MidAmerican plans world's largest wind farm in Iowa

Quad City Times ^ | March 25, 2003 | Kathie Obradovich

[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.

[newgeezer]

Hey, Guv, Iowa already is clearly all over the renewable (wind) energy map, ya liberal ignoramus.

Two hundred of these huge turbines will be quite a sight.

[bucephalus]

The quicker we move beyond the oil paradigm and get into feasible alternative energy sources, the sooner the Saddamites and scabs of the House of Saud will be screwed. A giant windfall of oil and they made a sewer of it. (Islam really does seem like a dowsing rod for oil though, doesn't it?)

[newgeezer]

bump

[Lael]

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.

This monstrosity will increase "GLOBAL WARMING"!!!

It will suck energy from the wind which cools the land!!

I'll INSIST on the MOTHER OF ALL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS!!!

ROTFLMAO!!!

[scan59]

Thank God for good ol' American ingenuity.

We've got to get off the Saudis' tit.

[boris]

"The quicker we move beyond the oil paradigm and get into feasible alternative energy sources, the sooner the Saddamites and scabs of the House of Saud will be screwed."

Which "feasible" alternative energy sources do you have in mind? Wind and solar are too dilute to qualify as 'feasible'. Read the article carefully. The sum they are spending could build a 1000-megawatt nuclear plant; they will instead get 93 megawatts on average. What a cool idea!

I agree that we must detach from arab oil (or make all the arabs go away). The two keys to doing that are: (1) Nuclear power and (2) Methane clathrates ("methane hydrates"). The clathrates lie on the sea bottom on the continental shelf; they contain more energy than all of the coal, oil, and natural gas in the world.

--Boris

[stboz]

It will suck energy from the wind which cools the land!!

Oh! No! If energy is taken from the wind which cools the land, it will cool the land even more! Oh, gosh, oh, golly, Global Winter is inevitable!!!

I'm moving back to Floriduh.

[stboz]

The clathrates lie on the sea bottom on the continental shelf; they contain more energy than all of the coal, oil, and natural gas in the world.

By a factor of four by some estimates.

[Ben Hecks]

I take it that this wind farm will be located adjacent to the Harkin Ranch.

[newgeezer]

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[The Great RJ]

The problem with wind mills as electric generators is the wind doesn't always blow when you need the electricity. A gale at 2:00 am doesn't serve much purpose nor does a dead calm on a blistering Iowa summer afternoon.

Wind mills alone will not be able to support the elctricity demands of society. Nuclear power is clean and efficient, but the development of new plants using better than the 1960's technology we currently use has all but been halted by the environmentalist wackos. Even the development of a coal fired plant takes 10+ years to develop and come on line because of all the environmental paperwork.

[biblewonk]

It will suck energy from the wind which cools the land!!

That's a good one! LOL. A joke but a good one.

[TomHarkinIsNotFromIowa]

Tom BallSack is the quintessential (Ya Me Too) liberal. The wonderful state of Iowa is turning into the wunderfull welfare state of Iowa. We don't elect leaders we elect check writers. The Communist State of Minnesota is becoming more conservative than us.

[biblewonk]

Thanks for the post, this is excellent news and an answered prayer. Iowa leads the country in installed watts per person even before this one. I wish they'd build a wind farm closer to CR.

[biblewonk]

This wind farm should make about 700 gwhr/year which is about 42 million dollar worth of electricity at 6 cents per kwhr.

[rudypoot]

Yeah, but the enviro-wackos will find an endangered field mouse in the area and file a lawsuit to block construction. They did this sort of thing in Washington state. You can never satisfy these people.

[biblewonk]

The sum they are spending could build a 1000-megawatt nuclear plant;

No it couldn't.

[Young Werther]

Scientific American Sept 1990 was titled "Energy for Planet Earth." The statistics for windmills were awesome. 13 years later it's only better. Build 2,000,000 windmills, (in 1990 which is now less because of generator improvements), from North Dakota to Texas, (the Plains States!) and you could generate ALL of the electrical needs for the US.

I know! Wind is not constant! However, if you overbuild the capacity you can feed the power grid and everyone gets their juice.

In 1995 Scientific American updated their projections and stated that 75% of electricity could be generated by just North and South Dakota! The Plains States now had the capacity to produce 250% of the electrical needs. Now the overcapcity exists.

I sent a proposal to Bob Dole for the '96 election. I suggested that he sould propose this windmill building project using the same federal/local cooperation that built the Interstate Highway System. Using American ingenuity we would accomplish this project in 5 years and then we would have true energy independence and we could tell the Oil Cartel to "eat sand".

[biblewonk]

Yeah, but the enviro-wackos will find an endangered field mouse in the area and file a lawsuit to block construction. They did this sort of thing in Washington state. You can never satisfy these people.

Nope, we already have a 200 mw wind farm very near where this one will be built and everyone is happy about it. Clean energy and 3000 bucks per turbine for farmers.

[bullseye1911]

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.

...It has yet to be determined how Democratic Party Headquarters can be convinced to relocate here.