This isn’t a secret. The PSE Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility and Renewable Energy Center (see photo), located near Ellensburg, Washington, has been closed for at least month and perhaps longer. Recently, though, the message on their web page became more specific and made me realize that the visit I had been planning is a no-go—for 2025 anyway.
Safety Closure Alert
For public safety, the Wild Horse Wind Facility, Renewable Energy Center, and Beacon Ridge Road are closed to hunting, recreation, and through access for the remainder of 2025 due to damage to a wind turbine tower.
Color me disappointed. My plan was to drive there for a tour with my great-nephew and his girlfriend (J and M) sometime this fall. Ever since they moved to Washington last summer, I’ve felt a duty to show them my favorite parts of the state. They probably don’t need my help exploring Washington but would almost certainly say yes if the visit included a side trip to do some fly fishing. It could.
I’m not a green person although I’m receptive to arguments about climate change. While I haven’t done much to change my lifestyle (no electric car yet), for Christmas one year my present to everyone in the family was a promise to fully fund the carbon credits needed to offset any air travel they took during the next year. There were no takers.
At this point I’m still mostly in the educate myself stage, which includes looking for inspiration from things we are already doing to develop alternative energy sources. Plus doing my part to pass the torch (responsibility?) on to younger generations. Clearly, that takes more than a Christmas letter.
I am a PSE (Puget Sound Energy) customer. That’s one reason to visit Wild Horse although PSE has two other wind farms.
According to the PSE web site, the 149 wind turbines at Wild Horse can generate up to 273 megawatts (MW) of electricity. The solar array can generate up to 502 kilowatts of electricity. Together, they can produce enough electricity to power more than 80,000 homes.
Most important though, I remember the Wild Horse visit several friends and I made about a dozen years ago. It wasn’t just the visitor center, quality of the tour, and stark beauty of the Columbia River Basin. Instead, looking straight up at the rotating blades from a wind turbine’s base was awesome. The design is simultaneously artistic and industrial. Art and function. Beauty and power. Grace and size. Nothing wasted.
Wild Horse has apparently added a solar array since my last visit. All the more reason to go.
If Wild Horse doesn’t reopen by next spring, I will probably take J and M to visit one of Washington’s other wind farms. There are 24, collectively providing about 8 percent of the state’s total electricity generation. In the meantime I plan to do more research about whether it’s possible to actually own a wind turbine at a functioning facility. To me, that beats a memorial plaque on a park bench.
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