6-21-10 Reno Gazette Journal

The technology used with this plant returns the water used to its normal course. Big Smokey Ranch is in central Nevada.

Big Smoky Valley ranch installs hydropower plant

Those are just some of the things that typically come to mind at the mention of the word "creek."

That is, unless you're Ralph Young.

When the older half of the Young Bros. farming and ranching operation in Nevada's Big Smoky Valley sees a running body of water, he thinks of power. Hydro power.

Forget going up a creek with a paddle. Young and brother Paul have something that flows better with their business interests -- a new, honest-to-goodness hydro turbine that goes live this week at their ranch in Esmeralda County.

The 57-year-old entrepreneur credits his interest in hydropower to his dad, who installed a hydroelectric unit on their Central Nevada ranch house 180 miles east of Reno way back in the 1960s.

"He visited Idaho and saw hydro plants over there so he bought one and connected it to a pipeline he had coming out of the mountains," Young said. "Back then, there wasn't a commercial power grid connected to the area so we were the only ones in the valley who actually had electricity. Everyone else had to run generators."

The Young family's first hydropower unit faithfully served the ranch for about two decades before it was retired in the late 1980s.

The old unit was a victim of progress. The arrival of a power line to the valley rendered it obsolete, according to Young.

"We had to mothball that particular unit because it didn't have the appropriate switch gears and safety gears to hook into the power line at the time," Young said. "But it was still a positive experience."

It would take another two decades before the Youngs would invest in hydro once again. The opportunity came under a three-year pilot project approved by the Legislature called HydroGenerations.

HydroGenerations

HydroGenerations is part of NV Energy's Renewable Generations program, which also has a solar and wind component. Renewable Generations provides renewable projects various rebates, which are funded through a charge of $.000085 per kilowatt-hour that's included in general electric rates.

The hydro program runs through July 2011 and provides one-time rebates to Nevada farmers who install a hydropower unit -- the goal being 500 kilowatts worth of hydro installations by the time it ends.

Hydro usually doesn't get the same attention as solar and wind because Nevada doesn't have the same hydro resources, said John Hargrove, program manager for NV Energy's Renewable Generations program.

But Hargrove says it's still a key part of a diversified renewable energy portfolio.

"Nevada has a lot of sun and a fair amount of wind but we do have some hydro out there as well," he said. "It's not as much as solar. But you also don't want to put all your eggs in one basket."

The Young Bros. new unit is the first small hydro project in the state to qualify for a rebate under HydroGenerations. The program offers a rebate of $2.50 per watt of capacity. That translates to a one-time rebate of $232,500 for the Young Bros.' 93-kilowatt hydro installation.

Besides rebates, one obvious benefit involves reduced power rates. In addition to raising 600 heads of beef cattle, the Young Bros. also devote 1,000 acres of their property to growing alfalfa -- which requires a hefty irrigation system. The system means their power bill can be pretty steep, especially during non-winter months.

"The power bill for the whole operation in the summertime can run as high as $25,000 per month," Young said. "Just this one hydro unit we've got coming on this month should reduce our power bill by $5,000 to $7,000."

Going with the flow

As with any alternative energy source, hydropower comes with challenges.

"Not too many people have flowing water," Hargrove said. "And even if you live in a property that has a river flowing through it, that doesn't mean you can just dam it. You need to have control of the water."

The water source also needs to have sufficient flow and elevation to generate the pressure required to turn the hydro turbines, said Rett Jesse, CEO of Nevada Controls, the company that installed the hydro unit for Young Bros.

Despite its limitations, hydropower can also provide key advantages for businesses that meet its requirements, Jesse said. The Youngs' new hydro unit will generate 450,000 kilowatt-hours of energy in a year.

"If you look at an equivalent solar system to do that, you'll need about 1,232 200-watt panels," Jesse said. "At a minimum, that will probably cost you $1 million."

In comparison, the Youngs' hydro unit cost nearly $300,000 before rebates from NV Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The cost difference made the decision to go with hydro easy, Young said.

"Right now, solar for us just isn't as cost-effective because we couldn't get a real good return on investment," Young said. "We also did some testing for wind a few years back but the wind resources were not adequate for installing a wind turbine."

Take two

The Youngs are now looking to add a bigger 175-kilowatt hydro unit to their property. Santa Fe Creek and Shoshone Creek will supply the water for the first unit. For their second unit, the Youngs are planning to use water from Kingston Creek.

The second program qualified for an even higher rebate of $2.80 per watt of capacity from NV Energy since it falls under a different classification.

A second unit is especially attractive because costs will be much lower now that the Youngs' hydropower infrastructure is all set up. A large part of the cost from the first unit came from the installation of a new pipeline that can handle the water pressure. But with the pipeline now in place, the second unit should be about 60 percent cheaper.

"We wouldn't have been able to do this if there wasn't some type of incentive program," Young said. "With energy costs increasing year over year and profit margins getting thinner and thinner, this project has been critical for us. I feel that it allows us to be financially stable for the next several years."