Winds of change Sunday, November 27, 2011 www.wcfcourier.com By JIM OFFNER [email protected]WATERLOO — Of the 480 acres Tim Hemphill owns and 1,200 he farms near Milford, he sets aside three for two wind-turbine towers. In exchange for the small plot of land Hemphill would have devoted to his corn and soybean products, he collects $20,000 a year. “It’s worth it, even with high grain prices,” Hemphill said. “When we put them up, corn was around $3 a bushel, and it has doubled since then, but it’s still worth it.” “The check’s always good,” he said. Hemphills’s towers have been up for two years, and the checks will flow in quarterly for the run of a 30-year con- tract, he said. Hemphill said he is but one of an increasing number of Iowa farmers who have watched wind towers go up on their acreages. “There’s quite a few farmers I know who have them,” he said. “My neigh- bor has six of them and another with seven.” Hemphill said his motivation transcends finances, although he acknowledges the income certainly doesn’t hurt. “I think we need more green ener- gy,” he said. “People in California and the cities have brownouts. Besides, it’s a good revenue source.” Iowa is home to 80 wind installa- tions and has more than 50 manu- facturers in the wind supply chain, including two large turbine assem- blers and two blade and three tower and lift manufacturers. Professional service businesses throughout the state also have expanded to meet the demand from the wind industry. Turbine towers still pale in com- parison to cornstalks as dominant features of Iowa’s rural landscape, but they are gaining ground, experts say. Iowa currently ranks second behind Texas in wind energy production, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Iowa is home to 1,999 wind turbines that produce nearly 2,800 megawatts of electricity each year, according to the office of Gov. Terry Branstad. For farmers and their surrounding communities, it translates to “green” in more than energy. There’s plenty of money to be made, officials say. “The wind farms have $11 million in annual landowner lease payments,” said Mark Douglas, executive direc- tor of the Iowa Utilities Association. “As far as communities, there are obviously supplies purchased in local communities and construction work- ers spending money in local commu- nities. There’s some property taxes that go and hundreds of millions of dollars that are invested in manufac- turing facilities in Iowa. So, it’s been very, very beneficial.” There are trade-offs, though, said Mike Duffy, extension economist and professor of economics at Iowa State University. “It definitely has an effect, I guess you could argue, positive and nega- tive,” he said. “It adds a stream of income, so that would get factored in. Let’s say you’re looking at a 40-acre plot. You’d lose the amount of ease- ment, but you would gain the expect- ed income from the electric genera- tion. So, a lot depends on the nature of the contract.” On balance, it’s a gain, he said. “In a general sense, that will end up being positive; it becomes another factor,” Duffy said. “When I do my appraisal class and talk to students about it, you typically think of corns Farmers find profits blowing in the wind See WIND, page H3
Transcript
Winds of changeSunday, November 27, 2011 www.wcfcourier.com
WATERLOO — Of the 480 acres Tim Hemphill owns and 1,200 he farms near Milford, he sets aside three for two wind-turbine towers.
In exchange for the small plot of land Hemphill would have devoted to his corn and soybean products, he collects $20,000 a year.
“It’s worth it, even with high grain prices,” Hemphill said. “When we put them up, corn was around $3 a bushel, and it has doubled since then, but it’s still worth it.”
“The check’s always good,” he said.Hemphills’s towers have been up for
two years, and the checks will fl ow in quarterly for the run of a 30-year con-tract, he said.
Hemphill said he is but one of an increasing number of Iowa farmers who have watched wind towers go up on their acreages.
“There’s quite a few farmers I know who have them,” he said. “My neigh-bor has six of them and another with seven.”
Hemphill said his motivation transcends fi nances, although he acknowledges the income certainly doesn’t hurt.
“I think we need more green ener-gy,” he said. “People in California and the cities have brownouts. Besides, it’s a good revenue source.”
Iowa is home to 80 wind installa-tions and has more than 50 manu-facturers in the wind supply chain, including two large turbine assem-blers and two blade and three tower and lift manufacturers. Professional service businesses throughout the state also have expanded to meet the demand from the wind industry.
Turbine towers still pale in com-parison to cornstalks as dominant features of Iowa’s rural landscape, but
they are gaining ground, experts say.Iowa currently ranks second behind
Texas in wind energy production, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
Iowa is home to 1,999 wind turbines that produce nearly 2,800 megawatts of electricity each year, according to the offi ce of Gov. Terry Branstad.
