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Shooting Star Wind Farm
In September 2011 a Power Purchase Agreement
was signed for 104 MW of wind energy from Infinity?s Shooting Star Wind Farm, located near Mullinville, Kansas. Shooting Star Wind Farm, which consists of 65 turbines and covers approximately 11,000 acres of farmland, became fully operational in September 2012.
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Smoky Hills Wind Farm
Mid-Kansas is one of three utilities to purchase power from the Smoky Hills Wind Farm. The wind farm, which is located approximately 20 miles west of Salina, boasts 155 turbines that are capable of producing 250 megawatts of power.
Phase 1 of the project began construction in March 2007 and was brought online in February 2008. Phase II was completed in November 2008. At the time of completion, the Smoky Hills Wind Farm was the largest wind farm of its kind in Kansas with more than 100 landowners and 20,000 acres of land involved in the project.
The project owner is Italian-based utility Enel. Tradewind Energy, a Midwest leader in wind energy, was the project developer. Mid-Kansas has a Power Purchase Agreement for 24 megawatts.
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Gray County Wind Farm
Sunflower's Member cooperatives, through Mid-Kansas Electric Company, LLC, purchase 51 megawatts of wind energy from the Gray County Wind farm located near Montezuma, Kansas.
The site, owned and operated by FPL Energy, consists of 170 Vestas V-47 wind turbines. Each turbine tower is 217 ft. high with blades 77 ft. long and a generating capacity of 600-kW. The Gray County Wind Farm became fully operational in December 2001. Its construction cost was $100 million.
When built in 2001, FPL Energy's Gray County Wind Farm was the largest wind farm in Kansas. It has 170 turbines and is capable of producing 112 megawatts of power. Although the towers are spread over 12,000 acres, only 6 acres are directly used for tower sites and roads, and the balance is still used as farmland. Sunflower Electric purchases 51 MW of the project output when at full load.
This site was selected because the average wind speed is approximately 20 miles per hour, and the turbines produce power when the wind speed is between 10 and 56 miles per hour. The individual turbine towers are 217 feet high, with 77 foot long blades. The Gray County Wind Farm is located on US Highway 56 near Montezuma, Kansas, about 25 miles west of Dodge City.
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With the these combined wind resources, Mid-Kansas system exceeds the state?s
renewable energy standard requiring electric utilities to have at least 15% of their peak demand from renewable resources by 2016.
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