Standing one hundred yards away from a wind turbine taller than a football field, energy experts heard a relaxing whoosh as the turbine’s three blades cut through the air.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is hosting a conference on wind energy that is bringing in close to 100 wind-energy experts from around the country. As part of the symposium about 35 academics, students, engineers and other energy officials from around the country took a bus early Wednesday morning to Bloomfield to tour the Elkhorn Ridge Wind Energy Project.
The wind farm has 27 wind turbines that stand 410 feet from base to the tip of the blade.
They are scattered on the farmland of 14 different property owners, take up very little farm space and produce 80 megawatts of energy. The farmers plow cornfields around the wind turbines no differently than mowing around a tree in a front yard.
The blades have been turning, most of the time, since March. They have more than doubled the amount of wind energy Nebraska produces.
Twelve-year old Mason Morrill from Shawnee, Kan., wants to be an electrical engineer. He took the tour with his dad, an electrical engineer, who was in town for the conference.
“I knew a little bit (about wind energy) from science class but not much,” Morrill said. He asked the tour guide several questions about the wind turbines as the onlookers noticed that all the turbines throughout the farm had rotated to meet the wind head on.
The north central to the northeastern part of the state appear to be the windiest places in Nebraska according to surveys from AWS Truewind, a meteorological and resource assessment firm that monitored several locations in Nebraska.
“You don’t spend 140 million dollars until you do a long study,” said John Richards, an engineer for Nebraska Public Power District, the largest power purchaser of the wind farm.
NPPD is currently monitoring 10 more potential wind farm sites. About half are in the northeast part of the state. It will still take more than a few turbines before Nebraska lives up to its potential. Nebraska has the sixth best potential for wind production in the country, according to wind surveys. However, 20 states produce more wind energy than Nebraska.
Including the Elkhorn Ridge wind farm, Nebraska is producing 152 megawatts of wind energy in comparison to Iowa, which is producing 1,375 megawatts.
The reason Nebraska has failed to live up to its potential, said Jerry Hudgins, a professor of electrical engineering at the UNL and the co-chair of the conference, is that there is a lack of demand and financial incentives for more wind production.
Nebraska has some of the cheapest energy costs in the United States, and building wind farms and substations to get the energy in the power lines would potentially increase costs.
“We could go all wind tomorrow but we’d be paying more up front for it,” said Chris Langemeier, a state senator from Ord and chairperson of the natural resources committee. “My job is to determine what is best for Nebraska.”
The other side of the argument, Langemeier said, is that increasing wind production will reduce dependence on foreign oil and lead to cheaper costs in the long run. Langemeier said the Legislature last session made steps toward a more energy efficient Nebraska and created a committee through the NRC to look specifically at the potential for wind energy in Nebraska.
“We’re waiting to see if the market wants (wind energy)” he said.
Hudgins said the conference is the first of its kind – focused on bridging the gap between potential and real energy, which is why Nebraska was picked.
Fabio Perigi, a PhD student in windmill technology at UNL, is presenting a project proposal where a windmill irrigates crops – hoping to create a scenario where builders get a quick return for his investment.
“We’ll cover both policy and technology,” Hudgins said. “With a focus on technology.”
ryanboetel@dailynebraskan.com
