Wind farm expected to supply NW Missouri town's electricity

ROCK PORT, Mo. (AP) -- A four-turbine wind farm will supply more than enough electricity to run this northwest Missouri town when it goes online this summer, officials said.

"On a day like today, we're only using two megawatts of electricity, so we can use that and sell the rest back to the grid," Rock Port Municipal Utilities Manager Tim Taylor said Thursday.

"There will be some high-usage days in the summer when the wind is not blowing where we'll have to buy power from the grid, but overall it's more than 100 percent."

The Loess Hills Wind Farm, to be built by Wind Capital Group and the John Deere Corp. on bluffs west of Rock Port, will generate five megawatts each day.

John Deere's wind energy division financed the facility.

"That's the best part about this whole thing: It didn't cost the city of Rock Port one penny," Taylor said.

Eric Chamberlain, the project manager for St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group, is from Rock Port and also operates a funeral home here.

Chamberlain became interested in bringing wind energy to his hometown after seeing a commercial wind farm. The Missouri Department of National Resources provided wind monitoring devices, which showed that such a facility would be viable.

Wind Capital Group is also building the 24-turbine Cow Branch Wind Farm east of Rock Port, and is building wind farms in Nodaway and Gentry counties.

Besides the two wind farms near Rock Port, Atchison County is also the planned site for a 30-million-gallon biodiesel plant and a 100-million-gallon ethanol plant near Phelps City.

That could make the county a hub for alternative energy, County Commissioner Kent Fisher said.

"We've been looking for a way to improve economic development, and now we've found our niche in that area," fisher said.

Rock Port will use revenue generated from the Loess Hills Wind Farm to fund capital improvement projects for city infrastructure. It is also possible that utility customers could see their rates go down, Taylor said, but the city will wait at least one year to see how much money might be available for rate relief.

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Information from: St. Joseph News-Press, http://www.stjoenews-press.com