For farmers and their surrounding communities, it translates to “green” in more than energy.
There’s plenty of money to be made, offi cials say.
“The wind farms have $11 million in annual landowner lease payments,” said Mark Douglas, executive direc-tor of the Iowa Utilities Association. “As far as communities, there are obviously supplies purchased in local communities and construction work-ers spending money in local commu-nities. There’s some property taxes that go and hundreds of millions of dollars that are invested in manufac-turing facilities in Iowa. So, it’s been very, very benefi cial.”
There are trade-off s, though, said Mike Duff y, extension economist and professor of economics at Iowa State University.
“It defi nitely has an eff ect, I guess you could argue, positive and nega-tive,” he said. “It adds a stream of income, so that would get factored in. Let’s say you’re looking at a 40-acre plot. You’d lose the amount of ease-ment, but you would gain the expect-ed income from the electric genera-tion. So, a lot depends on the nature of the contract.”
On balance, it’s a gain, he said.“In a general sense, that will end up
being positive; it becomes another factor,” Duff y said. “When I do my appraisal class and talk to students about it, you typically think of corns
Farmers fi nd profi ts blowing in the wind
See WIND, page H3
PAGE H2 • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2011
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DAVENPORT — The arrival of the wind energy industry to Iowa provided a lift at a time the state was feel-ing the loss of some legacy employers and just ahead of the national recession, which eroded some of the state’s manufacturing base.
While new investment in the wind sector has slowed of late, advocates of the renewable energy and eco-nomic development leaders still see potential for more wind turbine manufactur-ers and suppliers to plant roots in Iowa.
“Wind is re-creating and reinvigorating Iowa’s heavy manufacturing,” said Har-old Prior, executive direc-tor and founder of the Iowa Wind Energy Association.
In fact, he said Iowa leads the nation in the number of wind-related manufactur-ers in its borders and in the number of components it produces.
According to the 4-year-old association, Iowa has seen more than $5 billion in capital investment in the past 10 to 15 years — from the development of wind farms to the opening of new manufacturing facili-ties. “In the last fi ve years we’ve gone from sourcing 25 percent of the compo-nents of a wind turbine to sourcing about 60 percent, and it’s still growing,” Prior added.
A supply chain study by the Environmental Law and Policy Center, conducted a year ago, reported that 80 Iowa companies — includ-ing 50 manufacturers — already were engaged in the wind energy industry.
But Prior said his associa-tion boasts more than 200 members, located in 56 of Iowa’s 99 counties, who are involved in some fashion in the industry.
With 8,000 components in a single wind turbine, Prior said there is more room in the market for new and existing companies to
join the supply chain. “From the huge bolts to
wiring to control systems and hydraulics, there is such a variety of components that it can attract a wide variety of manufacturers.”
Iowa already has been successful in luring more of the major component manufacturers, he said.
Those original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, produce everything from the turbine assembly to the blades, towers, gearbox and nacelles, the structures at the top of wind tur-bine towers that house key components.
Some of the major com-panies to land on Iowa soil are Clipper Windpower in Cedar Rapids, Accio-na Windpower in West Branch, Siemens Wind in Fort Madison and TPI Composites and Trinity Structural Towers, both in Newton.
Tina Hoffman, Iowa Economic Development Authority’s communica-tion and marketing director, said the industry describes Iowa “as the place where the resources meet the population.”
“We have the wind and a population to utilize the power that comes from that, and that’s how we have been able to get on the ground fl oor of some of the manufacturing we’ve seen.”
She added that the agency — and state leadership — remain focused on attract-ing the supply chain piece of the industry in order to “help Iowa manufacturers diversify to become a sup-plier to some of these large OEMs.”
The state also continues working to seize oppor-tunities to attract foreign investment in the industry. Many of the largest manu-facturers to bring produc-tion facilities to Iowa are headquartered overseas.
But homegrown Iowa businesses also are benefi t-ing from wind energy, like United Equipment Acces-sories in Waverly.
The family-owned busi-ness, which will mark its 60th year in 2012, produces electrical slip rings. A slip ring is a rotary coupling used to transmit electrical power or data from a sta-tionary unit to a rotating unit.
Jesse Shearer, a design engineer with United Equipment, said the crane industry had been the back-bone of the company, but fi ve years ago the business was pulled into the wind industry by local compa-nies servicing installed wind turbines.
