Building Wind Farms
Building Wind Farms. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.
Renewable energy can be a very lucrative investment for not only the company developing the energy source like wind or solar but also there is a revenue stream that can easily find itself into a farmers pocket. Rick Koebbe is the President of PowerWorks in Boise, Idaho.
KOEBBE: We own 5 wind farms, so 4 down in California in the Altamont Pass and then we just completed the construction of the Sawtooth Project and that’s 22 megawatts with a 20-year contract with Idaho Power to sell power. So our business as a company is selling wholesale renewable power to the utilities. So in order to do that we have to develop, build, own and operate wind farms.
He says while that is their primary business they do have other business pursuits including the selling of actual wind turbines. The idea of generating and selling energy back to the power companies while unique in a way, is not all that new.
KOEBBE: It started with President Carter in 1978 with the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, PURPA. And he created a law that allowed independent power producers such as us to sell power back to utilities and they’re required to buy our power. Now they are not required to pay a high enough price to make the project feasible but they are required to buy our power.
Koebbe says this is where the negotiations begin but there are quite a number of projects around the country selling their energy. In 2010 there were more wind farms constructed than any other type of power generation. So what makes a good location for a wind project?
KOEBBE: Ideally when we first develop a wind project we look for high winds, transmission lines and farmers. Basically where those three items cross the path of each other, that’s the ideal wind site. For example out here at the Sawtooth wind site, if you drive down the highway you’ll see high wind signs along the highway. And then we started to look for transmission lines in the area to enable us to sell power to the utility.
After that Koebbe says they looked for private land or farm land.
KOEBBE: In that case the farm land was a sugar beet farm. We submitted a proposal to the landowner to do a long-term land lease and then we pay them a percent of our gross revenues as rent for the next 20 years. The farmers do very well with these projects. It’s not uncommon for a farmer to make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in rent from a wind farm depending on its size.
For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.???
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