By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun

     BOULEVARD — The giant wind turbines located in Boulevard on top of Crestwood Summit started spinning last week on the largest commercial wind farm on Indian lands in the country. Electricity from the farm started flowing into San Diego’s power-hungry grid over the Christmas long-weekend.
     San Diego Gas & Electric began receiving electricity from the new Kumeyaay Wind Project, which has a generating capacity of 50 megawatts. The project was developed through a partnership between the global investment and advisory firm Babcock & Brown and GE Energy Financial Services.
     “This is a new project that serves our customers' needs,” SDGE spokesman Ed Van Herik said. “It's a substantial amount of energy. It's state of the art, and it's renewable.”
     On a ridge near the Campo tribe’s Golden Acorn Casino, the Kumeyaay wind turbines stand taller than 20-story buildings, with blades as long as half a football field. 
     Each unit can produce up to two megawatts of electricity at a given time, enough to power 1,300 average-size homes.

     The Kumeyaay Wind farm, annually, is expected by the company to produce enough power for about 30,000 homes and could save approximately 110,000 tons a year in greenhouse gas emissions, compared to equivalent fossil fuel generation such as natural gas and nuclear energy, Herik said. It will help SDGE meet its target of supplying at least 20 percent of its customers' electricity from renewable sources by 2010.
     The State of California's Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) Program requires each utility company to increase its procurement of eligible renewable generating resources by one percent of load per year to achieve a 20 percent renewables goal.
     The RPS Program is managed by the California Public Utilities Commission and its Energy Commission.
“We have a long-term plan to keep the energy flowing in San Diego County for the next 20 years,” said J.C. Thornes of SDGE. “In that plan, it calls for conservation of energy and the production of renewable energy.”
     “We’re looking at solar. We’re looking at wind...anything that can help to meet that requirement,” Thornes said.
     The project is the second renewable energy investment in San Diego County by GE Energy Financial Services this year. The first, in April, was an investment in solar roofs covering 14 of the city's public schools.
     Construction of the wind farm began in May 2005 and was finished in November.
     The wind farm diversifies the Campo tribe’s income via the lease of the land beneath the turbines.
Tribal treasurer Michael Connolly said Campo is proud to be a renewable-energy site. Set between mountains and desert, it is among the windiest areas of the county.
     “To have the opportunity to become an energy producer is something that not many communities have the right geography to be able to do,” Connolly said.
     The turbines won't spin when the wind is below five miles per hour, and must be shut down for safety when gusts exceed 55 miles per hour. Babcock & Brown officials say the project is expected to operate at 36 to 40 percent capacity over the course of a year, averaging 18 to 20 megawatts of power at any given time.
     Babcock & Brown, which will retain a substantial equity interest and remain the long-term manager of the site, has six wind facilities in the United States that will go into service by year's end.
     Neal Emmerton, who supervised the Kumeyaay Wind project for Babcock & Brown, said its biggest public benefit is pollution-free electricity. 
     Emmerton said wind plants provide economic benefits as well, although those of one 50 megawatt plant will be pretty negligible to ratepayers.
     “The price of (natural) gas keeps going up, and wind is cheaper than gas,” he said. “Is that going to translate to any savings to the customer? No, because this one project is a pebble on the beach shore compared to all the power that SDG&E imports.”
     According to SDGE officials, the power generated at the wind farm will feed into a newly renovated line and could end up anywhere in the power grid serving San Diego County and a portion of Orange County.

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