Oregon Public Broadcasting

Power is now flowing out of the entirety of Portland General Electric’s biggest wind farm.

Biglow Canyon includes 217 wind turbines with a capacity of 450 megawatts –  but since it’s wind power, customers can’t rely on nearly that much from the facility on a regular basis.

In the middle of the afternoon Wednesday, PGE officials estimated that steady winds in Sherman County were generating about 220 megawatts at Biglow Canyon.

PGE vice president Jim Lobdell says adding wind power helps  the utility’s renewable portfolio. But he says it also creates problems.

Jim Lobdell: “Wind can be there one moment and can be gone the next. So your ability to ensure the reliability, or to ensure that customers’ lights stay on and that businesses are operating becomes quite a bit more difficult because of the amount of variability you’re introducing into the system. The more there is, the more challenging it becomes.”

Lobdell says the utility now produces about nine percent of its power from renewable energy sources, including wind.

That needs to be 25 percent by the year 2025, under a state law passed a few years ago.

Lobdell says meeting that mandate means Biglow Canyon may not be PGE’s largest wind farm for long.