A Self-guided Tour of the Colorado Green Wind Power Project

One of the world’s largest wind power projects – right here in Prowers County!

Humans have used the power of the wind for thousands of years – wind powered boats sailed the waters and mills ground grain into flour and pumped water from the ground.  Today, here in Prowers County, wind powers the largest wind farm in Colorado. The 162 megawatt Colorado Green Wind Power Project, located 20 miles south of the Town of Lamar, was developed to help meet Colorado’s demand for renewable electricity.  Completed in late 2003, the project utilizes 108 GE 1.5 MW wind turbines, the largest assembled in America.  The project is owned by PPM Energy, Inc. and Shell WindEnergy Inc. in a 50/50 joint venture.

The Colorado Green development was born through a competitive bidding process initiated by Public Service of Colorado where it competed with others forms of electricity generation including natural gas and coal fired generation and was found to be the lowest cost alternative.

The Old and the New antique windmill restored by the Robert Emic family Photo by Barbara Preskorn

Power up with the wind!

What better place to harvest the wind than the windy prairies of southeastern Colorado.  Dotted over the years by a variety of historic water-pumping windmills used by pioneers when settling in this part of the country, today the area blends its historic past with a progressive future.  The Colorado Green Project resides on about 11,000 acres used as a working cattle ranch.  Less than 2% of the project’s land area is used by the actual footprint of the wind turbines, leaving most of the land available for other purposes, including ranching and grazing – or, as the ranchers tell the story, the spaced used by the wind turbines translates to one less cow.

In addition to the Colorado Green Project, Lamar Light & Power (LL&P) is generating power from two 1.5 MW GE wind turbines owned by ARPA and three 1.5 MW GE Wind turbines owned by LL&P. Traveling south from Lamar on Highway 287, the municipal utilities’ project can be seen on the left (east) about 15 miles outside of Lamar.  This project benefited from economies of scale and training availability from the larger nearby Colorado Green project.

Fueled by Colorado’s winds, Prowers County’s new wind project generates new income from local farmers, boosts the local tax base, attracts tourists, and uses the clean, green power of the wind to deliver electricity to Colorado consumers.

Wind Energy

Wind power is a reality today. Over the last five years wind power was the world’s fastest growing energy source, with an annual average growth rate of over 35.7%.  With continued government encouragement to accelerate its development, this increasingly competitive source of energy could provide at least six percent of the nation’s electricity by 2020 and revitalize farms and rural communities – without consuming any natural resource or emitting any pollution or greenhouse gases.  Today, Denmark and many regions of Germany and Spain meet 10 and 25 percent of their electricity needs from wind energy.  By contrast, wind power supplies only .05% of America’s current electricity needs.  America’s wind resource is vast, and could contribute toward a cleaner and more sustainable energy mix. Forecasts for wind power continue to be favorable with more than 83,000 total installed megawatts predicted worldwide by 2007.

Check on these wind farm facts!