Public officials and energy industry representatives joined hundreds of local schoolchildren and their families in central Kansas to dedicate on May 11, 2006 the state’s newest wind energy farm, the Elk River Wind Power Project. Said Raimund Grube, vice president of PPM WindPower. "The benefits of projects like Elk River are immense — contributions to rural economies, wind jobs, and above all, clean, cost-competitive wind power."
Owned by Portland, Ore.-based PPM Energy, ScottishPower’s (NYSE:SPI) subsidiary, Elk River uses 100 GE 1.5 megawatt turbines to produce approximately 550,000 megawatt-hours of energy annually — enough to power 42,000 homes.
The energy generated by Elk River is sold to Empire District Electric Company. "Our customers have enjoyed the benefit of the Elk River wind farm since we began receiving test energy last October," said Brad Beecher, vice president-energy supply, The Empire District Electric Company. "During the two and one-half months of 2005 when energy was available, Elk River provided our system about 75,000 megawatt-hours of power at a cost about 64 percent lower than we would have paid for purchased power from the market. That drove a reduction in costs of about $3.3 million. In the first quarter of 2006, a period when the plant was fully commercial, Elk River generated 142,595 megawatt-hours and contributed an estimated savings of about $4.2 million."
The impressive white wind turbines, standing in neat rows on cattle grazing land, take up less than two percent of the total land leased for the project.
"I am the fourth generation to ranch on this property," said Peter Ferrell, a local landowner. "My family has been here since 1888 and that weighs heavily on my decision to engage in practices that can be carried on generation after generation without depleting the resources. Both the grass and the wind will be here for generations."
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