One day Allen County may have about 100 wind turbines producing electricity from farmland in a spacious tract north of LaHarpe and Moran. THEY SIGNED a letter of intent to have the Austin Peters Group, Inc., Overland Park, meet with department heads in an ongoing effort to update salary and wage schedules and the county’s employee handbook. No timeline was mentioned.
Rorik F. Peterson told Allen County commissioners Tuesday the project, first mentioned a couple of years ago, was progressing, although all enabling details had yet to be fleshed out.
Peterson is development project manager for EDP Renewables, which has corporate offices in Houston. EDP has the third largest wind farm presence in the nation, and is on the cusp of completing installation of 95 turbines in Coffey County, in the Waverly neighborhood.
Information Peterson related, in a seamless and rapid fire presentation, included;
— To date, over 10,000 acres — of 20,000 proposed — have been leased in Allen County.
— Four temporary meteorological towers have been installed to measure wind intensity and frequency.
— Environmental and transmission studies are underway.
Transmission is not an overriding concern with this project, Peterson pointed out, because of Kansas City Power and Light lines about a mile from its east end. A collector point, fed underground from each turbine, would be connected by overhead lines to the KCPL trunk, he said.
Power produced by non-fossil fuel means, namely wind in Kansas, is no longer a requirement in the state because of legislative action in the previous session. Even so, Peterson said seven wind farms are under construction in Kansas and about 21 percent of generation in the state is from wind.
Generation costs pale in comparison to convention stations, but ultimate price charged does take into account recover of pre-production costs. EDP sells wholesale to such conglomerates as KCPL and Westar. Wind-generated power in Kansas is used by consumers as far as away as coastal states, in a bit of a complicated process that includes capacity available on certain parts of the gird through increased volume from such companies as EDP.
Peterson predicted that land-leasing pacts and other preliminaries would be completed by early 2016. Design and engineering would start after a petition is filed and decided by Allen County’s Planning Commission and commissioners to issue a conditional use permit. That could require some time, i.e. the efforts by Monarch Cement Co. to acquire authority to mine dirt from a site north of Humboldt.
If all dominoes fall as planned, construction would start in early 2017.
That date has more than passing importance. Through 2016, a carrot dangled to encourage “green” power generation was a lifetime property tax exemption. Provided the facility goes on line sometime in 2017 or the following year, EDP likely would ask the county to approve a payment in lieu of property taxes. After 10 years, property would be appraised and assessed for ad valorem tax purposes.
Construction would be in the range of $250 million — the cost in Coffey County. Output would be about 200 megawatts.
Commissioners had no questions to which they seemed to find Peterson’s answers unsatisfactory.
Received a $15,159 premium refund from EMC, its insurance carrier, for premiums being more than required to meet obligations.
Wind farm nearer reality
