Rachel Shimshak, Director, Renewable Northwest Project

Rachel Shimshak has been the director of the Renewable Northwest Project for the last 14 years. The organization was started in 1994 as a combination of energy business and environmental and consumer advocates working together to make solar, wind and geothermal projects happen in the Northwest—and Shimshak was the only staff member. “I used to have my mother come in sometimes and answer the phone,” she recalls with a laugh.

Today, RNP has 7 staff in the office and works with more than half a dozen consultant in the region. During the organization’s first four years, it helped tackle two of the Northwest’s first wind projects: the 25MW VanCycle project in Oregon and the 41 MW Footcreek Rim project in Wyoming. “Wyoming is not what people generally think of as the Northwest, but [we took it on] since it was serving three Northwest utilities,” Shimshak says. “That allowed people to kick the tires, see an actual project operating, understand that it was real, tangible, and try to begin understanding the operating characteristics.”

Since then, Shimshak says, a number of drivers have helped move renewable energy projects to front and center for many utilities. Climate change has been a big motivator among the public, but pricing and technology have helped create a market for wind power that has grown dramatically over the past years. “I would say that when we started I thought geothermal was going to be the big winner,” Shimshak admits. ‘The change in wind technology that really allowed it to move to the front of the line was the technology innovation called the variable speed drive – the cost of wind fell faster than other renewable resources.”

Wind also offers utilities and project developers a stability that other traditional power resource, such as gas, lack. “Wind is very stable over the life of the resource,” Shimshak points out. While natural gas-fired power plants are cheaper to build, gas pricing and availability is volatile.  That’s lead to what Shimshak calls a “transformation of utility maangers’ and planners’ mindset about renewables. Renewables are a part of all the integrate resource plans that investor-owned utilities are doing throughout the region. Energy efficiency is the leas-cost, least-risk resource over all, but renewables are the cheapest long-term resource, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

Renewable resources like wind also provide environmental and local economic development benefits. “In 2001, Sherman County, Oregon, was dead last in per capita income in the state: No. 36 of 36,” Shimshak says. “Their first wind project in 2001, Klondike, a 1.24 MW project, made up 10 percent of their tax base. Now, they have 500 MW and are able to support schools and fire protection and they built a new library and they’re working on training program for young people in the country. They’re really trying to think about the long-term for the county. It’s really been a great thing.”