Teton Wind, a subsidiary of Tasco Engineering of Lehi, Utah, south of Salt Lake City, has proposed a 360 megawatt (MW) facility that it calls White Mountain Wind Energy Project. The location is Sweetwater County in southwestern Wyoming. It would be built in four phases.

Novelution Wind, based in Chugwater, north of the Wyoming state capital of Cheyenne, wants to build a three-phase wind project that would eventually total 800 turbines with capacity of 1.2 gigawatts in Platte and Goshen Counties. The southeastern corner of the state has an abundance of Class 5, 6 and 7 winds -- excellent, outstanding and supurb -- according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Chugwater Flats

The first phase would see 116 1.5MW turbines built, Jessica Laviolette, manager of Novelution Wind, told local officials in December. The facility will be called Chugwater Flats Energy Project.

The developers have not released cost estimates for either project.

The Wyoming Industrial Siting Council, a quasi-judicial agency within the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), has planned a hearing on the Chugwater Flats project for 30 March. Novelution filed an application for a siting permit with the Council on 1 January, an official there tells Recharge.

Wyoming law requires that the Council review wind projects that exceed either 50 turbines or $175.5m in total investment to assess their socioeconomic and environmental impact.

If it proceeds as planned, Chugwater Flats would be one of the largest wind projects in the country.

The project would stretch across some 16,000 acres of "gently rolling, elevated plain", including state and leased private fee lands that are "relatively undeveloped except for livestock grazing, farming, and some roads to service inactive missile silos", according to Novelution's permit application.

The developer expects construction to take 33 months commencing with road construction in the second quarter.

Novelution intends to use GE 1.5MW wind turbines for all three phases of the project.

Teton Wind

The state official says that Teton Wind has not filed a permit application. Tasco Engineering officials were not immediately available for comment.

The project would be sited on 8,527 acres of private property and 4,638 acres owned and administered by the US bureau of Land Management (BLM). The agency has completed its environmental assessment of the project.

Sweetwater County officials say they issued a conditional use permit to Teton Wind in 2008 for 36 wind turbines to be located on private land, but not a construction permit.

Teton would be required to obtain additional conditional use and construction permits for the remaining turbines located on private lands from the county before advancing to the next phase of project development.

Local opposition to the project surfaced at local hearings in July, although private landowners where turbines would be located support it.

Wyoming had 1,101MW of installed wind power capacity at the end of last year.

Governor wants tax hike

Meanwhile, Freudenthal issued another call for state lawmakers to boost wind industry taxation to levels in line with those of coal, natural gas and oil when the legislature reconvenes on Monday.

"We haven't formulated a set of policies that are consistently applicable to where the industry knows what the circumstances are they're going to deal with and the elected officials have an answer to the citizens that say, 'Why should I put up with it?'" says Freudenthal.

The legislature’s Joint Revenue Committee in November voted down a proposal to tax wind energy generation.

"I think what we're going to have to decide fundamentally when the Legislature meets is whether they want to side with Al Gore and the 'Inconvenient Truth' or they're going to vote for the citizens of Wyoming," says Freudenthal, referring to the film and book centering on Gore’s crusade against global warming.

Freudenthal's plan would impose a $3 a megawatt hour excise tax on wind energy generation, with 60% of revenues going to the state and 40 percent to local governments where turbines are located. The amount would equal about a 5 percent tax on wind production.

The governor’s aides estimate the tax would generate almost $6m in revenue to counties hosting wind turbines.