With plates of barbecue, colorful balloons, and goody bags of power-themed prizes like squishy hardhats and wind mill-printed ballcaps, community members and power company leaders came together at the Stillwater County Civic Center to celebrate a major milestone in a fast-paced project: In less than a year from its groundbreaking, the 248-megawatt Beaver Creek wind farm 30 miles north of Columbus is now fully operational.
At the community dinner Monday evening is Jim Hogan, director of major projects with Puget Sound Energy.
”We like to be a good neighbor and we plan to be here for a long time,” Hogan said.
In just 91 days, Puget Sound Energy built 88 wind turbines to establish the Beaver Creek wind farm, which will generate enough energy to power about 83,000 homes in western Washington a year.
"It's a great site for us because the wind in Montana peaks in the winter and our existing wind farms that we have for PSE in Washington state peak in the summer," Hogan said.
"So this off or counterbalances our energy needs and helps smooth out our energy supply throughout the entire year. So Montana's a great resource to work in tandem with our other wind farms that we operate in Washington state."
While the wind farm is new, the utility company’s presence in Montana is not.
For 50 years, PSE has historically owned major shares of Colstrip’s coal-fired power plant—that will change on December 31, when PSE transfers all of its ownership of the plant to Northwestern Energy.
PSE’s new wind farm and sale of Colstrip comes in the face of a looming deadline: By the end of the year, the Seattle based company must be completely free of coal-powered energy to comply with Washington state’s new clean energy and climate laws.
"So we are looking for more wind and solar opportunities throughout the entire Northwest, not just Montana, but across multiple states," Hogan said.
Opportunities, Hogan says, that can be an economic winner for small-Montana towns. Hogan says the Beaver Creek wind farm brought about 300 construction jobs to the site.
"That doesn't include all the local trucking that was used to haul up rock for the roads and for the foundations," Hogan said.
And ultimately, 15 permanent jobs working full-time on the site.
At Monday’s community celebration dinner, Kyle Sullivan is in attendance with his family. Sullivan is PSE’s new Energy Resource Manager at the Beaver Creek wind farm.
"So I'm in control of making sure that we're doing all the inspections and that maintenance is being performed on time and that we're all of our compliance activities are being completed when they need to be completed," Sullivan said.
Prior to the wind farm, Sullivan worked as a mining engineer and is one of the hundreds of people who left or lost employment at the Stillwater Mine last fall, after the platinum-palladium producer saw a dip in market prices and significantly scaled down its operations in Stillwater and Sweetgrass counties.
"My family wanted to see if we could make a run at staying here and we were kind of tired of chasing mines. This was the third mine that I'd worked at in 15 years," Sullivan said.
Sullivan says moving from mining to wind brought a learning curve, but also a sense of stability.
"We're not a commodity like platinum and palladium where you see huge price swings, right? Everyone needs electricity forever," Sullivan said.
With the new wind farm in place, PSE will pay impact fees to Stillwater County, as required by state law.
Hogan said the impact fees will total about $7.8 million over the course of three years and the company will pay tax on the site as well.