The WOW business model is not technology dependent. Electricity is an essential service and producing power locally even with fossil fuel power generation would earn revenue, however, given Coos County has the equivalent of billions of barrels of oil under the ground in wind resource, it would be wise to start drilling it. More importantly, even with low PUC set rates of .07KWH the ROI can be as quick as four years.
In short, Coos County could earn more money and create more jobs by importing less power than it can by privatizing our public resources and signing a deal with ORC and know when to expect a return and how much. Coos County could develop two or three or ten such microgrids and not only fund all of our schools, law enforcement, health and public services, create hundreds if not thousands of jobs and draw tourists just wanting to see how it is done.
Oregon has enough renewable energy resources, with geothermal, wind, PV and micro-hydro to generate 184% of its power needs. Read this report from Energy Self Reliant States.
Why is Coos County exerting so much effort on the handful of jobs promised by LNG and chromite mining when the real future is renewable sustainable energy? We have the resources. We have the technology, geothermal as a base line, wind, solar and CHP for peaks. The technology is affordable, typically 40% less capital cost than centralized power production and it doesn’t require $1M/mile transmission lines. We even have the financing. WOW or its equivalent earns enough to cover debt service and still net $2M annually, and never has there been more money available for renewable energy than right now. We have everything we need to be a self sustaining strong local economy it seems, except the political will.
