WORLD WIND ENERGY NET

A steady rain, brisk northwesterly winds and a cloudy sky created quite a welcome mat in southern Lincoln County Oct. 18, as officials from Enel North America, Inc. provided local media representatives with a tour and update of Phase One of the Smoky Hill Wind Farm.

“I think it’s going very well,” said the farm’s project manager, Glenn Melski. “It’s a huge logistical challenge to get all of the equipment here on time and coordinate the six or seven different contractors  that are working on-site simultaneously.”
Melski, who is also the regional manager for Enel North America, said the project spans an area of about 10 miles.

“So there is a lot of different operations going on at once,” he said. “Our biggest enemy, right now, is the weather. And we’re taking measures right now to try and mitigate that risk, but beyond that, it has been a very successful project.”
Located almost entirely in Lincoln County, Melski said Smoky Hills 1 is the first of a two-phase, 250 megawatt wind power project planned by TradeWind Energy, Enel’s development partner.

“There is currently an inter-connection switchyard that will be owned by Midwest Energy in Ellsworth County,” he added.

Melski said Smoky Hills 1 is well past the halfway mark to completion.

“We have 22 miles of roads completed,” he said. “All of the foundations for our turbines are in. There are 56 units and all foundations are complete. We’ve got an underground power collection system that is roughly 75 percent complete. We’ve got some overhead collection system, which runs from the eastern portion of the project back to the project substation here that is currently under way — they are just starting to set poles.”

   Work on the substation started with delivery this past week of the transformer. The interconnection switchyard, which will be assigned to the Hays-based Midwest Energy, is about 75 percent done.

   “And we’ve got some overhead transmission — high-voltage transmission (lines) from the substation to that yard, about five miles worth, which we are just starting to set poles for,” Melski said.

The project is on schedule for the most part.

“We are certainly ahead in some areas and behind in others,” he said. “We probably expected to see more turbines installed than the 10 we’ve got up, but we are not significantly behind.

“It is natural when you are putting up equipment in a wind site that your windows for actually doing the work are quite small ... But no one can foresee exactly when those windows occur. We might luck out and get some good weather in the near future and we will catch up very quickly.”

With the amount and weight of the loads involved, not all of the project’s roads are suitable in all weather conditions.

“So we need to be careful about keeping that off after a heavy precipitation, because it quickly damages the roads and makes life more difficult for the future.
“But, predominantly, we are talking about wind speeds. Because of the weight of these pieces, the crane involved and the heights to which we are lifting, we want to make sure we lift things very safely. That window probably closes somewhere around a 30 mile-per-hour wind, which we’ve had fairly frequently as of late.”
He said all of the turbine equipment for Smoky Hills 1 (a lot of which is produced overseas) has finally arrived in the United States.

“Most of it has been transported to the site or is currently residing at the railhead in Kanopolis,” Melski said. “There are well over 500 truckloads coming in for this project.”

According to information supplied by Enel, when completed, the 56 Vestas V80 1.8 mega-watt wind turbines of Smoky Hills 1, which are situated on approximately 10,000 acres of land, will total 100.8 mega-watts.  Each wind turbine generator weighs 650,000 pounds. They are 260 ft. tall to the top of the hub, plus an additional 130 ft. tall to the tip of the blade.  Each of the three blades on the wind turbine is about 130 feet long — longer than the wing of a Boeing 747 jetliner.  
The cranes used in the construction weigh 160,000 pounds, and, given good weather, one crane can erect one wind turbine generator per day.

In addition to Midwest Energy, Inc., the wind power generated by Smoky Hills 1 will be purchased by the Kansas City, Kan., Board of Public Utilities and Sunflower Electric Power Corporation. The project is projected to provide power for the equivalent of 38,000 average Kansas households.

With a December 2007 project completion date in mind, (depending upon the weather and especially the wind) there are  currently over 27 partially erected units in place, in addition to the 10 wind turbines already installed. The project requires over 65 miles of conductor cable, 27 miles of new or upgraded roads, and 25,000 cubic yards of concrete.

When asked about public feedback he has received concerning the project, Melski said it is a testimony to the interest people have when he sees them pulling over on Highway 14 to gaze at the wind turbines.

“Our firsthand experience has been positive, quite honestly, with anyone we’ve come in contact with,” he said.

“We are a company that has activity all throughout the United States,” added Julie Smith-Galvin, Enel North America’s director of corporate affairs. “And we are getting good feedback from the wind industry and from politicians at the national level. I think Kansas in general has really embraced this wind project.”

Compared to other wind power projects Enel North America has been involved in, Melski said in terms of size, the Smoky Hill Wind Farm is definitely going to be “the jewel in Enel’s crown.”

“In the U.S. as a whole, 100 mega-watts is typically becoming typical,” he said. “It (the Smoky Hill Wind Farm) is the biggest one we’ve done to date. Phase Two, which Tradewind is developing right now, will be even larger.”

Melski said aesthetically, the Smoky Hills Wind Farm is probably one of the more prettier sites he has been exposed to. Moreover, at the time it goes on line, he said the Smoky Hill Wind Farm will be the largest wind farm in Kansas.

“Wind, like a number of renewable energy technologies, is really trying to be integrated into the U.S. electric system,” Galvin said. “It’s clearly emissions-free, so there are no greenhouse gases or impact on the climate change that we are all hearing so much about. But wind, like hydro-power or biomass or geothermal, is really part of the solution. It’s not going to completely negate the need for thermal, but it is going to work together with some of those in the U.S. — the coals and the thermals — to have energy security,  environmental benefits and certainly local community benefits as well.”

“Wind power has reached the point too where it is not to be solely viewed as a green source anymore,” Melski said. “It’s a competitive form of energy, period.”
For the Smoky Hills 1 project, Melski said in excess of 200 people have taken part in the construction — one-third of them hired locally.

In addition, there are secondary benefits locally to the construction taking place.
“There’s a lot of local barbecue being bought,” Melski said, in addition to fuel, lodging and other necessities.

In addition to a gathering of landowners and other key supports for a tour and barbecue later that afternoon, Galvin said a larger dedication ceremony will be conducted in the Spring of 2008.

“The plan is to have an event where we can showcase the project when it is operating,” she said.