Crow LakeWind Powers Up
By Stephen A. Thompson, Assistant Editor
Stephena.thompson@wdc.usda.gov
t’s billed as the largest co-op-owned wind-generation project in the
country, with 108 turbines and more than 150 megawatts of generating
capacity. Everything about it seems to be big.
The Crow Lake Wind Project is a venture of Basin Electric Power
Cooperative, a large generation and transmission co-op headquartered in
Bismarck, N.D. Its members are 135 power distribution co-ops that serve 2.8 million
customers in nine Midwestern states.
Crow Lake represents only part of Basin Electric’s initiative to draw 10 percent of its
generating capacity from renewable sources. The effort also includes purchasing power
from outside wind farms and building facilities that generate power by recovering waste
heat produced by gas pipeline pumps.When the project is fully operational this spring,
the co-op will have more than 700 megawatts of renewable generating capacity —
about 12 percent of total capacity.
The project is a shared endeavor
which includes the co-op’s 100 wind
turbines and seven turbines that belong
to a community-based, limited-liability
corporation (LLC). One additional
turbine is owned by a local technical
school, which will use it for training
turbine technicians. Basin Electric’s
wholly owned subsidiary, PrairieWind
SD 1 Inc., will operate and use the
power of all 108 turbines.
Effort launched in ‘05
The impetus for the project came
from a resolution passed by the
cooperative’s members in 2005, which
set the 10-percent renewable source
goal for the year 2010. With the
availability of local member systems and
other facilities in an area with excellent
wind resources, wind turbines were the
natural way to go, says Basin Electric
spokesman Daryl Hill.
Basin had been using wind-generated
power prior to the Prairie Winds
project. Its first wind project included a
pair of 1.3-megawatt turbines in
Chamberlain, S.D., about 40 miles west
of Crow Lake, which were built in
2001. They were followed by two more
turbines in Minot, N.D., and by a
number of wind farms owned by
developers from which the cooperative
purchases power. In many cases, local
member-distribution cooperatives act in
partnership with Basin to provide
transmission facilities.
In 2009, Basin completed the first
phase of the Prairie Winds initiative, a
120-megawatt wind farm south of
Minot. That project is owned by
another Basin Electric subsidiary,
PrairieWinds ND 1 Inc.
The site selected for the South
Dakota project was chosen from among
suitable areas not already claimed by
competing wind developers. Computer
models were used to select the most
suitable locations for the towers, taking
into consideration such factors as
zoning requirements, local wind
characteristics, elevation, etc. The
selection process included consultations
with local landowners, federal agencies
and 14 Native American tribes. The
entire area encompasses about 38,000
acres.
The Rural Utilities Service of USDA
Rural Development is funding 60
percent of the $340 million project cost
with a loan guarantee for $204 million.
Jim Headley, a local rancher, says
that landowners in the area were, for
the most part, eager to sign up to
participate. Headley is a board member
of Central Electric Cooperative, his
local distribution co-op. He became a
supporter of the project after learning
about it from an acquaintance at Basin
Electric. He then helped get the word
out to his fellow landowners.
Those who chose to participate in
the project agreed to a lease on their
property for whatever number of
turbines the project chose to install.
Each of them initially received the same
nominal fee in return for the lease, until
the towers were built.
Landowner payments
The compensation each participant
ultimately receives depends on the
number of towers operating on his or
her land. Comparative performance of
the generators is not used in calculating
payments. The compensation
agreement and the leases are for 50
years, or until the towers are taken out
of service and dismantled.
Some potential turbine sites, says
Headley, turned out to have problems
because construction might disturb
potential archaeological sites or artifacts.
That required some adjustments
of the computer model for the project.
Some participants were disappointed
not to have more turbines installed on
their property. But overall, he says, the
towers have been well received by
residents.
“They do totally change the
landscape,” Headley says. “At first,
you’re not sure about it, because it’s
such a difference. After a while, though,
you get used to them, just like anything
else.” Although some have said that the
noise of wind turbines makes them
undesirable, Headley finds the sound
they make is hardly noticeable.
“If you get close enough, you can
hear them,” he says. “But it’s a very low
sound, maybe like a distant jet or a train
far away.” Headley says that when
winds are high, the sound of the
turbines is masked by the wind itself.
“You’re more likely to hear them when
the wind is low,” he says.
The positives, Headley believes, far
outweigh the negatives. “Out of 38,000
acres, they’re really only disrupting
about 110 acres,” he says. “Overall, I
think it’s a positive thing for the
grasslands here. It’s good for people’s
income and offers something down the
road for future generations.”
College training turbine techs
With a growing number of wind
turbines in the area, the demand for
trained technicians is growing as well.
To meet that demand, Mitchell
Technical Institute, a two-year college
located in nearby Mitchell, S.D., started
a training course in the fall of 2009.