At fi rst, United Equip-ment supplied hub slip rings to those maintaining the small, personal wind-mills. But it eventually moved to supplying some of the major manufacturers.
“Obviously, when the economy went down we were impacted. But we were lucky enough to have wind, and wind didn’t suf-fer as much as other indus-tries like cranes and con-struction,” he said, adding that some of their newest employees had been laid off from other companies.
Due to its involvement in wind energy, United Equip-ment expanded its facility, increased its workforce by 25 percent and enjoyed a 42 percent increase in rev-enues, he said.
The company also
expanded its global reach as it began supplying more and more foreign com-panies. Today, it employs about 90 people.
Shearer said the company continues to largely sup-ply the industry “through the back door by supply-ing to the aftermarket” but is working to break into OEMs.
Prior said that part of the success story behind wind energy is how these manu-facturers have fi lled a gap
in some communities bur-dened by plant closings.
“Of the fi ve major com-ponent manufacturers, three are located in former manufacturing plants,” he said.
Clipper Windpower assembles its turbines in a Cedar Rapids plant where printing presses had once been made by Rockwell Goss. Trinity Structural Towers fi lled one of the for-mer Maytag factories left vacant in Newton. Siemens
Wind produces its tower blades in the shuttered Wabash National Corp. tractor-trailer facility it acquired in Fort Madison.
Hoff man, of the state’s economic development agency, admits that wind energy helped keep the economy going during the recession. But it has also become a highlight of the state’s business community.
“We have made a name for ourselves,” he said.
COURTESY PHOTO
The wind slip ring assembly line for utility-grade wind turbines at United Equipment Accessories in Waverly.
Wind brings manufacturing jobs back to Iowa
WINDS OF CHANGE
“We have the wind and a population to utilize the power that comes from that, and that’s how we have been able to get on the ground fl oor of some of the manufacturing we’ve seen.”
Tina Hoffman owa Economic Development Authority’s communication and marketing director,
WATERLOO — There are big gains potentially available in the “small wind” industry.
According to the Environ-mental Law & Policy Center provides the following facts to support that assertion:
Iowa’s wind industry sup-ports more than 2,300 man-ufacturing jobs, which may be the most of any state in the nation.
Iowa currently off ers tax credits to promote small wind energy projects, as well as economic incentives for wind-component man-ufacturers who are looking at building or expanding in Iowa. All Iowa-based elec-tric utilities are required to off er green power options to their customers.
Small wind energy, which stands in contrast to the utility-scale wind farms that are gaining a foothold across Iowa, is tailored for small-scale, even individual, use.
In the future, individual homes conceivably could have their own turbines.
According to Ron Stim-mel, small wind advocate with the Washington, D.C.-based American Wind Ener-gy Association, a small wind turbine can pay for itself in as little as fi ve years.
He said the average home system can cost between $10,000 and $60,000, depending on turbine size. But, Stimmel said, many states and the federal gov-ernment have tax credits that can defray as much as 30 percent of the costs.
Tom Wind, owner of Jef-ferson-based Wind Utility Consulting, said incentives are crucial to the success of small wind projects, and Iowa residents are respond-ing to incentives.
“There’s kind of a surge of them this year,” Wind said.
“We probably have about 40 megawatts in commu-nity wind projects, which are generally school or col-lege or small municipal util-ity cooperatives, a group of farmers and landowners.”
Wind said federal stimu-lus money in 2009 provided a cash grant through a tax credit for small projects.
Iowa is No. 2 for wind energy in the country, trail-ing only Texas. Iowa’s 4,000 megawatts generated by wind are well behind Texas’ 10,000, but Iowa is a leader in small-wind usage, Wind said.
“We’re kind of the leader of the pack,” he said. “If you look at a small state with about 3 million people, we have incredible commit-ment using wind power. Texas has twice as much, but you have to remember
how many more number of times of people Texas has.”
Small turbines generally have a power-generating capacity of up to 100 kilo-watts. They are turning up on farms, schools, small communities and even indi-vidual homes.
Wind cautions that the practicality of switching one’s home from traditional coal-fi red power to wind can be an iff y proposition.
“The potential depends on the price of power in the future here,” he said. “It’s diffi cult, for example, to get a small wind turbine to be cost-eff ective. Big ones are cheaper because of big-ger economies of scale. The small one costs more per kilowatt hour and it’s diffi -cult to pencil that out for the small homeowner.”
Wind has said the payback
on a small turbine can be as long as 10 years.
