First Wind Powered City
Rock Port, Missouri is the first 100% wind powered city in the US. Loess Hill Wind Farm, with four 1.25 MW wind turbines is estimated to generate 16 gigawatt hours (16 million kilowatt hours) of electricity annually. 13 gigawatts hours of electricity have historically been consumed annually by the residents and businesses of this town of 1,400 people.
The local electric company, Missouri Public Utility Alliance, will purchase excess electricity when available. They will then supply power when there is not enough wind energy available. Excess wind energy will not be stored but rather fed into the city’s high voltage line, making it an intermittent source of power.
Several factors made this smaller scale project possible. The city has a bluff within the city limits with good resources, John Deere’s Wind Energy financing the project, and proximity to the power grid.
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The Unlimited Potential of American Wind Power: AWEA
In the Blogosphere:
Planetthoughts: First Town in the US to be 100% Wind Powered
Sooner than later, charging up a battery car overnight or when wind power is plentiful for spare batteries, will be easy ballast for the grid, paid for buy the consumer, so that if the wind blows strong all night, or even more some days than others, we drive fast and cheap every day. Can we trust the utilities to pass on savings during times of plenty, to offset the cost of spare batteries for our cars? Can we wire timers to charge when there is excess and hold off during peak demand times? I can hardly wait to find out!
Does Rock Port count as a city?
Looks more like a village to me. Kudos all the same!
Well Doc Brown could have used one to generate his 1.21 gigawatts of power needed for his time machine!
It would destroy my view of the environment. Eco-view sustainability is of the utmost importance.
This is great. Denmark is even able to supply a surplus of wind power. Because it’s too much they are having to find ways to distribute it to nearby countries.
cool at least there are some one concerned about nature and environment. may god help us to lower the pollution.
Actually most of Denmark’s energy is produced from Coal power.
This is great news!
yo bro . . . what can I say; people like you are very frustrating. Are you going to unplug your computer and live off the grid entirely? If not, someone somewhere is going to have to have some kind of power generation equipment in their back yard. Would you rather have the exhaust from a coal stack, the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant, or the beautiful serenity of wind mills. Your choice any of these, or get off the grid. I don’t see wind turbines as destructive of “eco-views” I see them as beautiful sustainable energy in motion.
That’s funny. My grandparents were from there, this tiny town no one had heard of.