Williams News Logo
Grand Canyon News Logo

Trusted local news leader for Williams AZ and the Grand Canyon

Company hopes to harness wind near Williams
Conditional use permit approved

WILLIAMS - While most residents in Williams would probably like to see the gusty wind conditions of the last week fade away, one of the largest clean energy companies in the world hopes the wind keeps on coming.

Coconino County Planning and Zoning Commissioners at their March 30 meeting unanimously approved a conditional use permit allowing NextEra Energy Resources to install four meteorological test towers, or met towers, on Perrin Ranch.

Coconino County Community Development Director Bill Towler said two of the towers will be located off Espee Road approximately five and eight miles in from Junipine Estates. The remaining two towers will be south of Espee Road on the west side of Perrin Ranch.

The towers will be 200 feet tall and six inches in diameter.

"You can't even see them from more than a half mile away," Towler said.

Steven Stengel, spokesman for NextEra, said the company will pay a yearly fee to the owner of Perrin Ranch to install the towers on ranch property. Installation is expected to begin sometime in the next two weeks.

The towers will be fitted with anemometers used to measure wind activity.

"Those are devices that are used to measure the speed of the wind," Stengel said. "We use those to help determine the viability of a wind project."

Stengel said there is quite a bit of existing data available that suggests wind resources exist where the company plans to install the met towers.

"Until you actually get out there with your own devices and equipment you don't know for sure," he said. "We typically like to have before we make a firm decision at least 12 months of data if not more."

NextEra's parent company, FPL Group, is a leading clean-energy company with close to 43,000 megawatts of generating capacity. According to the company's Web site, 2009 revenues totaled more than $15 billion.

NextEra does not currently have any assets located in Arizona although the company has projects in 17 states and Canada. Stengel said NextEra is the largest wind power company in North America and prominent on a global scale.

"We're number two world-wide in terms of installed megawatts behind a Spanish company, Iberdrolla," he said.

If data from the test towers show wind resources adequate for a larger project, Towler said a second conditional use permit would be necessary before NextEra Energy went forward with a full-scale wind farm project.

"A full-scale wind project would have 350 foot towers that are 20 feet in diameter," Towler said, adding that currently only one wind energy project has been approved and built in Arizona. The project is located in Navajo County and was built by Iberdrolla.

Towler went on to say that if NextEra were to proceed with a wind energy project, energy resources would connect to the 500 kV line that crosses the approximately 100,000-acre Perrin Ranch.


Donate Report a Typo Contact