Cost issues and technol-ogy limitations are two hur-dles for small-wind growth, said Mark Douglas, execu-tive director with the Iowa Utilities Association.
“It will require change in technology or cost or both to really make it something that becomes an alternative for people,” he said. “There are technology and trans-mission issues, Technology is getting better at forecast-ing, but you’d expect that after 10-12 years of invest-ing in the industry would see some advances.”
Wind said there has been progress.
“I think it’s growing in sectors,” he said. “The wind turbines are typically get-
ting better and reliable and more cost-eff ective. As in any industry, as you learn more and more about them, they become more reliable. Again, it’s diffi cult to get a payback. You’ve got to have the right circumstances. You’ve got to be in a windy spot in the country where there’s not a lot of trees around.”
Residential usage is a bit trickier than commercial applications, said Mark Wilkinson, director of green energy for PFG Best in Cedar Falls, which distributes turbines and is involved in development of Cedar Val-ley TechWorks, a business venture on a 40-acre site of an old John Deere manu-facturing plant in down-town Waterloo focused on research and development of alternative fuels, includ-ing wind.
“The thing with city resi-dential, it’s a little tougher because of restrictions on some of the codes,” he said. “But even the city govern-ments are realizing it can be worked out with small wind. That’s where it’s going and it’s kind of like anything — when it fi rst starts out, it’s supply and demand and, once you get things there, the price comes down and everything starts working out. It’s getting to be much more effi cient and aff ord-able. And with Iowa, we have good wind to produce electricity with them.”
Businesses in Iowa are seeing enough potential in small wind to get involved in the sector.
“We’re working with the TechWorks project, trying to help bring that whole big project to fruition,” Wilkin-son said. “We’ll have the whole wind and there’s the solar company that will be
involved. That’s really our big focus is working with them to bring that to real-ity there as soon as we can. There’s a lot of positive here.”
Wilkinson said small-wind technology is making vast improvements each year.
“Small wind, for one thing, the technology is getting better; it’s more effi cient,” he said. “With that, then your return on investment comes down, so that makes it more aff ordable. The peo-ple looking at it are a lot of farmers, small companies that maybe want to supple-ment their electricity with it. And, there’s residential usage.”
TechWorks has completed a feasibility study on wind and other so-called “clean-energy” sources, said Terry Johnston, TechWorks’ marketing and facilities manager.
“What we’re working on is actually a multi-faceted energy generation project for TechWorks, so we’d be able to generate our own electricity for the campus,” he said. “That would be a combination of solar wind and heat treat — the waste heat from John Deere across the street. Also, there’s some biogasifi cation and maybe a biomass project. It all ties together with wind.”
Small wind fi gures promi-nently into TechWorks’ future, said Cary Darrah, general manager.
“In fact, a manufacturing prospect we’re working on with would supply turbines that would be farm-scale and residential uses,” she said.
“It’s clearly toward small wind. You talk to leaders at the state level, and they’re all pointed to small wind, as opposed to large wind.”
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A small-wind turbine is in use at Mueller Concrete Construction Co. in Postville. The company obtained the turbine through PFG Green Energy, based in Cedar Falls. The unit is described as a vertical access wind turbine and produces 4.5 kilowatts.
and beans, but there are wind towers, too. For the most part, I’d imagine those have been signed as easements, so they’re attached to the land. So, it would be set up that way and you would look at it as income, and the additional income would be factored into the total income.”
Duff y said the income potential wind towers bring to farmers is considerable.
“It’s enough to make a diff erence,” he said.
But any farmer pondering a venture into the energy business should consid-er all implications of any deal.
“One issue is, if the tow-ers are down, are they still going to get income or not?” Duff y said. “Is it only based on the power that’s being generated? Those are some of the consider-ations. Again, that will vary depending on the nature of the contract.”
But, in general terms, the investment seems worth it, Duff y noted.
“A rough number was an estimated $7,500 per year, per two-turbine tower,” Duff y said. “This is all based on the royalty cal-culation. Royalty is part of the income. I’d say those numbers are what you paid for them.”
Setting land aside for wind turbines is worth considering, said Terry Argotsinger, who works with Stalcup Agricul-tural Service Inc. in Storm Lake and is an accredited farm manager and rural appraiser.
But any farmer pondering such a move must consider all the details, Argotsinger said.
