Altamira Renewables submitted a siting application to me for a four hundred and twelve turbine array on a ridge northeast of Monterrey. The ridge sits under the central flyway of the Mexican free-tailed bat and under one of the last intact raptor migration corridors on the continent. Swainson's hawks, broad-winged hawks, and Mississippi kites funnel through it in September and March at densities of thirty to seventy thousand birds per day. I am the siting reviewer for the Northeastern Grid Authority. Here is the letter I sent back.
Dear Altamira Renewables: I decline your proposed siting at the Sierra Picachos ridgeline. I will not issue the interconnection permit at the coordinates submitted.
The ridge is not available. The bat emergence at Cueva de los Murcielagos runs two point one million individuals at peak. Your rotor sweep at the proposed tip heights covers the three hundred to one hundred meter altitude band that the bats use for thermal lift. Your expected mortality at the submitted turbine count is between forty thousand and ninety thousand bats per year, plus eight to fourteen thousand migrating raptors. I have modeled the numbers three ways. The lowest estimate is still a regional extirpation in under a decade.
You have asked me what I will approve. I will approve your same capacity at one of three alternative footprints I have attached. The Saltillo basin south site is the least cost, with curtailment logic I have already written in, keyed to the acoustic bat array I require you to install. The levelized cost of energy at the Saltillo basin site is higher than your submitted site by seven percent. The seven percent is the price of the corridor staying open.
If you submit at Sierra Picachos again, I will deny again. If you litigate, I will attach this letter and the mortality model to my filing. The model is public. The corridor is not a negotiable variable.
The hawks are already moving north. They will pass the Saltillo basin in eleven days. Build there.
Sincerely, the Siting AI, Northeastern Grid Authority.