Colorado's Award-Winning Windpower Electric Co-ops
8-megaWatt Huerfano River Wind north of Walsenburg, CO - August 2013. Photo from energy.gov by the author for San Isabel Electric Association.
U.S. Department of Energy “Wind Cooperatives of the Year - 2014”
Award honors electric cooperatives that demonstrate outstanding leadership in advancing U.S. wind power
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) recognized two Colorado electric member-owned utilities as the 2014 WINDExchange Wind Cooperatives of the Year. The awardees were Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association (Tri-State), based at Westminster -- and San Isabel Electric Association (San Isabel) of Pueblo West.
"This award honors electric cooperatives that demonstrate outstanding leadership in advancing U.S. wind power, and together, Tri-State and San Isabel are expanding the use of low-cost wind energy, and supporting job creation and economic development within their service territories," stated DOE at energy.gov.
The dual recipients were selected by a panel of industry, government, and national laboratory judges, and were evaluated on their corporate leadership, project innovation, and benefits to customers. The presentation occurred at an NRECA conference in early 2015.
Tri-State, headquartered at Westminster, began integrating wind energy into the electricity it supplies in 1998, and serves more than 1.5 million customers across 200,000 square miles in four states.
San Isabel, at Pueblo West, is one of Tri-State’s members. The electric co-op installed it's first anemometer towers to collect windspeed and direction data and assess the wind potential in Huerfano County in 2004.
Two taller towers replaced the original a few years later. San Isabel worked with Huerfano County ranchers to obtain more test sites. Linecrews assembled, erected, and dis-assembled towers.
The original data collection system consisted of a recorder mounted on each tower. Data retrieval required a monthly trip to each tower to exchange data cartridges, and mailing to an analysis center. San Isabel replaced this technique with cellphone transmitters to deliver fresh readings daily to utility headquarters for local analysis and storage.
With more than two years of windspeed and direction logs from the best two sites tested, San Isabel was ready to attempt a windpower project.
Discussion with a project developer/owner began in late 2009. San Isabel's system engineering department proposed a location a few miles north of the anemometer towers and 1/4 mile from a modern SIEA substation. Electric power transmission lines which connect to the substation are seen in the foreground of the photo above. This site was the best available for transporting a large amount of windpower over San Isabel's transmission lines to more distant substations, and ultimately, to member-consumers.
Construction by the developer/owner commenced in early summer 2013. Tri-State installed equipment to carry windpower readings from San Isabel's substation control-house data collection and communications hub to the Tri-State system control center at Westminster. San Isabel engineers prepared fail-safe schemes in a substation circuit breaker controller, and in the data/comm hub, to automatically disconnect the wind-turbines if a future interruption ever occurred on the local or regional power transmission grids, as required by electric power industry regulations.
San Isabel energized (connected) the four 2-megaWatt turbines via buried high-voltage cable in mid'-September 2013 for testing. Commercial service commenced October 1 -- favorable wind produced full capacity output a few days later.
Western Area Power Administration described San Isabel's Huerfano River Wind as "the largest community-owned, distributed generation wind facility in the region" in its April 2015 Energy Services Bulletin.
More reading:
U.S. DOE - energy.gov - EERE Success Story
Note: the author of this report was system engineering manager at San Isabel during the period described above, and was assigned responsibility for obtaining project approval from Tri-State, and technical preparations for wind-turbines electrical "interconnection" to the substation.