MEAN celebrates and evaluates one year of operation — Sept. 30, 2003

The operational information gathered from Oct. 1, 2002 to Sept. 30, 2003 was meaningful for other power suppliers in the region at that time. Richard Duxbury, NMPP Energy executive director, said, "The data we collected the past year is of tremendous value to the members of the Nebraska Power Association and others embarking on the development of additional wind projects."

Kevin Gaden, MEAN manager of electric operations, said the project produced 29,263,232 kilowatt-hours (kwh) in full-scale operation, from Oct. 1, 2002, to Sept. 30, 2003. That amount equals a 32 percent capacity factor, or 32 percent of full-load operating capability. For example, the maximum output of 10,500 kilowatts multiplied by 8,760 hours per year equals 91,980,000 potential kwh of production.

Projections showed an annual production of 32,483,402 kwh. "We missed the projection by about 10 percent, in part due to unit availability, wind output in some months and other operational challenges," Gaden said.

The project produced more than 2 percent of MEAN bulk participants' electric needs over the year.

John Krajewski, MEAN manager of planning and engineering, said, "Budgeted contract needs for MEAN's electric service contracts were more than 1 billion kwh. The more than 29 million kwh produced met 2.2 percent of those needs. That's as much energy as a small power plant that runs 24 hours a day the entire year at full capacity."

Based on industry sources, Krajewski estimated the project would offset the following environmental emissions:

• Carbon Dioxide 20,484 tons
• Sulfur Dioxide 117 tons
• Nitrous Oxide 58.5 tons

As Gaden suggested, however, operational challenges still existed, due to the newness of the project. "Predicting wind speeds hourly is difficult at best," he said. Dis-patchers must schedule exact hourly output numbers in advance, he said, and actual numbers must lie within
2 megawatts of the schedule to avoid a penalty. In addition, MEAN must submit preliminary schedules two to four days in advance in a region where temperatures and weather patterns may change 50 degrees in two to three days. Kimball's location, in proximity to the Rocky Mountains and prevailing winds, makes predictions even more difficult because of air mass changes over the mountains.

In Oct 2002, a station transformer failure caused a short plant outage and in February 2003, extreme-cold temperatures could have caused some hydraulic operational problems, despite the installation of the "Arctic package." On a more positive note, a system recloser (an electric-equipment control device) prevented a short outage in August 2003.