Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the commencement of a deal with a power provider that would allow the city government to produce 35 percent of its energy from wind turbines located in Pennsylvania.
At a press conference Wednesday, Bowser thanked the Obama administration for “all of their hard work” pushing clean energy regulations and said the deal would help the city keep in line with Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
“The District of Columbia is not a city that denies science or the facts,” Bowser said. “We know that climate change is real.”
Since 2012, the city government had been buying Renewable Energy Certificates, or RECs, to power its buildings and facilities. The RECs allowed the DC government to buy green energy it wasn’t actually using, but now the city will get wind power directly from a wind farm in Pennsylvania.
That wind farm is owned by Iberdrola Renewables, a foreign-based company, which coincidentally has received more corporate welfare from the U.S. government than any other company.
According to a report produced by the left-leaning group Good Jobs First, Iberdrola has received nearly $2.2 billion from the Obama administration since 2009 in tax subsidies and federal grants.
Bowser, though, was more than happy to ink the deal with the heavily subsidized company, saying it would save taxpayers in the district nearly $45 million over the next 20 years.
The South Chestnut Wind Farm, located about 175 miles from D.C. in Logan Township, Pa., would feed power from the wind mills into a grid system that would then be pulled by D.C. government operations from a local grid that extends from multiple states.
Barrett Stambler, vice president of the Spain-based Iberdrola and a former lobbyist for the solar industry, was on hand at the press conference. He called the deal between Iberdrola and D.C. “groundbreaking,” and said the city is buying the “greenest product” on the energy market.
As for exactly how much the project would cost tax payers in the city, officials dodged attempts to obtain a straight answer.
Mark Chambers, associate director of sustainability and energy at Department of General Services, said there would be no “upfront capital investment” for the city, but that the cost will consist of “time and learning.”
Chambers said the city shot for the 35 percent mark because it is a “sensible” goal to see how well the wind power deal would work.
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