The college already offered courses
in powerline construction and
maintenance, among other utilityrelated
fields. It wanted to expand its
offerings in the area of wind power, says
spokesperson Julie Brookbank. With
Basin Electric’s help, the school now
has its own turbine as part of the Crow
Lake project.
The college obtained $1.16 million
in grant assistance from the Economic
Development Administration of the
U.S. Department of Commerce. It
received further help from the South
Dakota state government and
cooperation with Basin Electric for
construction. The remaining $1.72
million of the $3.2 million total cost of
the turbine was financed with a bond,
which it expects to pay off in 17 years
from the proceeds of power sales.
Owning the turbine means that the
college has unrestricted rights to it for
training purposes. The school can shut
down the unit whenever it chooses to
allow students access to it. Liability
insurance issues caused by using
someone else’s turbine for training are
also eliminated.
The first group of students in the
program will have access to the turbine
after the handover this March.
Another seven turbines are owned by
South Dakota Wind Partners LLC, a
community-based cooperative effort to
give wind power investment
opportunities to local residents. It was
organized by four local organizations:
East River Electric Co-op, the South
Dakota Corn Utilization Council, the
South Dakota Farmers Union and the
South Dakota Farm Bureau.
Investors must be residents of South
Dakota. They receive tax advantages as
well as dividends and interest income.
More than 600 investors are
participating.
The drawback to power generated
from wind, aside from higher costs, is
one it shares with solar power: it cannot
be used as a baseload power source
because of its unreliability.
“You can’t count on wind to be there
when you want it,” is the way Hill puts
it. What wind generators can do is
reduce the amount of fuel burned in
conventional power plants when the
wind is blowing.
Pipeline heat recovery
There are also ways to improve the
cleanliness and efficiency of baseload
generating capacity. The gas pipeline
heat recovery units from which the coop
purchases power are one example.
While relatively small — eight units
generate a total of 44 megawatts — the
units provide a reliable, round-theclock
source of power while burning no
fuel at all.
The energy they use comes from the
exhaust of natural gas-fueled turbines
driving compressor pumps on a gas
pipeline. It’s heat that otherwise would
have been vented to the atmosphere,
but in the recovery units it is used to
transform a fluid into vapor that drives
a turbine powering a generator. It’s
both elegant and efficient.
B
More conventional power sources
are continually improving in efficiency
as well. Construction is underway on
the cooperative’s new Deer Creek
Station, a 300-megawatt natural gasfired
“combined-cycle” generating plant
that also uses recovered heat. The
primary generator is driven by a turbine
that burns natural gas, while its exhaust
heat is used to produce steam to drive a
second turbine-generator set.
The water used to generate the
steam is also recovered and used again.
The plant is to be used as an
“intermediate” supply source — as
opposed to either a “peak load”
generator, which is kept in reserve to
handle extraordinary power demands,
or a baseload source, which operates
more or less continually.
The system design allows it to be
started and stopped economically. It
starts operating to supply power during
periods of higher demand, then shuts
down when the load tapers off. The
plant is scheduled to go into service in
June of 2012.
The most inexpensive way to
generate baseload power remains
burning coal, especially when the power
plant is located near the source of fuel.
Dry Fork Station is Basin Electric’s
newest coal-fired plant, currently under
construction near Gillette, Wyo. It’s coowned
with the Wyoming Municipal
Power Agency and will be maintained
and operated by the co-op. The facility
is being built next to its fuel source —
the Dry Fork Mine.
The 385-megawatt plant uses the
latest clean-burning, high-temperature
boiler design and scrubber technology
to minimize emissions. The Germandesigned
reflux circulating fluid bed dry
scrubber is described by Basin as “stateof-
the-art” in removing sulfur dioxide
from the exhaust while using a minimal
amount of water.
The new-design temperaturecontrolled
boiler and catalytic
converters also reduce nitrous oxides.
The plant uses air cooling to condense
steam for reuse, instead of the more
widely used water-cooled cooling
towers — important because the plant
is not located close to a large water
source and has to pump its water from
deep wells.
The cooperative says that a quarter
of the plant’s cost is for emissions
controls, and that the site is designed to
allow the adoption of carbon-recapture
technology, if it becomes necessary.
Experimental carbon-sequestration
technology is also being explored by the
cooperative at its Antelope Valley
Station in North Dakota. One of the
co-op’s subsidiaries, Dakota Gasification
Co., recaptures and sequesters some of
the carbon dioxide produced by
converting coal to gas.
When all the current energy
expansion plans are finished, the
cooperative projects its total generating
capacity — both owned and purchased
— will be 5,004 megawatts. Of that
amount, about 750 megawatts will come
from renewable sources. With its
aggressive approach to clean power
production, Basin Electric illustrates the
co-op sector’s dedication to the
communities it serves.
