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MidAmerican plans world's largest wind farm in Iowa
Quad City Times ^ | March 25, 2003 | Kathie Obradovich

Posted on 03/26/2003 6:58:12 AM PST by newgeezer

DES MOINES — MidAmerican Energy Co. announced plans Tuesday to build the largest wind farm in the world at a site in northwest or north-central Iowa to be selected in the next few months.

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The company, which supplies electricity to 41 percent of Iowans and serves the Illinois and Iowa Quad-Cities, said it also would seek to freeze electric rates to customers until 2010, a move that needs approval of the Iowa Utilities Board.

“It is indeed a brighter day for the state today,” Gov. Tom Vilsack said. “This will clearly put Iowa on the renewable energy map. We will then of course be the leader in the Midwest and one of the leaders nationally.”

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The proposed wind farm would include 180 to 200 wind turbines that would generate a total of 310 megawatts of wind energy, enough to power 85,000 homes. The first units would come on line by the end of 2004, with the project to be completed by late 2006, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. President Greg Abel said.
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The next-largest wind farm is a 300-megawatt facility in the Pacific Northwest.
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Vilsack said the plant would accomplish 75 percent of his goal of having 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy generated in Iowa by 2010. However, environmental advocates said Tuesday the actual output of the project is likely to be far less that its maximum capacity.
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Elizabeth Horton Plasket of the Iowa Environmental Council said because the wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day, the industry typically estimates that actual generation will be about 30 percent of “nameplate” capacity. In the case of the MidAmerican plant, that would be 93 megawatts, she said.
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The company would not seek state funds for the $323 million needed to build the facility, Abel said. Instead, MidAmerican is seeking legislation that would allow the wind energy it generates to be allowed as credit toward the state’s renewable energy standard for utility companies.

Abel said the proposed rate freeze would extend for five years the current rate agreement with the state. “It effectively means there will be no increase for our customers through 2010 and it means 15 years of stable rates to MidAmerican’s electricity customers,” he said.

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Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, whose office’s Consumer Advocate division represents customers in utility rate cases, said the proposed rate agreement means the state also could not seek a rate decrease before 2010.
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However, he said, the agreement includes a revenue-sharing agreement for customers that kicks in if MidAmerican’s rate of return on investment exceeds 11.75 percent. It also includes the opportunity for the company to seek a rate increase if its rate of return falls below 10 percent or if environmental investments exceed expectations. “There is just a little wiggle room for them,” Miller said.
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Abel said the facility would create jobs for construction and operation, as well as income for farmers, who would be paid for easements to have wind turbines on their land.
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John Sayler, whose consulting company, Sayler & Associates, has been working on wind-energy projects in Iowa and other states for 30 years, said he is happy to see MidAmerican end its past resistance to efforts to require utilities to purchase renewable energy.
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Abel said advances in technology have improved the efficiency of wind generation, allowing the project to move forward.
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In the 1980s, the cost of wind-generated energy was about 25 cents per kilowatt hour, according to Sayler. The cost of generating wind energy at the new facility will be about 6 cents per kilowatt hour, a cost that a federal production tax credit will reduce to 4.2 cents, Jack Alexander, MidAmerican’s senior vice president for supply and marketing, said.
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Electricity generated by a coal-fired plant like the one being developed in Council Bluffs costs about 4.1 cents per kilowatt hour, he said.
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The project makes a total of $1.4 billion in investment in new generating facilities for MidAmerican, including new coal-fired plants under development in Council Bluffs and the Des Moines area.
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Meanwhile, Iowa’s municipal utilities likely will decide in July whether to proceed with an electric generating plant near Fort Dodge that combines wind energy with an underground, compressed-air system that can store energy.
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Bob Haug of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities said cities in Iowa and Minnesota are awaiting the results of geological and economic studies before deciding whether to invest in a $215 million plant.
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The 300-megawatt-capacity plant would be the first of its kind in the world, Haug said, because it would combine wind energy with a system that would store compressed air in an underground aquifer.
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“The problem with wind is it doesn’t blow when you need it the most,” Haug said. The proposed plant solves that problem by allowing energy to be stored in the form of compressed air, which serves as a “big battery” to run the turbines when the wind isn’t blowing.
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The compressed-air system would still need natural gas, but two-thirds less than a coal-fired facility, Haug said. And even that might be replaced by renewable sources such as burning shelled corn, which could be substituted during times of high natural gas prices, he said.
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Kathie Obradovich can be contacted at (515) 243-0138 or kathie.obradovich@lee.net.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; News/Current Events; US: Iowa
KEYWORDS: energy; energylist; green; renewable; turbines; windmills; windpower
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To: boris
Not surprising because I have numbers and physics and you do not.