“What a lot of people need to understand is ease-ment that’s proposed that’s a blanket easement that covers the entire farm,” he said. “It entitles the devel-oper to construct any-where they would wish. So, the landowner wants to be sure they have some input where things are located. It’s a very important thing to consider before fi nal approval.”
There’s also a develop-ment period of fi ve to seven years, Argotsinger noted.
“The developer has that period to design and engi-
neer,” he said. “From the moment they sign that easement, the farmer has no clue if, where or how much equipment will be installed on his farm. The engineers take that time to design. It usually takes fi ve years for permits to be granted and economic study by the wind park developer to gain fi nancing and gov-ernment approval to come on the grid. Typically, the developer will have 15,000 to 20,000 acres to obtain for easements. But chanc-es are only half will have a turbine on it.”
And, farmers lose an ele-ment of control over their land, he added.
“You’d like to have some input on what happens to your farm, so you need to have some authority on whether it happens,” he said. “Don’t just assume you’re going to get a turbine.”
Towers also present other possible hurdles, Argots-inger said.
“Some of the nega-tive may be aesthetics or somebody feels it would be too hard to farm around,” he said. “It’s something we’re very careful we make sure people review the contracts.”
WINDFarmers urged to considerimplications of agreementsFrom page A1
‘Small wind’ proponents see big profi t potentialTHE COURIER • www.wcfcourier.com
PAGE H4 • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2011
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WATERLOO — Winds of change are blowing through Iowa’s utilities as they make wind an increasing part of their energy portfolios.
Alliant Energy’s major foray into the sector is its Whispering Willow Wind Farm-East. Covering 33,000 acres in Franklin County, it began commercial operation in December 2009. Alliant will add a West farm as eco-nomic conditions permit, the company says.
Whispering Willow-East consists of 121 turbines capable of generating up to 200 megawatts — enough power for about 50,000 homes. If the West phase is added in the future, the wind farm has the potential to produce up to 500 mega-watts, or enough juice to power 125,000 homes.
“It’s a big investment,” said Tom Aller, president of Interstate Power & Light and senior vice president of Alli-ant Energy in Cedar Rapids. “The fi rst was about $450 million, give or take, and we estimate the second will be $230 million to $240 million for us.”
The wind farm employs nearly 30 workers directly and indirectly. IPL says about 6 percent of its elec-tricity comes from renew-able energy sources through a combination of purchased power agreements and com-pany-owned facilities.
The company expects more than 90 percent of its renewable energy will eventually come from wind power.
But there are caveats.Fist, Congress must extend
credits for wind farms that have spurred their growth .
“If they’re eliminated or reduced substantially, it will have a negative impact on more wind, not only around the Midwest but around the country,” Aller said.
“Secondly, let’s assume
they are extended and not curtailed then continued development of a robust system will be important to deliver that wind to parts of our country that really need it.”
Without tax incentives from the government, wind energy development likely won’t stop, but it will lose momentum, Aller said.
“There are still states — Iowa’s an example — already
above the Midwest require-ment for renewable energy,” he said. “There are states with higher renewable ener-gy standards utilities around the country are required to meet. It will make the costs more expensive because they want the tax cred-its or grants, which is the other option. It will make the eventual cost to the cus-tomer more expensive.”
MidAmerican Energy projects that 26 percent of its power capacity will be wind-generated by the end of this year. Coal will make up 48 percent; natural gas, 19; and nuclear, wood and biomass, 7.
“This year, we’re taking on our largest wind-expan-sion project,” said Tina Potthoff, MidAmerican spokeswoman.
The compan will install 258 turbines by the end of year, adding 593.4 megawatts to its portfolio. That will power about 190,000 homes.
The company says it will have 833 wind turbines in operation and 1,284 mega-watts of owned wind-power generation at the end of 2011. The company also has 109 megawatts of wind power generation that are available through power purchase agreements. “We don’t necessarily own the turbines but can tap into it, and it’s all based in Iowa,” Potthoff said.
MidAmerican has wind farms in 15 Iowa counties.
Smaller utilities have tapped into wind as well. In Waverly, two turbines will produce about 4 mil-lion kilowatts — about 2.6 percent — of Waverly Light & Power’s energy, accord-ing company projections, said Diane Johnson, general manager.
A third is being rebuilt. “We’ve always been very
pleased with the wind tur-bine called Skeets. It’s been very problem-free and has been a good investment,” Johnson said.
“There are two new tur-bines, one of which is up and has a diff erent design than the older turbine. We’ve also found once we’re through the initial struggles, the pro-duction is absolutely what we expected.”
