Last Monday marked my family’s 19th anniversary of moving to Goldendale.
I came here specifically to start a renewable energy business and help local residents produce their own power with small wind turbines and rooftop solar arrays. Nineteen years ago there were no huge wind towers on the hills next to my home and the thought of massive, industrial solar farms was laughable science fiction. Nineteen years ago people were still hoping the shuttered Columbia Gorge aluminum plant would reopen, cellular service was spotty in most of the county and we certainly couldn’t stream a video on the dial-up.
Today, 19 years later, Central Klickitat County has 1250MW of large wind power installed while Klickitat PUD’s peak demand for the whole county is 88MW. We are by far a net exporter of energy. For comparison, and according to findenergy.com, Yakima County uses 3000.97% of the total amount of the electricity that it produces, King County produces only 2% of its own electricity while Klickitat County consumes about 2.02% of the electricity that is produced here — we produce 49 times more electricity than we use!
We should be really proud of that fact. We are blessed with abundant water, wind, sunshine and renewable natural gas from the landfill and we are able to export those renewable resources at considerable benefit to our local landowners, community and labor force.
One of the challenges with all this power being produced here is that there are times when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining but the demand for electricity regionally is low — and less valuable. The proposed Goldendale pumped storage project would provide our region with the opportunity to store a large amount of the renewable energy we already create on a daily basis and deploy it when it is needed.
The site involves two, 60-acre reservoirs — one at the old aluminum smelter site and the other 2,400 feet up, near the radio towers and wind turbines, just off the summit of Juniper Point. The project includes cleaning up a former brownfield site at the smelter and removing toxic substances that are known to cause negative health impacts.
This project will create more than 3,000 family wage jobs during its four-year construction period. Once built, the Goldendale Energy Storage Project would employ as many as 70 full time workers, and make our community healthier, more resilient and more adaptable to weather extremes while also generating millions in new annual tax revenue to fund schools, roads, public safety and other needed services.
Goldendale is a wonderful place to live and raise a family, but I’m hopeful that the Goldendale Energy Storage Project, as well as many other thoughtfully implemented initiatives, will make Goldendale an even more prosperous place over the next 19 years.
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