Latest addition to evolving energy hub announced

Millard County could soon be home to the world’s largest renewable energy storage operation, Gov. Gary Herbert announced during his annual Energy Summit in Salt Lake City.


The project is a partnership between Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS), makers of turbines powered by hydrogen and natural gas, and Magnum Development, which is developing a number of fuel storage and delivery ventures near the Intermountain Power Project (IPP).


This new initiative, dubbed the Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) project, aims to eventually generate up to 1,000 megawatts of 100 percent clean energy— enough electricity to power 150,000 homes for an entire year—on demand utilizing Magnum’s unique underground salt domes to store air under high pressure. Air heats to a high temperature under high pressure or can be heated to power turbines, according to the Energy Storage Association, thus generating zero-carbon electricity during peak demand times, when other renewable sources, such as wind and solar alone, may be unable to meet the needs of power-hungry communities across the West.


The ACES project follows local permitting approval a few weeks ago of the TransWest Express high-voltage power line project, a massive 730-mile power transmission initiative that aims to connect 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy in Wyoming with customers across the western region. A converter station is planned for Millard County as well as 93 miles of line within the county’s borders.


Premium Energy Holdings, a California venture, also filed a preliminary application for a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on May 9 to build a closed-loop, 2,000 megawatt hydro electric power project utilizing Delta’s DMAD Reservoir and a proposed new reservoir in the mountains surrounding Oak City.


The culmination of all these projects would result in Millard County becoming a hub of renewable power generation and transmission initiatives serving the entire western electric grid. Millard County Chronicle Progress

Sawtooth expansion effort gets nod

Millard County commissioners approved changes to the conditional use permit governing development of a natural gas facility on property zoned for industrial use. Sawtooth Caverns, LLC sought permission to alter a previously approved permit to add property for two new underground storage caverns as well as add property to construct a 3.5 mile pipeline connection to the existing UNEV gas pipeline, a 400-mile pipeline that stretches from Woods Cross to Las Vegas.


The company also sought permission for a petroleum right of way as part of the amended permit. Lastly, the company requested that its name be added as the holder of the permit moving forward.


Sawtooth Caverns had previously gone under the name Magnum NGLs. In March 2011 Magnum Solutions, LLC first asked permission to construct a natural gas storage and distribution facility near Intermountain Power Project’s facilities. By November of that year, the project’s developers were looking to add natural gas liquids storage to the list of allowed uses at the site. Construction of the facility was completed in July 2014. By December 2014, the original use permit was split in two, with one covering gas storage and the other covering natural gas liquids storage, the area now operated by Sawtooth. The amended permit allows Sawtooth to store refined liquid products at the site, in addition to the proposed expansion. Millard County Chronicle Progress

Rocky Mountain Power announces solar subscriber program for Millard Solar Farm

The state's largest electric provider is launching a new alternative energy program. Rocky Mountain Power announced an agreement with German energy developer juwi to build the utility’s first Subscriber Solar program resource. The 20 megawatt solar farm will be located in the Millard County town of Holden.

The alternative energy program was approved by the Utah Public Service Commission in October 2015. Customers will be able to subscribe to receive some or all of their electricity from solar power. Deseret News

Massive green-energy project taps salt caverns near Delta

A massive $8 billion project that would produce more than double the amount of energy generated by Hoover Dam taps some of the most unique and deep salt caverns found in the world — just outside of Delta in Millard County. The salt domes for compressed air energy storage are the biggest structures of their kind west of the Mississippi and figure as central components of a four-company green-energy project.

Construction of one of the nation's largest wind farms is planned for 40 miles outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, to ultimately deliver enough electricity to power 1.2 million homes in Southern California. A 525-mile direct-current transmission line would take 2,100 megawatts of electricity produced at the wind farm for storage in the salt caverns in Millard County built by Salt Lake City-based Magnum Energy.

Feds to lease 100,000 acres in southern Utah for oil, gas drilling

Oil and gas leases on more than 100,000 federal acres across southern Utah are to be sold at auction at the Bureau of Land Management’s state office in Salt Lake City.

