Power in the sky
King City, MO

by Bob McEowen

Drivers approaching King City can see the towers from miles away. They stand tall against the horizon like Jack’s proverbial beanstalk. And yet, the shear immensity of the 27 wind turbines in place in Gentry County cannot fully be appreciated until you approach closely.

Simply put, they are huge! In fact, these Suzlon S88 turbines are among the largest in the world. Each with a generating capacity of 2.1 megawatts, they stand 260 feet from ground to hub. Each blade is 140 feet long.

The Bluegrass Ridge Farm is the first of three commercial wind farms expected to be completed in Missouri by the end of 2007. The King City facility should produce power later this spring.

The three projects are joint ventures between John Deere Wind Energy, the Wind Capital Group of St. Louis and Associated Electric Cooperative, which supplies wholesale power to electric co-ops in Missouri and parts of Oklahoma and Iowa. N.W. Electric Power Cooperative of Cameron is providing the transmission connection to Associated.

Associated, which has contracted to purchase all the power from the projects, was recently named 2006 Wind Cooperative of the Year by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) and the Cooperative Research Network. The award was presented at NRECA’s annual meeting in March.

The Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm is located on Highway 169 about 30 miles northeast of St. Joseph.