From the Great Falls Tribune...This is cool

...in my opinion. I've tried to pay attention to this project. A bunch of my rellies were pioneers round that part of the country, and slowly as I get more information I'm hoping to visit these areas some more before I kick over the traces. Wonderful country over in that part of Montana. If you want, click on the blog title for the full article.

Van Jamison, vice president of Gaelectric, stands southeast of Fort Benton at the Frenchmans Ridge site, where the company is planning to build a wind farm. Gaelectric is planning to develop three other sites, including one south of Havre.

Company eyes compressed-air energy storage


Ireland-based Gaelectric said last week that it was planning to construct a $282 million compressed-air energy storage plant in the salt caverns beneath the Antrim coast in Ireland.

In Montana, Gaelectric, which has an office in Great Falls, continues to conduct feasibility studies of building a CAES plant at two unnamed sites, Gaelectric's Van Jamison said.

At CAES plants, cheaper off-peak power is used to compress air into underground storage reservoirs, Jamison said. During times of peak demand, the stored air is released and used to generate power.

CAES facilities will give wind developers, who are beholden to an intermittent power source, a readily available supply of "firming" power when the wind isn't blowing, Jamison said.

"What storage does is allows you to stock your shelf so you actually have inventory," Jamison said.

More details

Gaelectric is working with landowners and testing the wind in preparation for four Montana wind farms. The company is considering using 3-megawatt turbines in some instances. The turbines at Judith Gap are 1.5-megawatts. The four projects are:


A 180-turbine wind farm between Judith Gap and Harlowton;


A 45-pole facility called Frenchmans Ridge southeast of Fort Benton on the northern foothills of the Highwood Mountains;


A 62-pole wind farm called Tiger Ridge near the Bear's Paw Mountains south of Havre; and


A 34-turbine Pine Ridge project between Billings and Hardin.

— Karl Puckett