• FrancisThicke
• Sustainable Ideas and Renewable Energy Insights
• July 10, 2010

Generating Profit from Untapped Wind Resources

by FrancisThicke

Twenty percent of Iowa’s electricity is now generated by wind. Most of Iowa’s wind-generated electricity comes from large wind farms in northwest and north central Iowa where the state’s wind resources are strongest. However, three-quarters of Iowa’s land surface has wind speeds high enough to be favorable for installation of wind turbines. This means Iowa still has a large untapped potential to harness wind power. What has largely been overlooked is the potential benefit of farm-scale wind turbine systems.

First Benefit:

Small to medium-size wind turbines on farms and rural residences would allow more distributed production of electricity across the state.  With distributed production, electricity generation within the state would be more constant because as wind systems move across the state they will power turbines from one end of the state to the other, rather than just hitting regional clumps of windfarms and then passing by.

Second Benefit:

A second benefit from farm-scale wind turbine systems is that more of the electricity generated is used locally, either on the farm or residence where it is produced or close by.  That reduces the line loss that occurs when electricity is transmitted a long distance, and it reduces the need for high capacity transmission lines that become necessary when electricity from large wind farms in one area of the state has to be distributed across the remainder of the state.

Value Added:

An obvious benefit of having farm-scale wind turbines on farms is that those turbines power the farms they are installed on, and excess power generated serves as a farm income source.  When power companies build and own windfarms on farmers’ land, the farmers receive an annual lease payment, but the farmers must continue to pay retail rates for the electricity they use to power their farms.

Wind is a natural resource, except unlike oil and mineral reserves, wind is an inexhaustible natural resource.  If a landowner had an oil field underground, he or she would not likely lease it to an oil driller for pennies on the dollar as landowners do with windfarm developers.  When windfarms are owned by out-of-state companies, the profits—and sometimes even the electricity generated by the wind—are exported out of the state.  Profits from wind-power generated on farms—by turbines owned by farmers—will benefit farmers, local communities and the state economy.

Conflicts between windfarm owners and landowners living next door to large turbines have been increasing recently as more large windfarms are built.  That type of conflict is largely avoided where smaller-scale turbines are installed on land owned by the same person who owns the turbine.

Years ago, in much of the Midwest, nearly every farm had a windmill on the farmstead to pump water from the farm well.  Those windmills are mostly gone now, but they demonstrated that harnessing wind power can be an integral part of a farmstead operation.  A farm-scale wind turbine placed strategically on a farmstead would need only a small footprint, and would probably not require an additional access road.

What incentives would motivate farmers and rural landowners to install wind turbines?  In the next blog post I will look at a policy used very successfully in Europe.

Tags: central Iowa farms farm scale wind energy green savings investing in wind energy iowa elections 2010 profit from wind energy wind energy production wind energy profits