By Barry Eberling | DAILY REPUBLIC | February 20, 2009
Windmills spin off of Birds Landing Road in Solano County. Photo by Brad Zweerink
FAIRFIELD - Solano County must wait a little longer to find out if its city-sized wind turbine area in the Montezuma Hills has the potential to become an even bigger boomtown.
Renewable energy is getting a big push in this age of global warming concerns, from President Barack Obama to the California Energy Commission. Eastern Solano County's windswept hills are one of the best places for electricity-generating turbines in the state.
There are 700 turbines in an 18-square-mile area in the Montezuma Hills.
Questions remain, however, about whether those whirling turbine blades will continue causing problems for Travis Air Force Base radar. Base officials have said the turbines make difficult for the radar to detect small planes.
'This definitely needs to be taken care of,' county Planning Manager Mike Yankovich said.
The base installed an upgraded radar system last fall that wind turbine companies had hoped would solve the problem. How much a difference the upgraded system makes remains uncertain, base officials said in January.
That may not be known until after April, Yankovich said.
Solano County made its position clear in its recently approved General Plan, which states 'wind turbine generators shall not be located in areas that conflict with the mission of Travis Air Force Base or other air operation facilities.'
Everything doesn't necessarily hinge on the upgraded radar system. Yankovich said other possibilities include using an additional radar site.
Those 700 turbines in Montezuma Hills generate enough power for 15,600 homes, enough for a city the size of Dixon. Many more turbines are planned, so many that they may spill over from the south side of Highway 12 to the north side in the next year.
County supervisors during the 2008 General Plan sessions struggled with the aesthetics of a landscape covered with turbines.
'I see them as visual blight,' Supervisor Jim Spering said at the time. 'There's a right place to put them and a wrong place to put them, even if the wind is there.'
Annie Mudge, representing the wind farm companies EnXco and Shiloh II, took a different view of the white, galvanized steel towers.
'I happen to think they are majestic and stunning,' she said.
The supervisors created rules to govern turbine placement. A turbine must be at least three times its height from any property line, road or railroad. It must be a quarter-mile from a roadway classified as 'scenic,' such as Highway 12.
Solano County is listed by the California Energy Commission as being among five primary wind resource areas in the state, but it's hardly the largest. The Altamont, Tehachapi and San Gorgonio areas produce 95 percent of the state's wind-generated power.
There are 4,788 turbines at Altamont and 3,444 in the Tehachapis, and about 11,600 turbines in the state.
Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646 Ext. 232 or beberling@dailyrepublic.net.
