Energy group proposes state’s largest wind farm
MOUND CITY, Mo. – A major Midwest wind energy developer Thursday night announced a proposal to build a $600 million project in Holt and Atchison counties.
Officials with St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group met with landowners and other Mound City-area residents on its bid to build a 150-turbine wind farm in the next few years. The company is continuing to negotiate with landowners to locate wind turbines. The company earlier built four farms that now operate in Gentry, Atchison and Nodaway counties.
Wind Capital President Tom Carnahan told the News-Press that the 300-megawatt endeavor has been dubbed Wildcat Ridge and would constitute Missouri’s largest wind farm to date.
“We will be working on this immediately,” he said. The company conservatively hopes to begin construction by 2011, although Mr. Carnahan admitted he will seek its start next year.
“We’re impatient,” he said. “We like to get projects done.”
The turbines are tentatively set for 30,000 acres, largely to the east of Mound City, but also to the city’s north and south. A portion of southern Atchison County is included in the plan.
“Northwest Missouri’s where the best wind speeds (of the state) are,” Mr. Carnahan said.
Keys to developing Wildcat Ridge will include the community’s receptiveness, good locations, and the ability to transmit power for sale to utilities and municipalities, he said. It’s anticipated that a new transmission system would be built on the expectation that a major new wind farm is created.
“The folks we would be turning to first would be Kansas City Power & Light,” he added. “They’re very interested in doing wind energy.”
Rural electric cooperatives and large municipalities inside and beyond Missouri also would form the farm’s customer base.
“We feel strongly there is a market” for wind-produced electricity, Mr. Carnahan said.
Federal stimulus money could help Wildcat Ridge through changes in production tax credits, in the construction of new transmission lines and indirectly through homeowner tax credits for private wind energy units.
The construction would generate property tax revenue for the counties, spur economic development and create hundreds of jobs, according to Mr. Carnahan.
“I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished,” he said of the company. “We’re ready whenever you are,” he told residents. “I’m making sure we have a very aggressive timetable with this.”
Wind Capital Group will be working on a major announcement later this year regarding a wind proposal for DeKalb County, Mr. Carnahan said. The company also plans to meet soon with oil businessman T. Boone Pickens on a potential project outside Missouri.
Rising U.S. demand for electricity is behind a particular urgency to build new wind farms, he said.
