by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
As a part of its ongoing effort to utilize more sources of renewable energy, JEA recently signed a 20-year agreement with a Nebraska power company to buy wind-produced electricity from the mid-West company’s soon-to-be-built wind farm.
But don’t get excited. None of it ever will light your house.
The Nebraska Public Power District, a public utility that generates power for 91 of Nebraska’s 93 counties, is planning to start construction on a new 60-megawatt wind farm power plant in March 2005, said NPPD spokesperson Jean Schieffer. JEA has signed up to annually buy 10 megawatts of the wind farm’s 60-megawatt production capacity, she said.
The $81 million facility will consist of 36 wind turbines, each producing 1.65 megawatts of power. The 269-foot diameter turbines will sit on top of several 230-foot tall steel towers in an area of Nebraska that is known for an average wind speed of 19 miles per hour. Once completed, this will be Nebraska’s largest wind farm.
While the wind farm will not be commercially operational until the end of 2005, several municipalities have already signed contracts to buy its power, according to Schieffer, but JEA is the only non-Nebraskan entity linked to the wind farm so far.
However, although JEA will be buying power from the new wind farm, Jacksonville customers will never use any. JEA spokesperson Ron Whittington said the local utility will buy the Nebraskan wind created power but will sell it right back to NPPD. While this may sound ludicrous to some, Whittington said the transaction is quite beneficial to JEA.
“Even though we are not directly using the power, we will still get credit for it,” he said.
Whittington said the transaction between JEA and NPPD will allow the Jacksonville company to receive environmental credits for helping to produce energy with a renewable source.
Schieffer said through its long-term investment in the wind farm, JEA will receive environmental credits for helping to produce more than 34,700 megawatt hours of electricity per year, assuming that the plant operates at 40 percent capacity.
According to a JEA press release, this transaction will help JEA meet a voluntary goal of attaining “7.5 percent of its electric generating capacity from the renewable resources by 2015.”
Whittington said the voluntary goal was set a few years ago by JEA to prepare for any future federal or state mandates that might require energy companies to produce a certain percentage of electricity using environmentally friendly resources.
“At some point, we do think there is going to be some type of regulatory measures requiring utilities to do this,” he said. “We wanted to get into it early.”
According to the Database of State Incentives Renewable Energy, an ongoing government project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, there are some mandates requiring federal agencies to use a larger percentage of energy from renewable resources but there are no such requirements yet for the private sector. There are, however, multiple incentives and tax breaks for increased private usage of “green power” according to the group’s website.
Another reason JEA became involved in the Nebraska project was so it could have wind produced power as part of its energy portfolio, Whittington said.
“Florida is really not conducive to wind power but we wanted to have some kind of investment in it,” he said. “It’s a good deal for them and a good deal for us.”
JEA is already involved with many other alternative forms of power production, he said, including solar, biomass and methane produced energy.
According to JEA’s website, the local power company is currently among the top utility producers of solar power nationwide.