It didn’t take long to fulfill the prophesy rendered in 2006 by opponents of Initiative 937, a ballot measure that required electric utilities to get 15 percent of their power from new, renewable generating sources by 2020.

Washington voters narrowly approved the measure, despite predictions that it would create a seller’s market for wind turbines, which most utilities were already moving to acquire. Months before the 2006 vote, for example, Avista in Spokane had been trying to buy a 35- to 40-megawatt wind project, only to have available equipment bought up by a larger utility.

Initiative 937 only made a challenging business environment more so.

No wonder, then, that Avista announced last week it must hold off on a $125 million wind farm it was planning to build south of Reardan, Wash. Not cancel, but hold off – for at least two years. It was just too costly. Meanwhile, Avista apparently will keep buying power from an existing wind farm.

Avista spokesman Hugh Imhof says the cost of the technology has doubled in the past five years. Not all of that market effect can be blamed on Initiative 937, of course. Wind power was gaining popularity before the initiative appeared on the ballot.

The 2006 election made Washington the 20th state with mandatory renewable energy standards on its books. There now are 24, plus the District of Columbia, and four other states have set voluntary goals for their power generating utilities. Entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens’ conspicuous push for wind power has created even more enthusiasm for the technology.

The American Wind Energy Association reports that more than 5,200 megawatts of wind power was installed in the United States in 2007, about the same as for 2005 and 2006 combined. The industry clearly expects to have a major role to play as the Obama administration shapes its energy policies.

Still, even though the push for wind power was on, and prices could be expected to rise in any event, mandates like Initiative 937 stripped progressive utilities of any pretense of bargaining power when they went shopping.

Wind power advocates are quick to criticize utilities that falter, but ratepayers who would have to absorb inflated prices should appreciate the diligence being shown. In Avista’s case, modifying existing hydro turbines is a more cost-effective way of complying with the initiative. (Significantly, the measure prohibited utilities in Washington from treating its clean hydroelectric power, the foundation of the Northwest’s power system, as renewable energy.)

No one disputes that renewable energy is the future, but some methods are superior to others. Conservation is an essential part of the strategy. The potential from sources such as manure, landfill gases and ocean tides is real but limited for now. And even wind, seemingly the most attractive and promising of the renewable alternatives, is notoriously unreliable. It’s hard to move onto the regional power grid and available only when there’s wind – which stubbornly refuses to coincide with the times of highest power demand.

Avista now hopes its Reardan wind farm will be generating electricity before 2014. It probably will. The utility also likely will exceed the goals set by Initiative 937. If so, it will be in spite of the 2006 mandate, not because of it.