Advancements in turbine technology have improved the effi ciency of the units, Johnson said.
“We produce more off this new turbine than we do from Skeets, which is one of our older turbines,” she said. “It has variable pitch blades, meaning it can automati-cally turn its blades to pick up the direction of the wind. In turn, it has been more productive than Skeets. It doesn’t always run as often; sometimes, it’s a little more touchy because of the tech-nology that’s part of it, but in total production, it does more. As turbines continue to evolve, our experience has been positive and it contin-ues to be successful for our customers.”
Wind power does bring a cost premium, Johnson said.
“They’re not as inexpen-sive as coal-fi red power would be, but for every-body who’s put turbines up, the thought process is there will be a time when costs begin to balance, when regulations prevail and coal plants have to put in emis-sions technology or, for that matter, be mothballed,” she said. “Then, costs for coal power will go up. Most of us who support a varied mix of power believe that will be a good long-term decision.”
More utilities turning to turbines
MATTHEW PUTNEY / Courier Photo Editor
Shermco Industry workers begins fi xing a damaged wind turbine for Waverly Light & Power this month near Waverly.
HAMPTON — Fifty truck-loads of concrete, 120 8-foot-long bolts, thousands of pounds worth of parts and 35 tons of reinforced steel — all needed to build one of the more than 1,100 wind turbines in Iowa.
“It takes five to six months,” said Steve Gilbert, senior manager of Renew-ables Operations and Main-tenance for Alliant Energy. Interstate Power and Light, a subsidiary, owns the Whis-pering Willows Wind Farm-East in Franklin County.
Each wind turbine is built in stages with specialized crews moving on to the next wind turbine after complet-ing the stage. The fi rst phase is building roads to the site, followed by the foundation.
“It’s a combination of concrete and reinforced steel,” said Gilbert, about the foundation.
Altogether the foundation is 52 feet across and 7 to 8 feet deep and made up of 35 tons of reinforced steel and 450 cubic yards of concrete brought in by 50 trucks. It also includes 120 8-feet long bolts, with 60 appearing outside and 60 inside the tower once put into place.
The foundation is wide and deep to prevent the tur-bine from toppling over.
Next, the down tower assembly is built and bolted into place. It is basically a platform inside the bottom of the tower.
Using a crane to lift 450 tons, the three tower sec-tions are put into place. Each section is about 87 feet tall and weighs 60,000 to 70,000 pounds. Some tow-ers include four sections instead of three, Gilbert said.
The nacelle, which houses the generators, gear box, control system and other
essential parts, is lifted to the top of the tower next. It weighs around 104,000 pounds, Gilbert said.
Crews then assemble the hub and three blades on the ground before lifting it to the top of the tower.
The hub weighs about 42,000 pounds, while the blades are each 15,000 pounds and 131 feet long.
The entire structure is 397 feet tall with the blade straight up. The Statue of Liberty is 305 feet tall.
After the turbine is built crews move onto wiring and other things, such as a lad-der and lift, inside of it.
Many of the items, includ-ing the door, are attached to the tower via powerful magnets rather than bolted to it. Gilbert said this is to help ensure the structural integrity.
The fi nal phase of con-struction is testing and calibrating settings before it becomes operational.
The entire process takes approximately fi ve to six months, depending on the weather.
“There are days when it’s too windy to assemble or perhaps lightning,” Gilbert said.
Throughout construction, crews also utilize more land than the fi nal product due to how large the diff erent parts are. Gilbert said farmers are compensated for the land being out of production.
“We work really closely with land owners,” he said.
Once the wind farm is complete, crews continu-ally perform various main-tenance duties including checking the 120 bolts, Gil-bert said.
WINDS OF CHANGE
Erecting turbines to harvest wind a monumental, time-intense task
WATERLOO — Wind-ener-gy proponents talk about the jobs turbines will generate.
Iowa had 3,323 jobs direct-ly linked to wind power as of March 31, according to Iowa Workforce Development.
Iowa’s total workforce is around 1.5 million, accord-ing to IWD.
Wind-related employ-ment has increased 66 per-cent — from 1,937 — since 2007. Most notable are the number of workers in the turbine/turbine manufac-turing area, which increased from 388 in 2007 to 1,830 as of March. That’s a 372 per-cent jump.
