Navajos set to tap power of the wind

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Old generation windmills sit on the hills of Mojave, Calif.

Dennis Wagner and Ryan Randazzo

The Arizona Republic

Hundreds of windmills reaching nearly 400 feet into the sky could begin sprouting on the Navajo Reservation north of Flagstaff under a new agreement to harness wind energy for electrical use.

The Navajo Nation announced Thursday that it will partner with a Boston company to capitalize on the blustery conditions prevailing on the high mesas of northern Arizona. The Diné Wind Project, which would be the first commercial wind farm in the state, calls for Citizens Energy Corp. to invest millions of dollars to build the energy-collecting towers.

The enterprise was sealed this month by Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., other key tribal officials and Citizens Energy Chairman Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former congressman and son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy. The agreement comes after nearly two years of pre-development work and marks another step in the Navajo Nation's move to exploit renewable-power sources for so-called clean energy.

In a news release Thursday, Shirley said the wind-gathering effort will "bring prosperity for the Navajo people and build our energy independence while providing jobs and other benefits for the Navajo Nation."

The operation is planned in the Gray Mountain area west of U.S. 89, about 50 miles north of Flagstaff.

The tribe and its Diné Power Authority become partners in a joint enterprise known as Citizens Enterprise Corp., a subsidiary of Citizens Energy. Deswood Tome, a Navajo Nation spokesman, said the project is expected to generate 500 megawatts of electricity, enough to serve an estimated 100,000 households. As many as 300 turbine towers would be erected in several locations between Flagstaff and Tuba City, with first-phase completion in about three years.

The development would be among the largest wind-power installations in the country, said Bob Gough, secretary of the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy in Rosebud, S.D. The largest is near Abilene, Texas, which produces 736 megawatts. A cluster of separate wind farms near Palm Springs, Calif., contains thousands of turbines.

Gough said the Navajo Nation has some of the stiffest winds for turbines in Arizona, adding, "They've instrumented the Gray Mountain area, and on maps it probably shows the best resource in Arizona. That area also is the site of transmission lines coming out of the Four Corners region."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/green/articl...o-wind0328.html

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