By Dan Voorhis for the Wichita Eagle
NASHVILLE, Kan. – As you drive south from this town northwest of Harper, you can see Kansas’ latest boom industry on the horizon.
Forty newly activated light-gray turbines in the Flat Ridge I wind farm stretch across 6,000 acres of wheat fields and prairie. Because the turbines are so out-of-proportion to the landscape, it’s hard to grasp their scale until you see what looks like a toy pickup truck standing beside one.
They reach 262 feet high. Their three 148-foot-long rotors have a capacity to generate 2.5 megawatts, giving the wind farm a capacity of 100 megawatts.
They are part of what promises to be an explosion of wind power. The trick for government and industry officials in Kansas, and Wichita, is to harness that power to create jobs and other economic benefits.
But it’s not automatic just because Kansas is a windy state, officials say.
Kansas is the third windiest state, after North Dakota and Texas, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. And that almost certainly means that Kansas will get more wind farms.
But wind farms are only the start. The real economic benefit comes from developing a large manufacturing and research base to supply those wind farms, economic development experts say.
Developing a significant cluster is inherently more difficult because the manufacturing of the turbines can be done elsewhere and shipped here for construction, officials say.
Other states and countries already have a significant head start.
But Wichita and Kansas have started to get in the game. The state is reworking its incentives to lure wind energy companies, and local manufacturers are discovering a potentially vast new market.
“Kansas needs to get in gear,” said Allen Simmons, Wind Site Manager for Westar. “We’re right in the center of everything.”
Wind farms
In the past 15 months, wind generating capacity in Kansas nearly tripled, to 1,013 megawatts. That makes Kansas one of the top 10 states but well short of Texas, the national leader, which has more than 7,000 megawatts.
Kansas has plenty of room to add more. A U.S. Department of Energy study lists Kansas as having a capacity of 10,000 megawatts.
Currently, there are scores of potential wind farms being discussed for Kansas.
But that depends on federal and state governments continuing to use tax credits and grants to make wind power prices competitive with other sources, requiring utilities to buy that power and expanding the power grid into the rural areas where wind farms are.
The federal stimulus package passed in February extends and expands many of these programs.
Assuming the nation’s push to develop wind energy continues, Kansas likely will see a massive building boom in wind farms over the next 20 years.
But as economic development, wind farms leave something to be desired.
Flat Ridge cost $196 million to build, or about $2 million per megawatt, Simmons said.
The 275 specialized construction workers mostly came from out of state. Operating it will require just nine people.
Manufacturing
However, wind farms do drive the real economic development pot of gold: manufacturing the turbine parts.
At this point, many of the turbine components come from overseas. The fiberglass rotor blades at Flat Ridge’s came from Brazil, the steel towers came from Indonesia.
But U.S. cities and states are rushing to capture the manufacturers.
Alternative energy manufacturing is one of the few sectors that is actively searching for new plant locations, said Darin Buelow, a principal of Deloitte Consulting.
Texas and Iowa have a head start because of their aggressive use of incentives, he said. But Kansas could catch up and develop a wind manufacturing industry in part because of the number of its wind farms.
It costs a lot to transport the large components, which tends to give windy states an advantage in the race to gain manufacturers.
“Those places with a natural advantage have a preponderance of wind potential and proximity to a suitable electric grid,” Buelow said.
Wichita could be particularly competitive, because building aircraft is similar in many ways, said Randi Tveitaraas Jack, who oversees the Kansas Department of Commerce’s effort to ramp up the wind industry.
One such local company is Electromech Technologies, which specializes in electro-mechanical motors and products for the aircraft and defense industries.
Company officials got intrigued by the upside of supplying turbine generators last year and are exploring how to get into the market.
“It could be huge for our company,” said Ed Wagner, the company’s director of engineering.
Research
At Wichita State University, a group of 26 faculty and student researchers is studying wind energy on a $1 million federal grant.
The group will conduct a wind energy symposium March 26 at WSU.
Researchers are key to helping turn a profitable side business into a true manufacturing center, said Janet Twomey, the grant’s principal investigator and a professor in WSU’s College of Engineering.
Research leads to cutting-edge products and processes for existing businesses and to entrepreneurs creating new businesses.
“Business clusters, to make them grow and be sustainable, you need a university doing research and spinning out technology,” Twomey said.
And, she noted, grant money is economic development, too.
The group’s federal grant money runs out in three months, but it is actively searching for more.
Although the credit crunch has slowed development, it likely will heat up again next year.
And as competition for the wind energy industry builds, Wichita and Kansas are working to become more competitive, said Vicki Pratt Gerbino, president of the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition.
“My gut reaction,” she said, “is that progress is being made just because we are talking about it with this vigor and this interest.”
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