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.
Sarah Lozanova is a freelance writer that is passionate about the new green economy and is a regular contributor to environmental and energy publications and websites, including Energy International Quarterly, ThinkGreen.com, Triple Pundit, Green Business Quarterly, Renewable Energy World, and Green Business Quarterly. Her experience includes work with small-scale solar energy installations and utility-scale wind farms. She earned an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio Graduate School and is a co-founder of Trees Across the Miles, an urban reforestation initiative.
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May 5th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
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!
May 5th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Does Rock Port count as a city?
Looks more like a village to me. Kudos all the same!
May 6th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Well Doc Brown could have used one to generate his 1.21 gigawatts of power needed for his time machine!
May 6th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
It would destroy my view of the environment. Eco-view sustainability is of the utmost importance.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
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.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:47 am
cool at least there are some one concerned about nature and environment. may god help us to lower the pollution.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Actually most of Denmark’s energy is produced from Coal power.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:41 am
This is great news!
May 7th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
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.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
That’s funny. My grandparents were from there, this tiny town no one had heard of.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I think the comment by “yo bro” was sarcastic. If it wasn’t sarcastic then that makes it downright funny.
There is a vocal minority who oppose wind power, but rarely are they so brazen as to come out and give their real selfish reasons for opposing wind- which virtually always comes down to the view.
I am pleased to hear so much positive commentary, usually those in favor of wind power take for granted that it is a universal positive, and see no need to stand up and say something in support.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:10 am
Now that’s awesome, even though the government’s aren’t doing anything, the small communities, cities and states are at least stepping up to the plate!
May 8th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Simply amazing. You know these methods should be especially introduced to countries from the developing world. I saw on this website that there are whole villages powered by hydrogen in Japan and Denmark. Apparently hydrogen can be used to run cars too, infact according to this website http://www..water4gas-scam.com Iceland’s buses already run on hydrogen and now we can convert our cars to run on hydrogen for a minimal cost. This would really help the world go green I guess
May 8th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Not so fast — wind turbines kill birds:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-04-windmills-usat_x.htm
Please, I don’t want to hear the argument that cats kill more birds either.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
The California wind farm that the article refers to has been a nightmare for birds. As one of the first large-scale wind farms, a lot has been learned from it and changed since then.
Two of the big problems with that installation were the speed of the tip of the turbines and the fact that it is a huge corridor for migratory birds.
Wind developers now have to prove that the farm won’t have this kind of effect on birds to obtain permits and turbine blades are much larger now, therefore moving slower.
The developers of the GSG Wind Farm in Illinois say that each turbine kills about 1 to 2 birds a year. How many birds does climate change kill?
May 18th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I am very pleased to hear such a story. We need more of this. It is time for people to be rethinking the way they live, being more conservative, less wasteful and rethinking the whole ecomonic picture. I believe we don’t have a choice but pursue this direction. I am strongly encouraging our smaller school districts to think about utilizing these types of resources to help offset some costs especially when upgrading/remodeling their facilities.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I think wind power and solar power are our future. We will not be able to get rid of coal and crude oil altogether, but we can use green power to help it out. I built my own solar water heater panel. I live in southwest Louisiana. On sunny days I get all of my hot water from solar. It truely works.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
There are many solutions to our global problem. Wind power is one, cow power is another. There are cars which run on electric batteries only and alternatives are all around us. With many people becoming desperate with the cost of fuel rising to ridiculous rates, they are now even signing a petition to drill for Oil in America, ANYWHERE. Please note this story as well and join in our discussion about creating a counter petition. It is located at http://www.care2.com/news/member/469277529/774632.
WE need to implement all energy solutions as quickly as possible or we will see continued pollution and destruction world wide for the pursuit of oil.
Peace, Love and Light,
Lyra
Co-founder of http://www.EarthCollege.org
July 18th, 2008 at 8:53 am
[...] Originally Posted by jfuh As is the case with the Shandong city of Rizhao, where get this, 99% of all heating is from solar energy and overwhelming majority of street lights get their power from solar panels. Any such city in the US? Europe? Not that I know of. Rockport, Missouri produces more energy from wind power than it actually needs. Rural Missouri — A new wind blowing First Wind Powered City : CleanTechnica [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
The town is not supplied 100% by wind. If the wind does not blow the real power company kicks in. That power could be dirty fossil fuels or a river that has a big dam.
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Actually most of Denmarkâs energy is produced from Coal power.a