Coconino County’s planning commission has approved a wind farm to be built 25 miles north of Flagstaff. It’s the latest in a series of renewable energy projects in the region.
The commission voted 4-2 to approve up to 100 turbines that are expected to reach 640 feet in the air.
Morgan Schwenn is senior development manager for RWE, a Texas based independent power producer that already runs 3,000 turbines across 10 states.
She says demand has been rising in Arizona while power stations have shut down. And she argued that wind fills in when solar energy’s main source goes down.
"Wind creates a really balanced profile. So states in the West like Arizona have a fantastic solar resource but solar only produces at one time of day. Whereas what we see with wind farms is that they actually tend to blow in the evenings and the nights where there’s a need that solar is not meeting," she said.
The wind farm could go up starting next year, she said.
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