PacifiCorp comes out 'flat'

Invernegy had an open house for residents of northern Carbon County from 3-7 p.m. on Thursday at the Medicine Bow Community Center. The company is headquartered in Chicago and is North America's largest independent renewable power generation company.

Krista Mann, Invenergy's director of renewable development, was at the open house to answer any questions or concerns the citizens of the surrounding area might have about the TB Flats wind energy project slated for construction in 2019.

"So since September when we had our open houses in Hanna and Medicine Bow, we have received official word that we have been selected to advance in PacifiCorp's renewable procurement project for Energy Vision 2020," Mann said. "They essentially selected four wind projects and TB Flats is one of them and we are delighted with that and are thrilled to be working with PacifiCorp."

Mann said this means Invenergy will continue to develop the TB Flats wind project between now and some point later in the year.

"We will continue to secure the necessary permits, complete the development and then hand the keys over to PacifiCorp, so they will be the owner during construction and the long term during operations," Mann said. "I think Carbon County has a really great partner in PacifiCorp."

Mann said Invenergy has submitted the permit application to Carbon County which is currently under review. She believes those permits will be completed in the next few months. The size of the project triggers Wyoming Industrial Siting Council (ISC) approval and Invenergy is also getting that permit ready for approval.

"Between now and then, we will continue doing all the environmental surveys and interconnection studies," Mann said.

Until PacifiCorp takes over TB Flats, Invenergy is the company to come to if anyone has questions about the project, Mann said. She wants the public to feel comfortable in contacting Invenergy until they turn over the keys to the project to PacifiCorp.

Mann said Invenergy has been gratified with support from the communities near the project.

"We received letters of support from the towns of Hanna and Medicine Bow since the last open houses and we are so honored and appreciative," Mann said. "We would like to give a big 'thank you' to both towns."

The expected capacity is 500 Megawatts with the 200 General Electric 2.5 megawatt capacity wind turbines.

There were informational posters and graphs on where Invenergy is at with TB Flats. Of particular interest to many who came to the event was information on construction and operations workforce.

The average construction workforce is estimated at 323 for the 21-month time period forecast. The peak is believed to be 500 on-site workers during the months of July, August and September in both 2019 and 2020.

"There is a variety of jobs needed while we are under construction, such as electricians, ironworkers, truck drivers and laborers," Mann said. "In addition, we will be looking for 20 to 30 long term operations and maintenance personnel."

There was information on other posters that explained energy terminology for the general public.

A kilowatt is a metric that equals 1,000 watts of power. Wattage and indicated how much power a device can use over a relative amount of time. Watts and kilowatts refer to different quantities of energy and because of this relationship between capacity and time. The terms watt-hours (Wh) or kilowatt-hours (kWh) describe that usage.

Wh and kWh define the energy used in one hour of time. The next step up from a kilowatt is a megawatt. 1 megawatt is equal to 1,000 kilowatts or 1 million watts, and the same conversion applies for Megawatt hours (MWh).

The average U.S. household uses 11,000 kWh of energy each year according to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration. Using that information, the monthly energy use is roughly 915 kWh and daily energy use is about 30 kWh for the average home in the United States.

By comparison, MWh are typically used in reference to larger-scale electricity production in projects such as TB Flats. When energy is used at great scale, the terminology of choice will be MHh or even gigawatt-hours, which refers to one billion watts of power.

"The open house was informative," Karen Heath, the town clerk of Medicine Bow said.

Mann was pleased with the attendees' response to Invenergy's open house.

"We are really happy to be working here," Mann concluded.