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Rock Port Powered by Wind
Rock Port, MO is a small town of 1300 residents in Northwest Missouri. It is used to taking care of its own. Nearly 40 years ago, local residents came together to form a telephone cooperative that would enable them to become one of the first companies in the state of Missouri to offer all single line dial tone service to its customers. Since then the cooperative has met the changing needs of its customers by providing services that often their counterparts in cities are still wishing for. Five years ago, they again stepped out, capitalizing on their rural location and their fiber partnerships to form Midwest Data Center, a data security service serving customers nationwide.
Now the entire town is getting into the spirit. Rock Port is the first city in the US to be 100% powered by the wind. The city of Rock Port uses approximately 13 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year, and Rock Port Telephone and its affiliate companies are among the town’s largest electric consumers. Raymond Henagan, CEO said "We are pleased that we are now less dependent on outside energy sources, it’s a progressive step and we are proud to be part of it." The town and the company were recently featured on ABC World News. Rick Bradley, Controller was shown at the telephone company saying "with wind power, we hope to stabilize our costs, which is always good."
Named for the soil contained within the hills they are built upon, four wind turbines (Suzlon S-64’s) are located on agricultural lands within the city limits of Rock Port. Each turbine can produce 1.25 megawatts (MW) of electricity and sits atop a 250 foot steel tower. Each turbine uses three 90 foot-long blades to capture wind energy from an area that is about an acre (34,627 square feet) in size. Wind speeds of only 9 miles per hour are needed to begin power production and maximum power output is possible at 14 miles per hour.
The turbines are connected directly into the city’s high voltage line. Rock Port uses approximately 13 million kilowatt hours (KwH) each year. It is predicted that the Loess Hills Wind Farm will produce 16 million KwH each year and excess wind generated electricity, not used by local homes and businesses, move onto the transmission lines and is purchased by the Missouri Joint Municipal Utilities for use in other areas. This makes Rock Port, Missouri the first community in America capable of meeting its entire annual electricity demands from wind power!
Mr. Henagan’s philosophy of growing beyond the stockholder base and looking outside for resources might have given Eric Chamberlain, long time Rock Port resident, the encouragement he needed to approach Tom Carnahan, founder of Wind Capital Group and also David Brijy-Towery with John Deere Credit. From there, the idea began to spin as do the turbines today.
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