted at a public hearing on Nov. 4 to approve the expansion plan as a modification to the original 2005 site development agreement with the county.

The planned expansion will result in 149 turbines and a capacity of 269 megawatts (MW) at Wild Horse, well within the original development agreement limits of 158 turbines and 312 MW. Currently, the wind facility has 127 turbines capable of producing 229 MW of electricity.

Most of the proposed expansion will occur on 960 acres of undeveloped land PSE purchased earlier this year immediately to the north of the existing 9,150-acre site. The permanent footprint of new turbines, roads, and support facilities will be approximately 2-3 percent of the total site area.

An environmental impact study for the project will be completed later in 2008, with final approval of the expansion plan expected by the state Energy Facilities Site Evaluation Council in early 2009.

In building Wild Horse, PSE voluntarily created a conservation easement that was formally accepted by the State of Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission on Nov. 7. The conservation easement will help secure the preservation of almost 12 square-miles of unique shrub-steppe habitat.

PSE has worked with legislators, regulators, environmental interests, land owners and other stakeholders toward mutually beneficial solutions to safeguarding the natural habitat, including assistance in acquisition by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife of more than 26 square-miles of shrub-steppe habitat and grazing management over a 90-square-mile area.

Other preservation efforts include voluntarily replanting more than 1,000 cacti in an extensive restoration effort to safeguard the area's shrub-steppe habitat and planting 6,500 sagebrush plugs in sensitive sage-grouse habitat.

The Wild Horse site also includes a 500-kilowatt solar project, the Pacific Northwest's largest producer of solar energy, and the Renewable Energy Center environmental education facility. Since opening in April 2008, the Renewable Energy Center has brought more than 17,000 people to the Ellensburg area to learn more about wind and solar power, as well as the natural history of the Kittitas Valley.

Kittitas County has prospered from the wind facility since its completion in late 2006. The facility created more than 20 permanent jobs, generates more than $1.3 million in new tax dollars annually for local schools and county services, and spurred additional investment in local businesses and infrastructure.

PSE expects the expansion project to increase those long-term benefits by about 15 percent. In addition, construction of the new turbines and support infrastructure will create a large number of temporary jobs; the project labor force peaked at about 250 during Wild Horse's 2006 construction.

At maximum output, the Wild Horse facility currently generates enough power to serve approximately 60,000 households. With the expansion, Wild Horse will be able to serve approximately 10,000 additional households. In total, the facility has generated 1.2 million megawatt-hours of electricity since entering operation in December 2006.

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