Too bad you don't know the difference between physics and piss.

61 posted on 03/27/2003 8:20:26 AM PST by biblewonk (Spose to be a Chrissssstian)
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To: biblewonk
Too bad you don't know the difference between physics and piss.

Do you always resort to vulgarities when you have no facts to back you up? Not very Christian of you, I'd say.

62 posted on 03/27/2003 8:49:34 AM PST by Ditto (You are free to form your own opinions, but not your own facts.)
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To: Ditto
Do you always resort to vulgarities when you have no facts to back you up? Not very Christian of you, I'd say.

1sam:25:22 if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

I'm not interested in a pissing match with you either.

63 posted on 03/27/2003 8:56:47 AM PST by biblewonk (Spose to be a Chrissssstian)
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To: newgeezer
So I wonder when they will start building them. I see it depends on the PTC which may be extended another 2 years according to my windmill magazine. I was also trying to find what percent of Iowa's electricity will come from wind.
64 posted on 04/01/2003 11:02:13 AM PST by biblewonk (Spose to be a Chrissssstian)
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To: biblewonk
So I wonder when they will start building them. I see it depends on the PTC which may be extended another 2 years according to my windmill magazine.

Looks like the ball is in the Iowa Utilities Board's court, if the plan is contingent upon MidAmerican's getting the rate freeze to 2010. (Sounds like rates would be going down without the freeze.)

65 posted on 04/01/2003 11:50:28 AM PST by newgeezer (All "peaceful" Muslims $upport the jihad. Some of them are unaware.)
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To: newgeezer
I was just reading in Windpower Monthly about the 3 Twhr of windpower put onto the grid in a county in Germany. That's so much power that the coal fired plants have to throttle back, which they absolutely hate. For one thing they run less efficiently so they are using gas powered plants to handle the fluxuations caused by wind power.

Sure the coal powered plant operators and owners hate this and the grid managers don't like it because they have to work more and the coal miners don't like it and the railroad that handles the coal doesn't like it, but the people are willing to pay a little more for renewable power. So it's simple capitalism, the people don't want the dirtiest cheapest product in their house, just like buying cars and TV's and motorcycles. If you are the maker of the dirty cheap stuff then you need to come up with a new plan, like Shell.

66 posted on 04/02/2003 5:09:30 AM PST by biblewonk (Spose to be a Chrissssstian)
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To: biblewonk
the people are willing to pay a little more for renewable power.

Are people in the US willing to pay a little more for renewable power? How would the utilities know? The electric utility in my town has this program available where we can sign up to contribute a monthly amount toward renewable energy. I don't know how successful it's been but, I know one guy who's really big on windpower who hasn't signed up for that program. In fact, I'd be surprised if he's so much as written a letter (to the editor of the local newspaper would be even better).

So it's simple capitalism, the people don't want the dirtiest cheapest product in their house, just like buying cars and TV's and motorcycles.

Hah! Yeah, "the people" are really concerned about air quality. That's why the people are loathe to buy SUVs. </sarcasm> ;-)

67 posted on 04/02/2003 7:39:03 AM PST by newgeezer (All "peaceful" Muslims $upport the jihad. Some of them are unaware.)
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To: newgeezer
Hah! Yeah, "the people" are really concerned about air quality. That's why the people are loathe to buy SUVs

Some people are. Some conservatives actually conserve and bike to work. It's when people are given a choice as to dirty vs clean electrons coming to their house, via who gets paid, that nukes and others are in big trouble. My hat is off to anyone that will vote with their wallet for renewable energy. I'd do it in a heartbeat if I could actually see a windmill without driving 90 miles.

68 posted on 04/02/2003 8:50:35 AM PST by biblewonk (Spose to be a Chrissssstian)
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