1. Cat Creek Energy detail

Bayer AG has entered into an agreement with Cat Creek Energy to provide it with green electricity in Idaho.

Bayer has a big presence in Idaho agriculture, including seed operations in the southwest and fertilizer production in the southeast.

The work with Cat Creek “catapults our energy goal target fulfillments while also supporting Idaho,” said Matthias Berninger, a Bayer spokesman. Financial details were not disclosed.

The company by 2030 aims to become carbon-neutral in its operations and purchase all electricity from sustainable, renewable sources.

“I appreciate Bayer’s alignment with the CCE vision and efforts to build out our multi-technology platform” of 1,760 megawatts, said Cat Creek President John Faulkner, a fourth-generation rancher. “We admire Bayer’s commitment to find projects near its Idaho facility, which has the highest electricity use within Bayer in the United States, signifying a major milestone in their global energy goals.”

Bayer will use 1.4 million megawatt-hours, enough to power 150,000 households for a year. It will enable Bayer to reduce annual carbon emissions by 370,000 tons, the company said.

Cat Creek Energy will build 821 megawatts of  wind and solar power and battery storage over five years, Peggy Beltrone, a Cat Creek public policy adviser, told Capital Press. The projects will cost about $1.5 billion overall and bring well-paid jobs and tax revenue.

The Cat Creek project is planned on about 22,300 acres of private land northeast of Mountain Home.

The proposal includes up to 39 wind turbines, a 480-acre solar array, and a pumped-storage hydropower facility anchored by a reservoir 840 feet above the Anderson Ranch Reservoir.

The pumped-storage facility, planned about 2 miles upstream of Anderson Ranch Dam on the South Fork Boise River, is in the midst of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licensing process.

The wind, solar and battery storage elements of Cat Creek’s plan are not part of the FERC process.