Published: November 21, 2008 11:15 pm         

State eyes wind energy's future

EDMOND — Times are changing and is growing the need for renewable energy to help break the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. Wind turbine blades can be seen more often these days being transported across interstate highways as demand for wind energy increases in the United States.

“There’s a lot of construction going on up north and that’s what you’ve been seeing come through Edmond on I-35,” said Drake Rice, director of member services for the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority.

State lawmakers face the challenge of diversifying the state’s energy resources to protect generations to come. Local, state and national political races simmered with talk of solving the nation’s energy needs. And Americans have a burgeoning appetite for solutions put to action.

“I think wind power is really a good idea but it will take time to develop and what will happen in the interim is one of my questions,” said Jackie Shaw, executive director of Edmond Family Counseling.

Oklahoma’s current crop of wind turbines centers in the Oklahoma Panhandle and far western Oklahoma. The major constraint for developing wind energy is the transmission capability for bringing power from the generation source to the centers of use, Rice said.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission authorized Oklahoma Gas & Electric in September to build a 115-mile transmission line from Oklahoma City to Woodward to harness the state’s wind energy. OG&E and OMPA co-own the Woodward wind energy farm.

Oklahoma ranks 10th in the nation in terms of wind power and ranks eighth in the U.S. with potential wind power, Rice said.

Tax incentives created by federal and state governments could create a power surge of wind energy development, Rice said.

Part of President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed energy plan calls for investing $150 billion in renewable energy and green infrastructure during a 10-year period to stimulate five million new jobs. This would include manufacturing wind turbines and solar energy. Obama’s energy plan also calls for wind, solar, geothermal and biomass to power 10 percent of U.S. electricity by 2012.

Shaw wonders where the money will come from to resolve energy issues. “I think it’s going to come from the private sector,” she said.

Rice agrees that wind energy has a job creation component. But he cautions that jobs produced by wind energy may not be as perennial as the wind. Serious turbine maintenance repairs occur about every 15 years, Rice said.

Easy to maintain wind turbines come in three fiberglass sections that are stacked on each other. Each has a computer inside to turn according to the wind’s direction, Rice said.

Electricity is typically generated by coal or natural gas-fired plants in contrast to wind energy being sufficient as a generator itself. But consumers need to realize that wind power is not a reliable energy source when the wind does not blow, Rice said.

“We have 51 megawatts of wind generation, but we only get 4 megawatts of capacity for it because it’s not dependable,” Rice said. “And we had to put a gas turbine at our power facility at Ponca City to back it up, because if the wind suddenly dies, you’ve got to have that power back on immediately.”

There were 1,154 Edmond Electric customers receiving wind power in September, said Charlie Burgett, Edmond Electric utility director. There are just more than 28,000 households in Edmond city limits, according to the Edmond Economic Development Authority.

The University of Central Oklahoma’s purchase of 100 percent wind power makes it Edmond Electric’s largest purchaser, he said.

“For the year 2007, the National Renewable Energy Lab Survey results showed Edmond Electric had 5.7 percent of total in wind power,” Burgett said. “And that was the top in the nation. So having one of those customers being our very largest and receiving 100 percent wind power helped make the percentage of our total usage be 5.7 (percent).”

The state Republican Caucus will develop its agenda in December.

“We won’t have a formal agenda in what we stand for even in the platform of environmental energy until Dec. 9,” said Sen. Todd Lamb, R-Edmond.

Lamb said he’d be cautious to commit to broadly supporting tax incentives for wind energy until he studies the details.

“Four years ago when I was running for office, I might have been a little quicker to pull the trigger and say, ‘I’ll support it,’” he said. “But now seeing legislation, how it’s drafted and crafted, I’d want to see the details and determine what kind of tax incentives we’re talking about.”

The most productive energy proposal recently was for a horizontal oil drilling tax credit, said Lamb, who will be Oklahoma’s first Republican majority floor leader when the legislative session begins in February. He expects the state Senate will offer legislation to develop this oil tax credit in the future.

“We’ve got a great industry here, the oil and gas industry employs a lot of moms and dads throughout our state,” he said. “A lot of young people out there are roughnecking it out there on the rigs. You look at the oil and gas industry, it does so much for our state, for the economy of our state, but also for our families.”

Renewable energy proposals are expected to be part of the Republican Caucus agenda, said Lamb, who chairs the agenda committee.

“Even though the price at the pump has dropped, nobody’s forgotten what it was like when those prices were high,” Lamb said.

“As a former Secret Service agent, this is not just an energy issue, but it’s a national security issue,” Lamb said. “We import our oil from countries that not only don’t like us, they just downright hate us because we’re Americans and we have freedom. They want to destroy us.”

Oklahoma and the nation must look for long-term solutions to rid America of its dependence on foreign oil, Lamb said. Whether wind will fuel the state’s energy boom in the future remains to be seen.

     

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