The city is not getting as much wind power as it expected from the state's first wind farm, and costs are higher than anticipated.

The city thought it would receive 2 percent of its monthly energy from Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm in Gentry County in 2008, but the actual amount has been between 0.5 percent and 1.4 percent a month.

Connie Kacprowicz of Columbia Water and Light said the reason the city hasn't received as much energy as it anticipated for much of 2008 has been cracked blades on turbines at the wind farm.

"We're feeling the effects of that in not getting as much energy as we've anticipated," Kacprowicz said.

The blades, which were made by Suzlon Energy, a company based in India, started cracking last spring. Suzlon spokeswoman Michelle Montague said out of 81 total blades, 26 had to be replaced.

Montague said whenever a blade is being replaced, the farm's total capacity decreases 3.5 percent.

A study by Associated Electric Cooperative, the utility that Columbia has a purchasing agreement with to get the wind power, shows during the months of May, June, July and August, Columbia could have received twice as much or more energy if blades hadn't cracked than it did.

"It's disappointing we weren't able to get more wind into Columbia," Kacprowicz said.

The remainder of the blades at the farm are being retrofitted with stronger fiberglass blades. Montague said this process is expected to be completed by March.

As the blades are replaced, Montague said, there will be a "very small decline in production capacity, as we temporarily take each machine out of service." She said after these blades are replaced, the plant should be capable of operating at full capacity, meaning Columbia should receive the amount of energy it was expecting when it decided to purchase the renewable energy.

Just as the amount of energy that Columbia has received from Bluegrass Ridge has not met expectations, costs also have been higher than anticipated. Before it began buying wind energy, Kacprowicz said, the city thought the cost would run about $70 per megawatt hour to $75 per megawatt hour. The actual cost has ranged from $68 per megawatt hour to $105 per megawatt hour, but the costs have been higher than $75 per megawatt hour for more months than not.

Depending on where the city goes to buy energy produced from coal, the price of wind power can be higher or lower than the more widely used energy source. Kacprowicz said the price of coal energy can range from around $50 per megawatt hour to $150 per megawatt hour on the energy market.

She said the costs per megawatt hour are higher for wind when the city obtains less energy because transmission costs are fixed.

Although wind energy is a clean source of energy that doesn't emit fossil fuels such as carbon dioxide, it is only abundant in certain places where there are high wind speeds, and its output is greater during colder months when electricity usage is less.

In August 2008, when wind power accounted for the smallest percentage of the city's total power, the city paid $105 per megawatt hour for wind - more per megawatt hour than other months.

Kacprowicz said anytime the city pays more than $100 per megawatt hour for energy, it is considered expensive, but it doesn't directly affect utility customers because it is only a small percentage of the total amount of money Columbia pays for electricity. She said the biggest loss is that Columbia is receiving less energy from the renewable resource.

Under the city's renewable energy standard, passed in 2004, the city needs to secure contracts for a certain amount of Columbia's energy from renewable sources by the end of 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2022. This mandate says by 2008, 2 percent of Columbia's total energy needs to come from renewable sources; by 2012, the number is supposed to rise to 5 percent. The city has moved toward this goal by purchasing wind energy, burning wood chips at the Municipal Power Plant and participating in a landfill project in Columbia where methane is turned into energy.

In the 2008 renewable energy report, the city projected that it would reach its 2012 goal in 2008. Kacprowicz said that the city didn't reach this mark, but she said she believes it did fulfill the 2 percent mandate. She said that cracked blades at the Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm as well as delays in another a landfill gas project in Jefferson City, expected to go online in February, have caused numbers to be lower than anticipated.

The city is only buying wind power from Bluegrass Ridge, but it is looking for new renewable energy sources. It is considering producing energy from agricultural biomass products as well as buying more wind power. The Integrated Resource Plan, which looked at potential sources of energy for Columbia in the future, suggests that Columbia should get more wind energy by 2010.

With the problems at the wind farm, Kacprowicz said, the city is more cautious with new renewable energy projects.

Some residents would like the city to obtain more renewable energy faster than thes law calls. Winifred Colwill, the energy co-chair for the League of Women Voters who has studied energy options for the group's national board, saiddespite the problems Columbia has had with wind power, she thinks it's the best choice. She would like to see the city obtain wind power from other sources in the near future.

"It is the one of the best sources for renewable energy," Colwill said. "It is the least-cost source of renewable energy."

Colwill said the League of Women Voters would like to see the city find options that reduce emissions from the Municipal Power Plant. The power plant, she said, is one of the city's biggest energy issues because of its old boilers. One turbine and one boiler at the plant was installed in 1956.

"They emit more pollution and CO2 than (those) in newer plants," Colwill said.

Dick Parker, a former biology professor at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville and a member of the city's Power Supply Task Force - the group that helped to create the Integrated Resource Report, agrees with Colwill. He said global warming is an issue that needs to be addressed and that can be reduced in some ways at the local level. He said because of its age, the power plant, as well as others throughout the state, is inefficient compared to solar and wind power. He added wind power is the best way to go because it is more readily available, technologically advanced and a cleaner source than other renewable resources. He also said that even though the Bluegrass Wind Farm has been having problems with blades, power plants typically have more equipment problems than wind farms.

"We really ought to get away from coal by 2050," Parker said. "Power plants are old and therefore not as efficient as solar and wind. The wind farm has had severe problems in terms of equipment. ... It is a problem that looks like it will be solved."