8 July 2009

Before breaking ground, wind farm selling power

In one sign that wind energy is gaining more juice, a company that supplies power to rural electric cooperatives in four Western states said it will buy electricity from a new wind farm on Colorado's Eastern Plains.

The wind farm, to go up near Burlington,Colo., will supply enough electricity to power up to 14,000 households served by Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc.

A subsidiary of one of the country’s largest power generators, Duke Energy, will build the farm and then sell the power to Tri-State for 20 years.

It is the first large wind power deal for Tri-State, based in suburban Denver, which supplies power to 44 electric cooperatives in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The co-ops provide power to about 1 million people who live on farms and ranches as well as towns and suburban neighborhoods.

The 51-megawatt wind farm, expected to come on line by the end of 2010, will have 34 turbines spread across 6,000 acres. Tri-State said about 150 people will help build it, and four to eight full-time technicians will maintain it.

Wouter T. Van Kempen, president of Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy Generation Services, said the construction costs were “north of $100 million.”

Meanwhile, Duke Energy also said it was closing on the purchase of its first commercial wind farm in the East, the 70-megawatt North Allegheny Windpower Project about 95 miles east of Pittsburgh. It said the farm will produce enough energy to power 18,000 homes.

In the West, Duke also owns two wind farms in Cheyenne, Wyo., and one near Casper, Wyo.

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