Interest stirring in wind power

Interest stirring in wind power

Mar 12 - Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

Kyle Potter is looking up, down and all around to add value to his family's farm.

He just might find it, or more appropriately, feel it everywhere he looks.

The Collinston, Box Elder County, farmer was one of about 90 people Wednesday at a conference where they were encouraged to wrangle some government money to harness wind.

About $23 million in grants is available from the federal government to develop wind energy in rural areas. The purpose of the conference, organizers said, was to increase awareness of the little- known program funded in the 2003 Farm Bill.

"Utah can play in the big picture, but you've got to stay awake to do this," said Larry Flowers, with the National Wind Technology Center.

Flowers showed a color-coded map of the distribution of wind power in the United States. Green states like Washington, Oregon and California were already producing some of the 6,400 megawatts of wind energy produced in the country. One megawatt can provide power for 300 homes.

"I call this the white belt," Flowers said, pointing to Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Arizona -- states producing no megawatts of wind energy.

"It's not that there's no wind here. It's not like the wind just hits the Sierra Nevadas and goes somewhere else," he said.

The differences, Flowers said, are in each state's policy and focus on renewable energy. Utah does try to entice both residential and commercial use by offering tax credits.

Flowers and other conference speakers, representing not-for- profit groups and federal agencies, provided a map of Utah showing which areas received the most wind.

They also distributed application forms for the federal grant, counseled people on how to fill them out and provided phone numbers, Web sites and names people could use for more information.

They cautioned it would not be an overnight project.

Before people can put up wind turbines, they need to collect extensive data on the wind power available on their land and secure appropriate building permits.

Flowers said successful grant applicants for big projects should have at least a year of data to justify government funding. That means many of the people attending can't apply this year.

Each year, $23 million in grant money will be available until 2007.

Individuals can secure up to $500,000 for a project, but grant money can't be used to pay for more than 25 percent of the wind projects. They would have to finance the rest of the project themselves or secure other financing.

Costs vary for the projects, depending on their size, interest rates and a number of other variables. For example, a 13-tower farm planned for southeastern North Dakota would generate 20 megawatts of power and cost an estimated $25 million.

Potter was one of several farmers at the show. Some were considering building turbines to produce some of the power they use on the farm or selling surplus energy to supplement farm income.

"The price of commodities is so low right now, we want to see if we could supplement that by putting some turbines out there," Potter said.

The conference was the last of three held in Utah. Others were held this week in Cedar City and Price.