Nebraska Aims Move from 19th to 6th in Wind Power

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Nebraska’s location in the U.S. makes it one of the most promising states in terms of wind energy, only it’s been something of an underachiever till now. But the public utility Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) hopes to change that, and has made a move this week aimed at boosting the state’s wind energy production.

NPPD this week signed a contract under which Grand Forks, North Dakota-based National Wind Assessments will set up and monitor 10 60-meter-tall meteorological (met) towers to collect regional wind data and determine which are the best places in Nebraska to put up wind farms. The towers will need to be in operation for about a year before NPPD can make the best decisions about where to locate wind-power facilities.

While Nebraska has lots of wind-energy potential, it currently has installed capacity for only 73 megawatts of power generation, ranking it 19th nationwide in terms of wind power. Sixty of those megawatts come from a single NPPD farm in Ainsworth.

Pushed to the max, though, wind energy in Nebraska could make the state the sixth greatest wind-power source in the country.

National Wind Assessments will begin installing the met towers and start collecting data this month, according to National Wind.

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Energy found it would be possible to generate at least 20 percent of the nation’s energy needs from wind power by 2030. During that time, the report stated, that goal could help the country reduce electricity-related carbon dioxide emissions by one-fourth, cut natural gas consumption by 11 percent, curb electricity-related water demands by four trillion gallons, generate more than $1.5 billion in revenues for local communities and provide direct employment to more than 150,000 people.

“This level of wind power is the equivalent of taking 140 million cars off the road,” said Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

Growth in U.S. wind energy last year was second only to natural gas, and 2008 appears to be another banner year for the sector. As of the end of the first quarter of this year, the nation added another 1,400 megawatts of wind-energy capacity … enough to power 400,000 average homes.

The growth in U.S. wind power has pushed the nation into second-place globally, just behind Germany, in terms of installed wind-energy capacity. Within the U.S., Texas currently leads in wind-generated power, both in overall capacity and in new capacity added last year.

Time for Nebraska to start catching up, huh? This looks like a promising first step.