News
Wind power meeting set for Havre
Havre and Glendive are now on a list with Billings and Great Falls to host workshops on installing turbines for wind power.
By Tim Leeds/Havre Daily News/[email protected]
The Montana Wind Working Group will hold the workshops to tell people how they can apply for money through the 2002 Farm Bill to install alternative energy supplies.
Gayle Shirley, a staffer for Secretary of State Bob Brown who is a member of the working group, said it added Havre and Glendive to the list after hearing about interest in the program in rural areas.
The Glendive workshop will be on Feb. 3 and the Havre workshop will be Feb. 4.
Larry Flowers, technical director of Wind Powering America, a U.S. Department of Energy initiative to inform and educate people about wind power, will be one of the speakers at the workshop. He said the purpose of the workshops is to make people familiar with the options for using wind power, and with the kinds of projects that were funded through the Farm Bill last year.
About an hour of the workshop will be spent on how people can apply for federal money, he said.
Flowers said Wind Powering America has given a high priority to presenting information in several states that have good wind resources but not much development of wind power, including Montana.
Timlynn Babitsky, executive director of the North America Rural Futures Institute in Havre and a member of the Montana Wind Working Group, said she was able to get the two rural meetings scheduled after people responded to her publicized request to hear about local interest in the wind program. After a story appeared in the Havre Daily News, she said, 35 people in north-central Montana called her saying they wanted to attend a workshop.
"It was the response of the folks that read that article that gave me the leverage to say we need to have one in Havre, we need to have some workshops outside of Billings and Great Falls," she said.
The group had said at earlier meetings that enough interest would have to be demonstrated to justify bringing out-of-state specialists like Flowers to the Hi-Line, she said.
Once the money becomes available early in 2004, people will have about a six-week window to apply for it, Babitsky said. NARFI, which is a sponsor of all of the workshops as well as the host of the Havre workshop, will assist anyone who needs help once the applications are available, she said.
NARFI is looking for sponsors to help with the Havre workshop, she added.
Flowers said Wind Powering Montana will hold sessions in other towns modeled after the workshops in Billings, Glendive, Great Falls and Havre.
The Montana Wind Working Group has set an objective to have 25 small wind turbines operating by 2004, and to have wind power supplying 150 megawatts to the Montana power grid, probably through wind farms and other larger projects, Shirley said.
Although interest in alternative energy is rising in the state, very little has been done to install wind power, according to Babitsky.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture this year has distributed $21.7 million provided by the Farm Bill to 114 projects in 24 states. None of those were in Montana.
Eligible projects include wind power, solar power and other renewable sources.
Small wind-power systems can be hooked into a power grid, replacing power purchased and providing a credit on the owner’s power bill for any surplus electricity provided to the grid.
Babitsky said Montana Wind Working Group can help people find funding sources beyond the USDA money, but that some money probably will have to be provided by the person installing the system. Guaranteed loans to cover the cost of wind systems also are available, she said.
For more information, contact Babitsky at 265-6354.
On the Net: NARFI: http://www.narfi.org
Montana Wind Working Group: http://www.deq.state.mt.us/energy/Renewable/MtWindWorkGroup.asp
Wind Powering America: http://www.eere.energy.gov/windpoweringamerica
Copyright © 2003 Havre Daily News
http://www.havredailynews.com/articles/2003/12/10/local_headlines/windpower.txt
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Wind project in Colorado will generate cash, power
By ANTHONY A. MESTAS
The Pueblo Chieftain in The Billings Gazette
LAMAR, Colo. – When the convoy of tractor trailers rolled into the Emick family ranch, many people in this southeast Colorado town got excited.
The ranch, a mess of service equipment and construction workers, will soon become home to the fifth-largest wind farm in the United States. When operational, the 162 megawatt farm will produce enough electricity each year to meet the needs of more than 50,000 homes.
Colorado has an estimated 6 million acres of wind-swept lands, particularly on the eastern plains, so construction of the Colorado Green Wind Project has everyone involved feeling good.
"We don’t have to worry about cow prices anymore," laughed Helen Emick, whose family ranch will be home to 98 of the project’s 108 wind turbines.
The farm will encompass 11,840 acres leased from 14 ranches, 11 of which bear the Emick family name. Landowners will receive a percentage of the gross sale of energy.
The project is expected to bring money into Lamar, an agricultural community about 200 miles southeast of Denver.
Since major construction started in August, as many as 300 workers have been on the project and have spent plenty of time in town, said Prowers County Commissioner Leroy Mauch.
"I think every motel in Lamar has been full – and even the trailer park has been full," Mauch said.
The project is a dream come true, he said, not only for the county but for the entire region.
"What is greater than having a wind farm in southeast Colorado where we get plenty of wind, and it’s free, clean and there’s no water, gas or oil involved?" Mauch said. "It’s just a plus all the way around."
Jobs will be created, and property tax from the project will generate more than $750,000 for the community, he said.
The prairie owned by the Emick family is scattered with work trucks, cranes and other equipment. Workers are on site six days a week, 10 hours a day. Several wind generator towers have already been erected.
"The workers have been real mannerly, and they have kept a good working relationship," Helen Emick said.
The family, which runs a cow-calf operation, isn’t concerned about losing any land after construction, despite having 21 miles of crisscrossing roads added.
"We lose a little bit of land with the new roads, which will be 16 feet wide, and the small turbine pads for access, but overall the percentage of the land that they will actually use is pretty minimal," said Kenneth Emick, 39.
The Emicks and other landowners will continue to use most of the land underneath the turbines for grazing.
Each turbine tower rises 262 feet and weighs 352,000 pounds. Add that to a 104,000-pound generator housing a 78,000-pound blade assembly, and each generator weighs more than 530,000 pounds. The blades are 120 feet long and can spin up to 140 mph.
Power from each turbine is routed underground to an electrical power substation on the east end of the ranch. Voltage is then stepped up and power is routed to a high-voltage transmission line that runs about 40 miles to the northeast, connecting to existing power lines at a substation near Lamar.
GE Wind Energy sold the project in October for $212 million to PPM Energy Inc., an Oregon company that has 750 megawatts of new wind power in operation or under construction, and Shell WindEnergy, a division of energy giant Shell Group that operates 240 megawatts of wind generation.
GE bought the project from Enron Wind last year.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
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