By comparison, coal min-ing in Iowa accounted for 1,860 jobs in 2009 with a combined payroll of $50 million, according to the National Mining Asso-ciation. Coal provided 72.2 percent of Iowa’s electric power generation in 2009. Iowa used 23.3 million short tons of coal to generate 37.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.
Total employment in wind energy dipped from 3,107 to 2,831 between 2009 and 2010. While it jumped back up this year, it is not expect-ed to grow dramatically in the near future, accord-ing to Kerry Koonce, IWD spokeswoman.
“Projections say that growth will probably be fl at for awhile as the state is pretty saturated,” Koonce said. “This could change if other types of alternative energy outputs falter.”
IWD also notes the work-force in industrial equip-ment repair category was 3,329 at the end of March, but that includes all repairs.
Nevertheless, the potential for job growth is there, said Mark Douglas, executive director of the Iowa Utilities Association.
“They’re good jobs.”There aren’t a lot of them
now, Douglas said, but his organization is working with community colleges to add training programs for the positions that seem certain to come.
“There’s probably eight to 12 jobs at a wind farm. They’re good, clean jobs,” he said. “They take a certain set of skills sets.”
But the numbers and con-centrations of jobs won’t rival a typical manufactur-ing plant.
Jake West, wind special-ist with VanWall Energy, a Perry-based company that installs small wind turbines on hog and other farming operations, agreed.
“Small wind, so far, isn’t manufactured in Iowa. ... From our standpoint, we’re employing electricians, construction people, sub-contractors for installation, and they’re hiring workers,” he said.
Iowa currently has 80 wind installations and more than 50 manufacturers in the wind supply chain, includ-ing two large turbine assem-blers and two blade and three tower and lift manu-facturers. Service busi-nesses throughout the state have also expanded to meet the demand from the wind industry. Among the most talked-about is Acciona Windpower, which in 2007 opened a $30 million wind turbine generator assembly plant in West Branch.
Component assembly is a growing industry in Iowa as well.
TPI Composites, a sup-plier of composite wind tur-bine blades, opened a plant in Newton in November 2008 and has more than 450 employees.
Siemens Wind operates a 600,000-square-foot wind turbine blade manufactur-ing plant in Fort Madison and employs nearly 600, 65 percent of whom previ-ously worked at companies in the area that closed or downsized.
Trinity Structural Towers has 140 employees in New-ton and was opened in 2008 in a former Maytag plant. The company fabricates tubular wind towers, and through its parent and affi li-ated companies provides steel turbine components, concrete and aggregates, product transportation and specialized coatings.
Other companies have positioned themselves to meet needs in the wind-energy supply chain. Among them is Power Engineer-ing & Manufacturing in Waterloo, which designs and manufactures custom gear boxes and component parts. The company has 60 employees and is targeting the wind industry as a sector for growth.
Tina Potthoff, spokes-woman for MidAmerican Energy Co., says wind will make up 26 percent of its energy portfolio by the end of 2011. She estimated every 10 to 15 wind turbines bring one maintenance and one supervisory job.
“Those are permanent jobs,” Potthoff said. “Plus, dozens upon dozens are being employed as we con-struct facilities. We have projects under way in six counties this year. So, there’s been a lot of construction. It brings a trickle eff ect. We have trucking company being employed. We have construction jobs working on this.”
In some cases, turbines don’t create jobs, but solid-ify existing positions, said Diane Johnson, general manager of Waverly Light & Power, which has had wind turbines since 1993.
“For our community, I don’t think it added any jobs, but I’m sure in the long run, the installation and maintenance creates jobs,” she said. “For us, we have been able to maintain our turbines and continue to manage that with our (exist-ing) personnel.”
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Proponents tout wind’s job-creation potentialFILE PHOTO
A truck driver fastens down a wind turbine part as he prepares to leave the storage area at Manly Terminal LLC.
COURIER GRAPHIC / DAVID HEMENWAYSource: IWD, QCEW Program
Title 2011* 2010 2009 2008 2007
Wind Electric Power Generation 125 151 115 59 40Power/Communication Line Structure Construction 1134 913 1353 967 1359Turbine/Turbine Generator Mfg 1830 1634 1506 827 388Automatic Environmental Control Mfg 27 25 10 9 6Other Measuring and Controlling Device Mfg 107 108 123 144 144*January 1 through March 31
WATERLOO — Discussions about any drawbacks of wind energy, according to experts in the fi eld, begin and end with a simple question:
“When will the wind blow?”
The answer to that ques-tion is the foundation of the quandary surrounding wind power, the experts note.