Parcels administered by the bureau’s Color Country district to be sold include many clustered outside Salina, a large block straddling Interstate 70 west of the San Rafael Swell and several scattered around Sanpete County. The agency is taking public comment through June 16 on its next auction, slated for Aug. 19, when another 22 parcels go on the block covering 39,287 acres managed by its Salt Lake and Fillmore field offices. After conducting an environmental assessment, BLM pulled about 27,000 acres from this sale. Salt Lake Tribune

Energy Capital’s Solar Farm

A small forest of solar panels could soon spring up on the rolling hills east of the Intermountain Power Plant north of the Brush Highway. Energy Capital Group is completing all of the requirements to install a 300 Megawatt solar plant. It will cover an area one-half mile by 4.5 miles on land leased from the Utah School and Institutional Trust Land Administration (SITLA). The 1754-acre site will use single axis photovoltaic solar panels to capture sunlight converting it into a flow of electrons. With single axis tracking systems, the panels can turn around the center axis, for maximum production.

The $600 million solar farm will employ from 200 to 250 people during construction. Case said the jobs are such that it should allow a lot of local people to work on the construction phase. He said permanent operations and maintenance jobs will number about six-to-ten people. Millard County Chronicle

Millard County salt dome to begin storing liquid fuels

Caverns hollowed out in a Millard County salt dome will begin storing propane and butane next month, potentially opening new market opportunities for Utah’s natural gas industry, which has been hobbled by low commodity prices.

State regulators approved liquid-fuel storage operations at the Magnum Gas Storage Project. The project has been in the works for nearly six years while Magnum has used solution mining to carve out 2-million-barrel caverns in a two-mile-wide salt deposit, company general manager Sam Quigley told the Board of Oil, Gas and Mining.

Soon, Magnum hopes to begin filling the first of three caverns designed to hold natural gas liquids, or NGLs. The project, which state oil and gas regulators say is the first of its kind in Utah, is unfolding under state trust lands 10 miles north of Delta and hardly a mile south of the Intermountain Power Project, the massive coal-fired generating station that is expected to convert to natural gas. Salt Lake Tribune

Wolverine Oil closing Richfield office

Wolverine Gas and Oil’s Richfield office has been shut down. The office employed four people, but its shutdown doesn’t signal the end of the oil industry in Sevier County. Company officials said the remaining staff of the office would be moved to the oil field location. The closing of the office is a signal that the exploration and seismic work is mostly complete at this point. Richfield Reaper

The company’s Covenant Field facility currently produces some 200,000 barrels per month. Oil pumped from the ground is shipped to refineries in Salt Lake City and New Mexico. Wolverine became the largest taxpayer in Sevier County during the 2011 fiscal year.

Sevier County power plant proposal awaiting state review

Organizers of a proposal to build a natural gas-fueled power plant near Sigurd continue to work through various processes required for the construction of the facility. First on the agenda, is the plant is required to be reviewed by the Utah Division of Air Quality. The application for an air quality permit for the power plant was submitted in September 2011, and has continued to work its way through the review process.

According to company officials, the permit application has been submitted to federal land regulation agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Those agencies have provided feedback on the permit application, and now the DAQ is incorporating that feedback into the permit.

Concurrently, Sevier Power is working to build a new natural gas line that will supply the fuel to the facility. The line will have to be larger than those that already are in the area. The company has filed for a feasibility study. Once the studies are complete, and the permits in place, it could still take up to a year before ground is broken on the project.Bids for various portions of the construction of the plant will have to be submitted, as well as the final engineering. The power plant, if constructed, would also bring approximately $3.2 million in tax revenue to Sevier County each year. Richfield Reaper

2nd Milford wind project online

First Wind, a U.S.-based wind energy company, announced Monday that the construction of the 102-megawatt Milford Wind Corridor Phase II — Milford II — project has been completed and commercial operations have begun. The project is located north of the 204 MW Milford I project. Together, the projects, sited in Millard and Beaver counties, are the two largest wind energy developments in Utah.

Under a power purchase agreement with Southern California Public Power Authority, power generated by Milford II is being supplied to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power as well as Glendale Water and Power in California. Deseret News

3rd phase of Milford wind project proposed

A pair of meetings hosted by the Bureau of Land Management are set for mid-month to solicit comments from the public on the planned expansion of the Milford Wind Corridor project.

Phase III proposes to build a wind energy facility 45 miles south of Delta that could include up to 300 wind turbine generators, in addition to an underground power collection system, a connector road system and an operation and maintenance facility.

