Kingman County Wind Energy Center in Kansas Starts Operations

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The 222-megawatt (MW) Kingman County Wind Energy Center in Kansas began producing power last month. The power windfarm was developed by NextEra Energy Incorporated (NYSE:NEE) (Juno Beach, Florida), which also owns and operates it.

The windfarm has 124 GE model wind turbines. Each turbine produces 1.79 MW. The windfarm can produce enough electricity to power 50,000 homes.

Blattner Energy Incorporated (Avon, Minnesota) had the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the $625 million project.

Westar Energy Incorporated (NYSE:WR) (Topeka, Kansas) has a long-term power purchase agreement to buy 100% of the electricity from the windfarm. Westar will provide about half of that power to its wholesale partner, Midwest Energy Incorporated (Hays, Kansas), as well as the cities of McPherson, Chanute, Iola, Fredonia and Sabetha. The rest of the power will serve Westar's retail customers.

Westar Energy is projected to have nearly 1,750 MW of renewable energy by early 2017. That is enough to provide energy to about a third of its retail customers.

NextEra Energy also recently began commercial operations of the Ninnescah Wind Energy Center in Pratt County, Kansas. The projects brought 23 permanent jobs to Pratt and Kingman counties. NextEra owns around 12,400 net megawatts of wind-harnessed renewable power. For related information, see December 29, 2016, article - NextEra's Kansas Wind Turbines Spins Power to the Grid.

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