“The main disadvantage is the fuel source — that being wind is a variable fuel source,” said Diane Johnson, general manager of Waverly Light & Power, which has two wind turbines to complement its energy portfolio. “That means the wind doesn’t blow all the time, so you can’t rely on a turbine to provide day-in-day-out power.”
Often, calm conditions occur when energy needs peak, which speaks to that drawback, Johnson said.
“Specifi cally, in our part of the world, we fi nd wind generation tends to happen at the opposite time we have our highest loads,” she said. “You get a signifi cant amount of wind in the evening, but we usually have our highest demand in late afternoon on a hot summer day. So, what that says, for most wind production facilities, is that somehow behind that you have to have a fuel source that isn’t variable that can kick in when the wind isn’t blow-ing. That’s the down side of wind.”
Small wind has proven particularly useful on farms and in small-manufacturing facilities, but the unpredict-able nature of wind is a chal-lenge, said Jake West, a wind specialist with Perry-based VanWall Implement Corp., a John Deere dealer that also
sells turbines to hog-farming operations in Iowa.
“The owner wants to help out ag producers, his custom-ers, with the wind turbines as a way to allow his custom-ers to lower his cost for elec-tricity and be an incentives,” West said.
West said low wind speeds are a problem for turbine operation, especially in cer-tain parts of Iowa.
“If you look at the Iowa Energy website, they have a wind map,” he said. “Typi-cally, in Waterloo and North-ern Iowa, the area is good for wind. North-central is another good area. South-east Iowa is sometimes not as
practical.”But even with those dis-
advantages, wind power can work, he said.
“Alliant may be charg-ing customers 12 cents per kilowatt hour for electric-ity; we’re allowing them to hedge that,” he said. “If you believe your cost of electric-ity is going up, it may be best to explore a wind turbine to hedge that rate increase for the next 20 years. There are so many factors involved.”
Dependable transmission also ranks high among wind energy’s toughest hurdles with Mark Douglas, execu-tive director, Iowa Utilities Association.
“With our wind resources, we’re one of the leaders in terms of wind generation,” he said. “We are exceeding our potential, because our potential is seventh or eighth, but we’re second (to Texas in output). But the real chal-lenge right now for further expansion of large-scale wind farms is transmission.”
That means infrastructure, he said.
“You have to have the big highways that will carry the power across the state and maybe further east,” he said. “That’s the discussion now — can Iowa be an exporter of wind to the Illinoises, Indi-anas and Ohios those places
east of us? To do that, we’re going to need to expand our transmission system. Even to grow within the state, we’re going to need inter-state transmission. There are some areas of constraint, where we’re getting to the point where we’re maxing out certain areas. That’s one of our biggest challenges, but it’s a tremendous challenge now from the regulatory standpoint.”
Much of the solution will have to come from the federal government, he said.
“You get into jurisdiction issues when you go state to state to state and try to decide who really pays for it,” he said.
“Is it Iowa that pays for trans-mission to another state? That’s all discussion at the federal, as well as regional, level. It’s going to be awhile.”
Wind also blows up against some natural obstacles, Douglas said.
“If you’re amongst trees or downtown, you’re obviously going to have some challeng-es,” he said.
Tom Wind, owner of Wind Utility Consulting in Jeff er-son, added that wind cannot have natural or man-made obstructions in order to gen-erate power.
“You’ve got to have the right circumstances,” he said. “You’ve got to be in a windy spot in the country where there’s not a lot of trees around. Across two-thirds of Iowa, the wind speeds are probably good enough out in the country on higher ground.”
There are other factors to consider, as well, Wind said.
“The price of electricity you’re paying, some utilities have higher rates or some have more favorable poli-cies,” he said. “It’s probably a combination. The federal government has incentives for wind power, so you need incentives, you need wind speed and higher-than-average rates, plus favorable policies. It takes a combina-tion of things to make it work. That’s what I do. I do feasibil-ity studies.”
There’s a noise issue, as well, especially for turbines built in populated areas, Wind said.
“They’re not real noisy, but towns may set a standard for lower noise level, so you have to fi nd a turbine that can do that,” he said. “It’s a little dif-fi cult to fi nd the right combi-nation for everything to make it work.”
Wind power has its drawbacks, experts sayWINDS OF CHANGE
JAKE RAJEWSKY / The Globe Gazette
Turbines spin Wednesday on the wind farm near Bolan.
