By SARAH KESSINGER

Harris News Service

TOPEKA -- A national expert on wind energy spent Thursday at the Statehouse discussing Kansas' potential to produce thousands of new megawatts of electricity.

Larry Flowers, wind researcher at the U.S Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, brought along data showing wind power is now competitive with the cost to build new coal plants.

He was joined at a forum on the issue by Hutchinson Chamber President Dave Kerr, a former Senate president, who recently helped land a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Reno County.

"It's very helpful to get some solid information that is generally presented in a fashion that is not geared to argue but to provide facts on how wind can be developed," Kerr said.

The Sunflower Wind plant, an investor-owned, start-up company that will move into a vacant manufacturing facility, is expected to launch the state's first turbine production later this year.

Kerr said he expects Kansas could well experience a surge in wind farm development following the lead in renewable energy set by the nation's current ethanol boom.

"We do have a resource here and it needs to be pursued, aggressively," he said. "We haven't been as aggressive as we should have been in the past, but I think it's happening now. From what I hear in land leasing I would say we are probably going to have a wind boom."

Shipping turbine materials from overseas increases the cost to build wind farms. Kerr said a facility in the state makes it more feasible for local development.

"There are projects (nationwide) under consideration that would actually clog the ports if they had to bring those in from Europe and other places. It's very important they now be built in the U.S."

Kerr declined to weigh in on a controversial bill to allow Sunflower Electric and co-investors to build two coal-fired power plants near Holcomb.

"That's not my area," he said.

High-voltage lines

Another barrier to the development of more wind farms in Kansas has been a lack of enough high-voltage transmission lines.

However a transmission company, ITC Great Plains, announced this week it would move ahead with plans to build two 180-mile lines from Spearville to Wichita and and from Spearville to Axtell, Neb. The transmission is expected to carry power from a variety of energy sources.

Carl Huslig, the company's president, said the Southwest Power Pool, which plans for central states transmission, had voted to create a cost-recovery system that spreads the cost regionwide.

As for the cost of wind energy development as a part of the growing grid, Flowers said that in states such as Kansas, which has no coal resource, utilities face the added cost of shipping in coal by rail.

Wind farms, in contrast, have no fuel cost and produce no air pollution.

Officials with Sunflower Electric Power Corp. and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association both testified to legislators this week that their plans to build two coal-fired power plants near Holcomb would be the "least-expensive source for baseload."

Some lose interest in coal

Both companies have brought online new, small amounts of wind energy in recent years and plan to increase that slightly.

"Baseload facilities, like coal plants, have higher capital costs, but are the best way to secure stable, low rates for our consumer owners," said Lee Boughey, Tri-State lobbyist. "Wind energy plays a role in providing energy that can displace more expensive gas generation or purchased power."

A growing list of utilities, however, have shelved plans to build coal plants this past year. Both the rising costs of coal and construction are cited as reasons.

Topeka-based Westar Energy and Kansas City Board of Public Utilities dropped plans for coal plants after watching construction costs double in recent years amid skyrocketing, worldwide demand for building materials.

The federal government last week announced it, too, would abandon a FutureGen coal plant project because of costs.

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