Electric co-ops to buy power from Missouri’s first utility-scale wind farms
The Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm began producing wind power in spring 2007, making Associated Electric Cooperative the only electric utility in Missouri with wind on its system.
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Praised for voluntarily becoming a leader and partner in renewable
energy, Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. helped bring the first utility-scale wind farms to Missouri.
AECI’s commitment to buy all the power from three wind farms in northwest Missouri for 20 years and the cooperatives’ vast transmission system made the wind farms possible.
Announced in 2006, three 50-megawatt wind facilities are being developed
and built in northwest Missouri by Wind Capital Group and John Deere Wind
Energy. The Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm began producing energy for rural electric cooperatives in spring 2007, while Cow Branch and Conception wind farms began operating in early 2008.
Renewable wind power is part of AECI's diverse portfolio of generation and transmission resources to meet member cooperatives' growing energy needs.
"Associated Electric Cooperative is committed to providing
affordable, renewable energy options to our members," said Jim Jura, CEO and
general manager of AECI. "We are particularly pleased that the wind energy we
are purchasing is harvested in our service area and that this investment will
be staying here in our own communities. Adding wind turbines to the coal,
natural gas, oil, hydropower and biomass generating resources we already use
will help us improve our ability to fulfill our mission of providing reliable,
low-cost electricity to rural electric cooperative members."
Workers maneuver one of the 15,000-pound fiberglass blades to connect it to the
hub of a wind turbine at the Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm Oct. 20. Photograph by Bob
McEowen, Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives.
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Missouri's rural electric cooperatives dedicated the Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm, located near King City, Mo., in Gentry
County, in fall 2007. The second farm, Cow Branch Wind Energy Project, is located
near Tarkio, Mo., in Atchison County, and began generating wind power in February 2008. The third farm, announced Oct. 20, 2006, and located near Conception, Mo., in Nodaway
County, also will begin generating in early 2008.
Each wind energy project includes 24 Suzlon S-88, 2.1-megawatt
turbines. Bluegrass Ridge has an additional three turbines. Combined, the three
wind farms will be capable of producing 157 MW. That's enough power for about
45,000 homes.
Wind project fact sheet
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