ALGONA WIND TURBINES HARVEST A BUMPER CROP OF WIND IN NORTHERN
IOWA
JOINT PROJECT
PERFORMS BEYOND PREDICTIONS
Three wind turbines in Algona, Iowa, owned by a consortium of municipal
utilities, have performed well beyond expectations in their first year of
operation. Thanks to a bumper crop of wind and outstanding equipment
reliability, the turbines produced 13 % more than was predicted
before construction.
"The turbines have done really well, and
they continue to shine for us," said Rod Vitzthum, Line Superintendent
with Algona Municipal Utility. Vitzthum supervises the operation of the
turbines. "We've been happy with the units, we really have. It's been a
real learning experience."
"The Algona project demonstrates how far
wind energy technology has come," said AWEA Executive Director Randall
Swisher. "In areas with a good wind resource, today's turbines
represent a reliable and cost-effective way to generate clean
electricity."
The turbines are owned by a consortium of seven
Iowa municipal utilities, including those in Cedar Falls, Algona,
Ellsworth, Estherville, Fonda, Montezuma and Westfield. The turbines were
installed in November 1998 as part of the Turbine Verification Program
(TVP), a joint research project of the U.S. Department of Energy and the
Electric Power Research Institute, which provided some
funding.
"The project is going extremely well," says Diane Kelley
of Cedar Falls Utilities, which receives the majority of the wind power.
"We have a responsibility to our customers to explore every opportunity to
provide them with a cleaner, more environmentally friendly power. It's all
about serving the people in the best way we know how."
CFU offers
customers the chance to sign up for wind power, paying an extra $2.50 per
month. Over 600 residential customers have signed up since February 1999.
"We're very pleased with the response," says Kelley.
Electricity production from the Algona wind farm over the 12 months
ending November 1999 was 6,527 megawatt-hours, enough to supply all the
power needs of 673 typical Iowa households. The peak output, or capacity,
of the wind turbines is 2.25 megawatts (MW). Each of the three turbines is
mounted on a white tubular tower 165 feet tall, with three 76-foot
long black fiberglass blades. The turbines were built and installed
by Enron Wind Corp. of Tehachapi, Calif., which also has large wind farms
near Storm Lake, Iowa and Lake Benton, Minnesota.
"The high output
is due to a combination of good winds, excellent turbine performance, and
high equipment reliability," according to the TVP News Bulletin, in their
December 1999 issue. Although each turbine has been hit by lightning over
the year, Vitzthum said, damage was minimal. Just in case, Vitzthum and
his crew installed a lightning protection system to deal with future
strikes.
The high performance of the wind farm was helped by higher
than normal wind speeds over the past year. Winds averaged 16.8 mph
between November 1998 and November 1999, compared to 16.3 mph in the
previous three years. Because power output grows with the cube of the wind
speed, the slightly higher wind speed boosted the power in the wind by 8
%.
The three turbines offset over 13 million pounds of global
warming emissions (carbon dioxide), 54,000 pounds of acid rain-causing
emissions (sulfur dioxide), and 55,000 pounds of smog-causing emissions
(nitrogen oxides), as well as trace metals like mercury and arsenic
commonly released from coal-fired power plants.
In all, Iowa is
home to 327 large-scale wind turbines, with a total generating capacity of
242 MW. The turbines provide enough power for about 80,000 homes. Iowa has
only begun to tap its wind resource. The state's wind energy potential is
the 10th largest of the contiguous U.S. states, according to a federal
study. It is considerably larger than California's, the state with the
most wind development to date and a wind energy generating capacity of
1553 MW.
AWEA, formed in 1974, is the national trade
association of the U.S. wind energy industry. The association's
membership of more than 700 includes turbine manufacturers, wind
project developers, utilities, academicians, and interested individuals
from 49 states. More information on wind energy is available from the home
page of the AWEA web site: www.awea.org |