By Larry Dreiling

A firm noted for the construction of a wind farm along Interstate 25 near the Colorado-Wyoming border has its sights set on Ellis County, Kan., for its next project.

Distributed Generation Systems, Inc., or Disgen, plans to build a 100-megawatt project about three miles south and one mile west of Yocemento, Kan., or about 10 miles southwest of Hays. Disgen officials say the area is large enough to be capable of producing 200 megawatts of electricity daily.

Disgen will have to move quickly if the project is to be built. Kansas City Power and Light Co. Aug. 9 issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the development of a 100-megawatt wind generation facility in Kansas, with the goal of receiving bids within 30 days and starting construction as soon as practical thereafter. KCP&L's goal is to have this new generating source on the power grid by Oct. 1, 2006.

"We will continue working collaboratively with wind developers, local governments and the Governor's office in Kansas as we transition from planning to construction," Bill Downey, KCP&L president and CEO said in a statement. "This is the first major wind project targeted for the Kansas City region and we want to manage it effectively, efficiently and responsibly."

It's not like Disgen has quickly set down anemometers and made a decision to put down generating towers this very moment. On the contrary, Disgen personnel have been scouting northern Kansas for an area suited toward wind production for several years.

Just drive around

"We've been driving around the area for two years and found the high ground west of Hays. We've looked at the wind maps produced by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and then just drove around. As much as you look at maps, there's no substitute for looking around," says Eric Simons, Disgen's director of business development.

While the company has placed small anemometers on these properties over the that time and attached equipment to a private two-way radio tower to obtain data, it's only been in the last two weeks that the company erected a large tower, almost the height of a proposed generator, to collect data good enough to convince KCP&L to buy the electricity Disgen would produce for them.

"We think that tower should confirm our findings about how good the wind is where we want this farm," Simons says. "The tower is about 400 feet tall. It has to be that high in order for us to get the readings we want."

That's because the towers themselves could reach into the sky as high as 400 feet and be capable of generating as much as three megawatts of electricity each day. The towers would be connected by underground cable to a substation that could easily send the electricity onto the grid with a short connection to a major electrical power line along the ridge known as the Telegraph Hill area just west of the Fort Hays State University farm.

Ellis County leaders, from the county commission to the local Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce all have cheered the possible placement of a wind farm in their community.

Visual impact

Simons notes the positive reception is a far cry from the concept of placement of such a farm in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas. This could work in Disgen's favor of KCP&L accepting their proposal, since community support is important to them.

"The visual impact issue has become a major one for a lot of people in places like the Flint Hills," Simons says, "but what we've found is that once the turbines go in, everybody quiets down. There was a proposed development off Cape Cod a few years ago called Cape Wind, which would have been an offshore wind farm. The developers picked an area where there were a lot of bluebloods, like the Kennedys and Walter Cronkite, living in the area. They didn't like it so the development died.

"There has to be choices between visual impact and reducing pollution. We can have visual impact or increased use of coal that produces acid rain and creates air pollution in the northeast. Take your pick."

Over the last two years, Disgen has signed contracts with more than a dozen farm entities on the high ridges south of Yocemento with hopes of placing a wind farm on their land. Most of the 5,000 acres Disgen has acquired is pasture, while about one-third is broken out for crops.

Landowners potentially can bring in close to $10,000 during the 35-year life span of the project, Simons says. Electricity generated in a year could amount to $7,884, and the landowner's annual royalty would be an estimated $276.

Other revenue to the area would come from construction jobs generated from the estimated $150 million project, as well as operation and maintenance jobs; increase in sales at restaurants, motels and recreational vehicle parks; and turbine fuel usage.

Local benefits

The project would benefit local governments with payments in lieu of taxes.

"Kansas has exemptions for wind projects from property taxes, but economic development is something the wind industry takes pride in. We're not out to pillage the local community. We would make a payment to the county instead of pay taxes," Krista Gordon, manager of power engineering for Disgen, says.

One of the landowners is Harold Kraus, a former Ellis County Commissioner and member of the National Biodiesel Board, who sees the Hays wind site is but a start to what he hopes is a much larger regional development.

"It is my dream to have corridors in western Kansas such as I-70, K-18 and U.S.-36, which follow or parallel ridges originally used by railroads, to develop an integrated wind generating project to export wind energy to more populous regions," says Kraus.

"Western Kansas energy can be used locally but more importantly transmitted to the East Slope developing mega metro areas. This will require the combined effort of all cities, counties, state governments of Kansas and Colorado, utilities and industry to organize to build the infrastructure to make this transmission west possible. More wind facilities will lessen the impact of sudden wind changes and velocity."

Part of that larger involvement may involve the FHSU campus, where president Edward Hammond says he's weighing several options about building wind generation towers on university farmland. A year ago, Hammond says, he almost decided in favor of installing towers on campus, but could not get enough information on winds along Telegraph Hill to make a case for that installation.

Tax credits a help

The newly signed energy bill, Hammond says, has extended tax credits for new construction of wind generators for another two years, giving him new impetus to move ahead with the project.

"We need anywhere from three to five megawatts a day to meet our needs," Hammond says. "If Disgen is successful in getting the contract with KCP&L, that gives us a competitive environment to sell electricity through our generators. We are still in the process of meeting with Disgen to determine what our role, if any, will be.

"Right now, if we don't have them in the mix and we produce electricity from whatever amount of generators we wind up building, Midwest Energy would be required to buy our generation. Under law, they wouldn't be required to pay more than market value of the electricity. We could drive the market if we had the competitive environment."

Hammond had one idea to improve the look of the towers if they are built.

"I've joked with the Disgen people that if we went ahead with the this," Hammond says, "we could light the blades of the towers and as they rotate they could spell out 'Go Tigers.'"

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Larry Dreiling can be reached by phone at 785-628-1117 or by e-mail at ldreiling@aol.com.

Date: 8/25/05