FirstWind's Phase I, already completed, has 97 turbines generating 204 megawatts and Milford II, at its completion, will have 68 turbines to generate 102 megawatts. John Lamontange, spokesman for the Boston-based company, said so far 22 turbines are up as part of Phase II, with another dozen or so towers installed. "The second phase is moving along well," he said. "We hope to have it online," by late spring or early summer of this year.

The company has power purchase agreements in place with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Public Power Authority for the first and second phase. No agreements have been penned yet for the third phase, or possible later phases of the project.

The Milford Wind Corridor is Utah's largest wind energy project — and when the second phase is complete the corridor will generate a combined 306 megawatts, making it one of the largest wind energy projects in the West. Deseret News

Natural gas underground storage caverns planned in Millard County

Pending federal approval, Magnum Development L.L.C. plans to begin creating four enormous underground chambers to store natural gas. Magnum will use water to carve the caverns out of a mile-thick salt deposit under the West Desert. Each of the four chambers will be 1,300 to 1,400 feet high and 300 feet in diameter. The tops of the four caverns will be about 4,000 feet below the surface.

"Each of these caverns will be the size, roughly, of the Empire State Building," said John Andrews, associate director of SITLA, Utah's School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. The agency owns the land under which the caverns will be carved and stands to earn revenue Utah schools for many years by charging Magnum rental and usage fees. "So we estimate that this will generate hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for that school trust," Andrews said.

The proposed location is just over a mile from the Intermountain Power Project plant, north of Delta in Millard County. In 1979, an oil drilling crew in the area failed to find oil, but they did discover a deeply buried deposit of salt. The salt layer is a remnant of an ancient sea that occupied the area millions of years ago. Utah's man-made caverns will connect to a natural gas pipeline network. That will require a new 61-mile pipeline from the caverns to the Kern River pipeline near Interstate 15.

Government agencies have tentatively given the go-ahead. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has released an Environmental Assessment and will be accepting comments from the public until December 23rd. So far, no opposition has emerged. Deseret News

Sevier County Gas plant granted planning approval

The Sevier County Planning Commission gave its final stamp of approval to a proposal to build a natural gas-fueled power plant near Sigurd during a meeting Aug. 11. The approval means that Nevco/Sevier Power, the company behind the proposal, now has to go through the Sevier County Commission for preliminary and final approval before being given a permit that will allow the plant to be constructed. As the project was reviewed, one change was suggested. The change requires that a reclamation plan be in place for the plant at the end of its operational life, so that once the plant is no longer used, the land it occupies will be restored to its original appearance. The Richfield Reaper

Sevier County power plant previewed

Sevier County was given its first preview of a proposal to build a gas-fueled power plant near Sigurd. The proposal was outlined by Nevco representatives at the Sevier County Planning Commission meeting. In comparison to coal, the natural gas plant will be smaller, emit less pollution, use less water, have a smaller stack, have less traffic and be built in less time. The plant would also produce 540 megawatts instead of the proposal for coal, which would have produced 270, according to Clark.

The new proposal would also have an 18-month construction period, as opposed to construction that could last years for coal. However, the gas plant would add less to the area's employment, with approximately 20 to 30 employees once construction is completed, and would not provide any additional trucking jobs. The plant will also be valued at approximately $410 million once constructed, rather than $600 million. The Richfield Reaper

Operator to boost Western gas pipeline

Salt Lake City-based Kern River Transmission Co. plans to boost the capacity of a pair of 36-inch pipelines that collect the gas in Opal, Wyo., and travel as far as California's San Joaquin Valley. At one spot in central Utah, the parallel pipelines merge into one because of mountainous terrain. Kern River says it plans to complete a second pipeline there to boost capacity by 266 million cubic feet a day. The pipelines have been in service since 1992. Doubling the pipeline in central Utah and increasing the compression pressures will allow more than 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day to travel through the pipelines to meet growing demand, up from 1.76 billion cubic feet.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has decided the pipeline expansion can be accomplished with little environmental damage. FERC will take public comment until May 17, then issue a final environmental impact study this summer.

Kern River has pledged to avoid disturbing stream flows when it buries the second pipeline through a 28-mile section of central Utah. The Deseret News